Sick and Word of the Day

Nathan came into my room last night and he was tossing and turning the whole night.  I knew this wasn't a good sign and I was pretty sure he wasn't feeling well.  He didn't seem hot to me and I waited until when he woke up to take his temperature.  Sure enough he had a low-grade fever :(.  I'm guessing that he now has the flu.  He seems to be doing well, but he isn't too hungry and has taken a nap, which if you know him is not usual!  We've been alternating the Ibuprofen with the Acetaminophen and that has been keeping his fever low-grade.  We just hope that it doesn't get much worse then this!  On the plus side for Nathan is that since he is sick he gets to watch TV.  He has been non-stop with the TV, but at least it makes him just sit and relax and is something that we can bribe him with to take the medicine!  Anderson appears to have a little cold, but no fever.  I'm pretty sure that since Nathan is sick Anderson and myself will be sick soon.  At least Christopher is on the mend! 

Anderson for most of yesterday and today has been saying the word "ocho" over and over and over.  I think that Nathan was counting in Spanish and Anderson heard that word and liked it and has been repeating it ever since.  Of course, I wanted to video him saying that word and every time I got out my camera to video him he wouldn't say it.  So instead you get this picture of him with smoothie all over his face :)

The First Two Weeks

Wow, hard to believe that the first two weeks have already gone by!  Of course since one of my goals would be to be healthy for this year some of our family is sick.  Anderson has a bit of a cough and runny nose still.  Christopher went to Illinois for his Uncle's funeral and came back with the flu!  We are doing our very best to stay away from him because it's a pretty nasty one and I really don't want the boys or myself to get it.

Anderson enjoying a train ride at a birthday party at My Gym

Anderson has been talking so much more lately and it is exciting.  Last year at his two year appointment we were told that the average two year old should be putting two words together.  Anderson maybe had a vocabulary of 20 words and wasn't close to putting any words together.  We weren't too worried about it because we know that some kids are late talkers and he understands a lot, but just wasn't talking.  Then around November he started saying a lot more.  He was also repeating some words.  Now he repeats a lot of what we say.  Sometimes he will wake up in the morning and just talk and talk and talk.  He isn't saying sentences, but he is practicing some of the new words he knows.  He has been saying, "train, tracks, and bolly ball" lately.  The two words that he does put together without fail are "Nate, no!" or "No, Nate!"  He was pronouncing Nathan's name as "knee," but just this week we heard a definite "Nate."  I was changing him one day and he says, "Knock knock."  I was just thinking that he was saying a new word so I repeated it to him.  After I repeated it to him he said, "moo!"  He was telling me his first knock knock joke!  Christopher had taught the following joke to Nathan and Anderson was doing his best to tell the joke:

Knock knock

Who's there

Cow 

Cow who?

No, silly.  Cow's go moo!

So many people have told us that they think that Anderson has grown a lot and he seems like such a boy now.  I still call him my baby and I can't help it.

Anderson fell asleep this way today!

Nathan cooking Kale for breakfast (Yes, my boys LOVE Kale!)

Nathan has been going through this phase lately where he always asks what words mean.  It is fun and challenging at times.  Sometimes one of the words that he asks about is hard to explain because we know what it means, but aren't quite sure how to explain it.  If this happens we tell him that we have to look up the word.  Nathan has also been really interested in cooking.  He likes making his own breakfast and will help with his lunch if he isn't too busy playing.  Nathan got a Mega Blocks set for Christmas (the kind that are like the regular Legos) and even though it was a fire station he has been building a whole bunch of stuff and really using his imagination with it.  It is so fun to see him.  Nathan and Anderson have been playing really well together and that is nice.

Nathan building train crossing guards out of Legos

Nathan enjoying the rings at the birthday party at My Gym

We had been in talks to have our backyard done last year and the year got away from us and nothing was done.  The price quote was also really high so we decided to go ahead and not do the big building portion of it, but just the landscaping.  The company that we are going through just came over yesterday to look at the yard and hopefully they will get started on it soon!

I've also decided that this year I am going to be more productive and crafty!  My first big project (well, it isn't that big) is to remove the wallpaper in the bathrooms.  I have already started and that stuff is stuck on really well!  I'm guessing it's been there since 1975 when the house was built.  I am also going to clean our dryer, which I don't think has ever been done since I have lived here.  I have also been thrift store shopping and found some furniture pieces that I really like.  I want to wait until Friday to get them because they are 25% off.  I just have to hope they are still there!

