Birthdays, Birthdays, Birthdays!

In the past 2 months we have celebrated our fair share of birthdays. A week before Christmas we celebrated Brendan's - to flatter him we'll say that he still has a few years where his age will be closer to 30 than 40 - ha!. Then a week after Christmas "Wawa" , as Tegan calls her now, turned the big O-N-E! (Don't ask me where he came up with that nickname, but it's stuck and we all use it now. The a's are pronounced the say way you pronounce the a in wall) Then, 3 weeks later we celebrated Ty's heavenly birth with a family meal out at a restaurant (it may have just been at Chili's but we were out as a family). There's another 2 years that have flown by. Finally, on Feb. 5 we celebrated T's 4th birthday, complete with a houseful of 9 boys and the most amazing Transformers cake you have ever seen.

Now to each one:

Brendan: Ok, so not really Brendan, but we did hold our annual holiday potluck party on B's birthday so I had to mention what a great time we had spending time with so many of our great friends. To those of you who didn't come, your loss ;) Seriously, though, the hardest part is getting time to chat with everyone who comes. We are truly blessed to have such a large group of friends who, although we have met them through the various avenues of our lives, seem to really get along well when they are all together. Does that make sense? It's neat to see friends that we have through one activity that meet friends that we have through another part of our life and they develop friendships beyond just seeing each other at our parties. How fun to be a part of the development of new friendships!

Casey: Now I know I already said this in a past post but seriously, where has the last year (well, almost 14 months now) gone?! My little itty bitty is no longer that at all - she's tipping the scales at over 22 pounds and is nearly 30 inches tall (if I'm remembering correctly. Don't have the stats right by me). As Brendan says, she's in the "short and fat" category (sorry C, Daddy said it, not me). Her weight is around the 75th %ile while her height is only in the 55th. Oh, and then there's her head circumference that's above the 80th %ile. I can definitely attest to the fact that there are a few shirts hanging in Casey's closet that are quite difficult to get over her head and we've virtually given up on wearing them anymore. You'd think it'd be a great excuse to go shopping but if you were to see this girl's closet you would understand when I say that's not necessary. Instead, I'm spending those dollars on pillows, paint and curtains/draperies to help updated and finish off the "simple" updates to the house that we still haven't taken care of. As far as when the painting will be getting done... that's a good question. With C being outrageously mobile and into EVERYTHING I don't anticipate getting much done when she (or Tegan for that matter) are home.

I'm sure you're wondering what that "everything" is that Casey is getting into. Well, aside from that fact that Casey's favorite place to be when upstairs is sitting in the left-hand drawer under the TV while at the same time digging through the right-hand drawer, emptying its contents onto the floor and her I'll give you a taste from just one day: eating dirt from a potted plant in the kitchen, pulling the coffee filter with used grounds out of the trash, playing in the toilet and emptying the contents of both drawers under the TV in the family room. Oh, and that was in a time period of about an hour. Yes, she's one wild woman! After saying this you probably think we just let her roam and don't stop her - let me tell you, the girl is fast! She's one that I can foresee needing one of those toddler leashes for (though I'm not sure if I can let myself do that...) We (at least I) are hoping this whole walking thing will start soon because usually those mobility transitions slow them down for a period (albeit a short period, but still).

As mentioned in my last post, C is definitely doing the "pre-walking" thing where she cruises around everywhere using everything she can get her hands on: furniture, walls, chairs, toys, laundry baskets, boxes, legs, curtains... you get the idea. It's comical to see her trying to figure out what she needs to do so that she can do the cruise instead of crawl. I can definitely see that she is excited about this skill and would much rather walk than crawl if she could, though when we walk with her (her holding onto our fingers) she will sit down almost immediately after we let go of her fingers. Only once has she continued to try to walk after we did just that.

12 Months

13 Months

Tegan: Mr. 4 year-old is, thankfully, starting to show signs of exiting the part of life that made the past 2 years VERY emotionally stressful when it comes to emotions and behavior. It's no secret that Mr. T wears his emotions on his sleeve, or should I say sleeves? Because there are a lot of emotions there! He's still extremely strong-willed and has a really difficult time when he doesn't get his way and by no means am I hinting at the fact that he's no longer throwing tantrums because that is NOT the case at all - but they are definitely fewer and farther between. Maybe it's just that we have finally found things (privileges, if you will) that we can take away that he does not want taken away and will, and does, seriously consider altering his behavior to avoid the loss. Specifically, anything he has related to Transformers. This week, B and T even built a large "fortress" or "base" or whatever you want to call it (T changes it's title each day). The thing is big - I mean several feet wide. Not massive, they used a bike box to build it, so nothing refrigerator box size or anything, but still, it's big enough to very comfortably house all 24 of his Transformers. So, as soon as T starts to show signs of misbehaving, almost as soon as we remind him that he will lose the option of playing with his Transformers and/or "base" he generally shapes up pretty quickly. It may only work for a few months or weeks, at best, but still. It definitely feels good to find something that he responds to.

I'm sure I've mentioned that Tegan was adamant that he was NOT going to "pretty school" (most of us call it preschool, just to clarify... not beauty school) and was NOT going to be 4 - he was going to be "free (3) forever!" Well, I don't know what the Devin Grandma said, but there was something that flipped a switch in his little mind and shortly before Tegan's birthday the big man decided that he was SO excited to be 4 and go to pretty school. It's amazing how much he's already changed developmentally since he turned 4. The kid is SO excited and interested in learning about letters and letter sounds as well as how things are spelled. He walks around saying words and then telling us what they begin with, though he phrases it as, for example, "Daddy. /D/, /d/, D begins with Daddy". Last weekend he started really caring about the letters following the "T" in his name. He wants to know "what's the next letter that I start with after T?" HA! It's just so darn cute to hear him.

Enough for tonight. Thanks for reading & love to all!
~j

2 Years

inhale - exhale - inhale - exhale

REALLY?!

Received an email with this title yesterday:

Your toddler at 24 months

Let's just say it made me break down into tears over my lunch break. I've called and emailed this company multiple times to take me off their email list. I've even spoken to a real person and explained why I want to be off the mailing. What do I have to do?!

4 days until his heavenly birthday... my left eye has been twitching off and on for nearly a week now - you could say I'm feeling some emotional pain and stress.......

Priorities

So being the new year it is time for me to take stock of where my priorities currently lie and how they need to be adjusted/rearranged. One priority that needs to be bumped up higher on the list is - you guessed it - this blog. 2010 was not a good year for me and keeping up with the blog. Shame on me. Not only is it not fair to everyone who reads this but more importantly it wasn't fair to my children. After having Tegan I decided to use my blog as a means to record exciting events and milestones in my children's lives instead of keeping up with baby books. I did pretty darn good for Tegan's first 3 years or so, but this past year has been not so great. So - here's to a new year and better blogging!

I left off with updates on Tegan (though that was over a month ago)... time for some Casey updates:


Miss Casey is officially 12 months old (actually, closing in on 13 months old) - yes, that is 1 year! Where did the time go? I feel like I just had her and my maternity leave should just be getting started. No, I really feel like I just had Ty. It's still so weird not being pregnant - yes, even 12 months after giving birth it's weird. I suppose it makes sense - I was pregnant with Ty for 34 weeks and nearly 37 weeks with Casey, only having 3 months "off" (approx 12 weeks) between the 2 pregnancies. That's approx. 71 weeks spent being pregnant in a 83 week period. WOW!


OK, back to "Casey Lou", as we all call her (especially Tegan). Crawling began around Thanksgiving though at that point it was really more of the "army crawl" than what most people think of as crawling. She did that consistently for several weeks (much longer than Tegan did) and then it seemed like overnight she decided it was time to do the "regular" or "normal" crawl and she's been doing that ever since - and truly, that really happened right around Christmastime.


Now we are to now. At a full 12.5 months old Casey is in full-fledged furniture cruising mode. She pulls up and cruises all along the couches, chairs, high chair, coffee table, walls... you name it, as long as it helps her stay standing she'll use it as a support to cruise (or "prewalk" if you want to call it that). She has even let go a few times, that I've observed, and stayed standing for a few seconds before getting that "OH CRAP" look on her face. You know, the look a baby gets when they realize they are standing and not holding onto anything and then lose all balance. Love that look! Let's just say that even though she's a pretty darn quick crawler, I'm enjoying this time before she's literally "up and running"!


C has also become a very, very, VERY smiley and verbal child while at the same time being one of those super quiet babies who always seems to be taking everything in with a straight face. It still amazes me how much of a unique and intriguing child C is in her very own way. Or there's this face - it was a favorite of hers to make for several weeks. Always put a smile on my face :) That's my little "gril" (Have I mentioned on here that Tegan says "gril" for "girl"? It's hilarious to hear... Oh, and that he calls "preschool" "pretty school") Poor Casey, her brother is forever going to be interrupting her even it is through me on this blog.