In the next couple of weeks we have to make a big decision regarding Nathan's schooling.  We were really set on sending him to the local Waldorf school for K-12, but now that the time is here and we are looking at tuition, it doesn't seem like it is an option.  Just for Kindergarten it is 15K a year and goes up every year.  I did a rough calculation and found that it would cost us over half a million to send both boys there through 12th grade.  Anyway, we aren't too happy with the public schools in our area and any other private school that is non-religious is going to be just as much so we are really considering homeschooling!  I've been looking into it and we are planning on talking to some friends that homeschool and make our decision.  We have to "decide" by the 31st of this month because that is when the enrollment forms are due at the Waldorf school.  I personally think Nathan would be a great candidate for homeschooling, it is just trying to figure out if I would be a good teacher for it.

Have a great rest of the week!

Heather

2012

How in the world did 2012 go by so fast?  Well it did and I did very bad at keeping up in here.  My three excuses are:

1. Blogger wasn't super user friendly for the not computer savvy people like myself, which always delayed posts.  Blogger did fix this and I discovered their iPhone app, which is super easy to use and makes it so I can do blogging on the go.  Unfortunately, once I get behind I then feel a little overwhelmed and it doesn't get done.
2. We did a really bad job at keeping up our photo collection and because they were never uploaded to Picasa and I didn't know how to do that it never got done, so I didn't have any pictures to share, which is the most important part of this blog, right?  Well, good news Christopher showed me how to upload the photos and get them transferred to our online gallery so now I know how to do it.  I also spent about a lot of days uploading and organizing about 3,000 pictures!!!!  A big job that is all done!
3. I was just too busy! 

Now that the first two issues are resolved I am determined to keep up more in this blog.  I also used to journal, but once I had Anderson I quit doing that, so I have no record of our lives besides this blog and I want to be able to keep up in it so that we have something to look back on and remind us what happened in that year.  I just have to hope that excuse #3 doesn't get in the way!

Here is a short recap of 2012!

• Both boys did swim lessons and that was in this post.  Nathan continued swimming through the summer and fall.  He does really well, but he likes to swim with his head above water which makes it look like he is treading water more than swimming.  I guess this is good prep for water polo :).  
• We took a trip to Chicago and I blogged about that.
• Nathan turned 4!  And here is his yearly birthday interview starting in 2012

• In June we adopted a 5 1/2 year old sweet beagle named Gracie.  She has been such a good dog and we are so happy to have her in our family.  Her and Lucy get along great!

• In July we went to Napa to run the Napa2Sonoma 1/2 marathon.  I finished and did a PR, but really messed up my knees because the roads were slanted (there's a better word that I can't think of right now).  Christopher got a really bad cramp and dropped out around mile two.  My parents came and watched the boys and we rented a house, which was so nice!
• After Napa we went up to Nana and Papa's house to hang out for two weeks.  We had a lot of fun doing  many community activities.  Papa took Nathan fishing for the first time and this has to be one of my favorite photos.  Christopher went 4-Wheeling with his brother on the Rubicon trail with his new-used Jeep.

• During the summer the boys went bowling for the first time.  We did a lot of beach days and I hope to do that many days again or more this year since we are so close to the beach.  Nathan did lots of swimming and we got a new underwater camera, which is pretty cool.  Nathan went to summer school at his preschool.  Christopher friend Jim visited us and the last time we saw him was when Nathan was an infant.  Aunt Karen and Natalie also visited us.

• For Halloween Nathan decided that he wanted to be a shark.  I have no idea where this idea came from because we don't talk about sharks.  Since he was being a shark I decided that Anderson should be an Octopus.  I also got Gracie a shark costume.  I would have gotten one for Lucy, but they were out of her size.

• Anderson turned 2!!!  How he can be two I have no idea.  Just like 2012 flew-by, so did his two years.  We had a very low key birthday, but he enjoyed it!  He also got a major hair-cut, much shorter than I expected, but he was wriggling around too much and she kept cutting more and more off.

• For Thanksgiving we went up to Grandma Hope's house in Sacramento and Christopher's boss let us borrow his Winnebago.  The boys were so excited to stay in the "Camping Trailer."  We plan to use this to take more trips this year!