Talking - I was talking about Casey talking. She's got a few "words" that she says. One that's pretty consistent is "nana" or "nigh-nigh" though she uses it to mean just about anything other than may me, Brendan or Tegan so it really has no meaning - though, when I use it in the evening to tell her that it's bedtime (which is the only way I use the term, to refer to bedtime and going n'night) she does seem to truly understand what it means. The other 2 words that she does use appropriately are "dada" and "mama" although I am sometimes referred to as "dada" by her. Sure shows you who her favorite, huh? I do hear her trying to practices saying "Tngn". She somehow says it without vowels. It's sweet.


When it comes to receptive language (I think that's the proper term) Case (yes, we call her Case sometimes - it wasn't a typo) is able to physically respond to questions we pose. Specifically, we'll ask her where her baby is (she got a Bitty Baby and several accessories from the Devin Gram'ma for Christmas and/or birthday) C will go over to her baby, assuming "Baby" is in the same room, and usually give her a kiss. If we ask or suggest that she "feeds" her baby or gives Baby her "baba", C will crawl over and "feed" the baby her bottle, though not necessarily putting the bottle to the doll's mouth. She does always get the bottle to feed some part of the doll's face, though. Yesterday it was the forehead. This is an improvement, as you can see, since initially she wanted the "baba" for herself to chew on - obviously a baby who prefers the breast over the bottle for eating. Over the weekend she even began to take the baby out of her cradle post-bottle and burp her by placing the baby on her lap (face-up or face-down - doesn't seem to matter to C) and patting whatever part of the torso is facing up. Whatever the interaction is with Baby, C always gives her baby a kiss (or a few kisses) at some point before she is done playing with her. Miss C has even gotten really good at making the kiss sound and, unlike most babies, will give closed-mouth puckered-up kisses! LOVE IT!


Here's her monthly pics from 9-11 months (1 year is still in the camera - does that surprise you?!)

9 months
10 months
(I promise this wasn't her full outfit for the day.
It's what she wore under her Halloween costume)
11 months
(thought you'd enjoy the sequence and appreciate how much work these monthly shots/pics have become)

OK - How's that for a post? I don't want to overwhelm you all with too much info ;)

Hope you enjoyed the updates and pics. Take care and love to all!
~j

SICK!

All I have to say is I'm sick of being sick. I will be home, again, today sick (2nd time in 10 days with the pukes) so I'll try to blog a bit between my naps.Yay for you all, boo for me!
~j

I Should Win An Award...

for being the worst blogger ever! Sorry to my faithful readers for the horrible blogging I've been doing this year. I think I've said it before, but whenever I have time to sit and blog I just feel like sitting and doing nothing. Work is pretty stressful for me this year (teaching 2 programs is hard!), Tegan is still pretty darn naughty (independent might be a better/nicer word for it) and C is still up once a night to nurse (even 2x the past few nights - I think my milk supply is quickly diminishing). Needless to say I'm mentally and physically exhausted - despite no longer being in training for a marathon (which I now only get a good run in once a week. Dang daylight savings time and it being nearly dark by the time I get home.)

Tegan getting his turn at the firehose at the Savage Fire Dept. Open House in Oct.

OK - what to update you all on? EVERYTHING - I know! I think I'll post in small installments so check back for more throughout the weekend. :)

Sitting on the front of a fire truck - SO excited! :)

Tegan is still very much 3 (even though I've tried to teach him to say that he's 3 and a 1/2).

Lifting the heavy Fireman tool

He has decided that he wants to stop growing and getting bigger and be "free" (aka 3) forever. That's a story in itself. We were in the car on the way to or from daycare (can't remember which at this point):
Tegan - Mom, can I tell you someping?
Me - Sure, sweetie.
Tegan - I wanna stay free forever.
Me (thinking "Stay free"? How does he know about the maxipads?!) - Why is that, buddy?
Tegan - because I don't wanna go to pretty school (have I mentioned on here that he calls preschool "pretty school"?)
Me (light bulb goes on above head) - oh sweetie! Don't worry, preschool is so much fun! You'll love it! All of your friends in preschool love it and have so much fun.
Tegan - I don't like it. It isn't fun. I wanna stay free forever. It's scary!
Me - You know what? You don't need to worry about that because you won't be going to preschool for almost a year anyway. So let's just not worry about that.
Tegan - well I just don't wanna grow any more.