• For Christmas we went to my parent's house.  Unfortunately, my brother and his family wasn't able to make it this year.  Oh, speaking of them they had a baby girl in September so the boys have a new cousin.  Also, my great friend Crystal had a baby girl in September, so I feel like I became an Aunt two times in September!  Anyway, the trip up to my parent's was a 14 hour drive because there was snow over the Donner Pass and lots of traffic.  The boys did great.  There was a lot of snow this year...well, a lot of snow compared to the last four years we've been up there.  It was nice and relaxing.  The boys were very happy with the gifts that Santa brought them.

At the end of the year we were all sick with colds and that carried over to the New Year (the same as last year).  We also got the stomach flu a couple of times in 2012, but I am determined that 2013 will be a much better year health-wise!  Anyway, like I mentioned about I spent a LONG time putting all of our pictures on Picasa.  If you would like to see our lives in pictures please let me know and I will message you the links!

Have a Happy 2013 and I really really really hope that I can keep up in this better!

-Heather

The Red Car

This has been one of the best toys and purchases ever! It was a birthday present from Craigslist that gets used almost every day! I have a feeling that Nathan is going to be into cars when he's older!

Illinois Vacation

Wow, I'm way behind, but I am determined to catch-up in here before the year is over!  This post is all about our vacation we took back in March.  We went to Illinois for Aunt Theresa's surprise 50th birthday party.  We all had a lot of fun and the boys especially loved all of Uncle Mike's cars!  We also got to spend time with the Brooks family and all of the other cousins.

I can't believe how much bigger the boys are in just six months!  

Anderson is trying to be like the big kids.  He definitely likes to copy the older ones!

Nathan LOVED the remote control car that Uncle Mike had.  The boys also loved the HUGE yard that they got to run around in!

I also need to mention that my boys are rockstar travelers!  They did a really excellent job flying there and back.  I am very grateful for that!

-Heather

p.s. I think that I have some cute boys :)

I'm Waaaaaaay Behind! And Swimming!

I was doing so good at the beginning of the year keeping up on this blog, but then I fell behind because I'm not so good at posting videos on here (I usually have Christopher do it for me).  Then because the time lapsed this just fell to the wayside.  I hope to keep up on this more!

SWIMMING!

Anderson on his last day of class with the instructors

Nathan jumping off the diving board

We decided to try the boys out with some new swim lessons this year and we heard about the program called The Water Whisperer that we thought that we would try out.  I was originally only going to put Nathan in the classes, but I decided that we would give Anderson some lessons too.  It turns out that Anderson is the chillest baby ever when put in the water.  I think that it also helped that the water felt like a bathtub and was so relaxing!  We were doing the teacher training lessons, so all of the new swim instructors were learning how to teach this method with our kids (plus more that signed-up).  Anderson did awesome and never cried!  There were a lot of other kids that did cry.  He even fell asleep once while in the pool.  The instructors said that they wished all kids were as good as him in the pool.

Nathan was being Mr. Shy Guy, but he was still winning the instructors over.  It was a little frustrating for me because I knew that he could swim from his previous lessons, but because he was being shy he wasn't doing moves in the pool that I knew that he could.  The lessons are two weeks (M-F) for 20 minutes a day and it wasn't until the second week where he opened up and started really swimming.  By the end of the two week lessons I wasn't feeling good that he could swim by himself.  We were working on him taking breaths, but he just didn't get it.  I decided to enroll him in another set of 10 classes to further his swimming and that really helped!  By the end he was jumping off of the diving board and swimming to the side of the pool to get out.  He was diving for toys, with a little assistance from the instructors, he was swimming taking some breaths (we are still working on this at home), and he was floating on his back and doing some swimming on his back!  It was great to see this and I know that this summer is going to be a lot of fun with him in our pool (he's already doing so well with the little swimming that we've done so far).

If you would like to know prices and what my thoughts were on this program send me a message!

Here are some videos:

Nathan swimming backwards 

Nathan diving for some pool toys

Nathan swimming across the pool on his own!

That is it for this post!  I have to say that the way Blogger is set-up now is so much more user friendly then what it used to be!

-Heather

First Haircut

Anderson got his first haircut today. I'm a little sad about it because I know that once he got a haircut it was one more thing to make him look less like a baby. Anderson's hair in the front was getting too long & getting in his eyes, so I knew that he needed to get his hair cut. My intention was to get his bangs trimmed & keep the rest as is. That didn't end up happening because it looked funny, so I had her trim his whole hair :(. So long little curls and hello toddler!

Before his haircut

Giving him a lollipop made him sit still for the haircut! He loved the lollipop & hated when I took it away when he was done with the haircut!

The finished look!