Ready for trick-or-treating - arrr, Matey!

Poor guy is scared, scared, scared! He brings up daily how he just doesn't want to go to pretty school and needs to be "free" forever. I try to just change the subject but that tactic is only occasionally successful. When it doesn't work I try to remind Tegan of all the fun things he wouldn't be able to do if he stopped growing and getting older - aside from the fact that we can't stop time. I don't know what brought on this fear - especially since all of his friends that are in preschool LOVE it.

At the pumpkin patch - poor T wasn't feeling well that day, though :(

OK - all for now. I'm cold and tired and want to veg out on the couch (it's going to be along week next week - conferences. Ugh!)

I'll work on getting some pictures posted soon. Love to all!
~j

Halloween 2010

I'm not even going to make excuses for my lack of blogging other than the fact that I'm behind on EVERYTHING in my life right now...

Here's a few pics of my little love-bugs from this evening. T was SO excited to go trick-or-treating and C enjoyed riding along in the wagon and being outside (despite the cold).




OH - and C turned 10 months old today... this is the most decent picture I got of her on the red chair. May have to try these again tomorrow with some help. She kept trying to crawl over the side and at one point crawled off the front. Needless to say she's rarely sitting still. :)

OK - it's late...

Love to all!!!
~j

8 Month Spread

Long overdue view of how my little girl has grown to be so big! 8 months old! Nearly 8 1/2 months, actually - where has the time gone?!


More details in the latest T and C news to come... I'll give a hint - think of an inchworm...
Take care and love to all!
~jenn

All Good Things Must Come to an End

It's official - I no longer get to spend my days with my kiddos. My 2 love bugs started daycare on Monday... last Monday actually. Even though I didn't go back to work until this past Monday (8/23) I decided to start the kiddos a week early to give C some extra adjustment time and give myself a week to get some last projects done around the house and at school.


The adjustment hasn't been too horrible on C, though she still cries daily at drop-off. The first night she was up hourly wanting to nurse - really just spend time with me, I'm sure, but it was still tiring. Tuesday night was a bit better, though she was up at 10:04 and I let her cry that one out. She had barely gone 3 hours since her last feeding so I knew she wasn't truly hungry. She gave it her all, though, and cried for nearly an hour (even with me going in 2 times to soothe her). Wednesday night was GREAT! My little girl was only up once. YAY, Casey! She even continued that trend (up once a night) until this Wednesday night when I had Open House at school and got home just in time to put her to bed (after she'd spent the evening with neighbors as B had a bike race). Needless to say I don't think I got to sleep myself until nearly 1, then T appeared sometime shortly after 2, I think, and then C was up again at 3 or 4. I don't even know. All I know is that I didn't get more than a few hours of true sleep - it did not make for a good day for me mentally yesterday. Last night she was up 3 times again but they were more spread out and I was able to get some decent sleep in. Still woke up tired but not quite as tired as yesterday...

T enjoying an ice cream cone

Here's a peek at an added reason why I think C's been extra cranky (even for us at home). Can you see them? Yes, Miss C has cut 3 teeth in the past DAY and the 4th cut a few weeks back while on vaca. OUCH!

The 3 most important people in my life.

I can't believe how big Casey is getting. Seriously - look at her! (She's gonna be so mad at me someday for posting this isn't she?! hehehe)Developmentally Casey continues to grow and mature daily. She now will roll wherever she wants to go/be. She sits alone well and will now usually use her hands and arms to correct her position if she starts to tip over. She is still VERY much a Mommy's girl - but I am fine with that as it says a lot about our relationship.

Brendan thinks this towel is awfully strange. I think it's so cute! ;)

She will let others hold her if she can't see me while it's happening otherwise there's tears and crying - and she's got quite a voice! She L-O-V-E-S to go "swimming" and wade around the pool with Brendan or myself holding her. She just loves the water and doesn't mind getting splashed in the face and, in fact, is usually causing the splashing :) Need to get some pics of this activity - her smile when swimming is priceless.

She adores Tegan! It's so sweet watching the 2 of the interact...

If Tegan could hold and carry C around he would be in heaven, though he knows she's too heavy so he doesn't try (thank GOD!).

He and Brendan are the 2 people who can really get her giggling... she smiles and gets excited with me but rarely giggles unless it's something B or T is doing.

C getting frustrated with T going nuts on her exersaucer toys - I don't blame her.

As far as Tegan goes - the everyday daycare schedule (well M-Th) has already done wonders for him. Rarely are there tears in the morning now whereas when it was just the 1 day a week (his summer schedule) it was always rough for us all as there was a tantrum every Wednesday morning. So I'm glad the tantrums are done and the smiles at drop off are back!!!
I just finished downloading the pictures off of the memory cards from both cameras covering who knows how long! (too long, that's for sure!) I'll start with the most recent and work my way back as I continue to post (no promises on how often I post, though. Sorry - this week has been crazy for me back at school.)

Doesn't C look like T here?!

A few nights ago Brendan decided it was time to take the training wheels off of T's bike. Note that I said that Brendan decided it was time, not Tegan... needless to say there were tears... so B decided to try it out. Ha!!!
I think I already mentioned a post or 2 ago that we spent a week in the WI Dells. Needless to say we all had a fabulous time! It was truly one of those vacations where the week was up and we could have easily stayed another several days and not been homesick - it was that fun! We enjoyed activities ranging from a winery tour and wine tasting (adults only) to a tour on the Original Wisconsin Ducks (former Army vehicles that are amphibious), "speed cars" (as T called them) and a mini-rollercoaster We even went to the Ringling Brothers' Circus Museum.There was lots and lots of pool time which I don't have any pictures of! (How did that happen?!) I also got most of my training runs in for the week and B got in several bike rides including one that lasted over 5 hours! Yes, we were getting pretty worried about the guys that day. OH - and at the Circus Museum they had a Thomas train table. Really?! So what did T want to play with? The Thomas trains (that were really circus train cars). Seriously, Kid. We've got a train table at home. Silliness I tell you!
As my summer vacation/break started to wind down I made it a point to make it to as many of the playdates organized by my coworkers as possible as we had missed nearly all of them due to naps, vacations, daycare and other scheduling conflicts. I think the year Tegan was born was the first year they started and there were about 5 or 6 kids in the play group at that point. Now there's at least twice that many kids, if not more, as there are now siblings and a whole new set of mommies and kiddos. I think we ended up making it to 3 playdates in 3 weeks (YAY!) and they included the MN Zoo, MN Children's Museum and well... maybe it was just 2. Ha! Anyway - fun was had by all and my only regret is not making it out to more as Tegan always really enjoyed himself - Casey, too, for that matter.

Gettin' close to bedtime but still cute as a button!

At the zoo Tegan had one goal - see the bears. Lately Tegan has been what some might call "obsessed" with bears. He always wants to know/be reminded where the bears "that eat people" live. He believes that those are the polar bears and they live at the north pole near Santa (maybe that's why Santa only ventures out once a year???). In his eyes the rest of the bears only eat berries and fish, just like the Berenstain Bears. However, he does understand that you should always leave bears alone and you never want to get between a mother bear and her cubs because she wants to keep them safe and gets very angry and mean if there are people near her babies. Interestingly, though, I found some super cute pj's that had an applique grizzly bear on them but Tegan absolutely did NOT want them because the grizzly bears are "very really mean and scare me a lot, Mommy!" --- Back to the zoo - Once Tegan saw the bears (3 that had been abandoned by their moms and then rescued in Alaska) he started to notice the other animals and exhibits. Unfortunately Casey's attention and patience for sitting in the stroller were running short so we didn't go back through and see all the animals, though we did stop at the water fountains on the way out. T loved them! We did peek at a few including the sea otters, penguins (I think) and others from the Grizzly Coast exhibit (interesting name as the bears there were Brown Bears, not Grizzlies...). I think other than the bears T's favorite was the "boiling mud". Doubt it was actually boiling at the zoo but along the Grizzly Coast it does exist. We did also visit the Farm animals but that was actually before the bears and was OK'd by T as there was a real tractor that he was able to climb up on and "drive."
The MN Children's Museum was pretty darn fun, too. Even though C had a good time and was even able to interact with a few of the activities I think this would have been more fun for T and I if we would have left C with Grandma or a 'sitter. Between nursing C and working around her naps we only were able to spend 2 hours or so there and I'm pretty sure T had the stamina to see more. Another time, right?! I was very impressed with how well Tegan played and shared with other children, even those that he'd never met before! He truly had a blast and I had one watching them both (especially T demonstrating his maturing personality).

OK - enough for now...

Love to all!
~j