The Band-Aid Incident

While we were at the mountain during our Knoxville trip, Nathan fell and scraped up his knee. As expected, did NOT want a band-aid for the wound. (Whenever he gets injured, he'll tell me that he's hurt, immediately followed by "I no need band-aid. It might heal.") After we got back home from the mountains, Nana and Daddy spent quite a while trying to convince Nathan to change his mind and accept a band-aid for his bloodied knee. They tried sweet talking, politely requesting and yes, even bribing! There was no changing the mind of our sweet but stubborn little boy. And even though for the next few days he would remind me that Nana promised him fruit snacks (!) if he put on a band-aid, his mind still would not be swayed.

Unfortunately he fell two more times during the next few days, scraping the knee again both times. After that third fall, Brian and I both decided that we would get a band-aid on that knee even if we had to hold him down to do it. Which we did. But, true to form, as soon as it was on he did not want to part with it. Well, at least after he limped around to gain sympathy since his parents were torturing him with the band-aid punishment. But don't just take my word for it...

Fun with Nana and Granddad in Knoxville

Nana and Granddad came with us on our trip to the mountains while we were in Knoxville, I just forgot to get their pictures uploaded and into the previous post!

Sorry about the lens flare in your face, Granddad!  Unfortunately, all in the series was like this...

Our week in Knoxville happened to coincide with Brian's birthday.  Nana made him a strawberry cake to celebrate his 29th birthday, but since his birthday was towards the end of our visit, we started enjoying it earlier in the week.

But we still put candles on a piece, sang "Happy Birthday", and (with some help) Daddy blew out all the candles.

Some other memories from the visit:

Nathan "helped" Nana pick blueberries a few times during the week.  He would tell her "Nana, watch me put it in my bucket!" and then when she turned to look, he would pop it into his mouth.

We tried to go to a splash park two days in a row, but Nathan was NOT interested in getting wet.  There were quite a few blood-curdling screams protesting our attempts to get him in the water.  Both visits lasted less then 10 minutes a piece.

Granddad and Nana had hung a swing on the back yard swingset, low enough for Nathan to get on by himself.  Nana showed him how he could lean his head back and look at the sky while swinging.

Nathan, Daddy, Granddad and sometime Uncle David spent lots of the week puttering around with the new Avanti.  Sarah joined in the fun, playing in the car while the menfolk did all the work.  Then she thought she might take her brother for a spin around the block...

We also got the surprise pleasure of having dinner with Uncle Joe and Aunt Suzi one evening. I have a few pictures from that evening to share next time! Also to come, the band-aid incident!

Splashing in the Mountain Stream

Here are pictures from our Smokey Mountain stream adventure we had during our vacation in Knoxville this past week. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures with Granddaddy!

Playing with rocks in the stream

Grandmother and Sarah spending time in the shade.

What you can't tell is he's asking to "see" the pictures on my camera.  At least it resulted in a good smile!

Basically no cooperation from Nathan, plus 10-20 takes a piece, finally yielded the following family pictures.

This picture was a recreation of one we took last September in the same location.  Unfortunately Sarah was napping in the pack-n-play, so we couldn't add her in this time (she was, of course, in my belly the previous time!)

And last year...

Both boys had fun in the stream, but Nathan's favorite may have been riding on Daddy's shoulders!

Oops, I realized that I also didn't upload the ones with Nana and Granddad, but I'll post them next time!

Finding N's

Nathan has known his upper case letters for quite a while now and loves to find letters he knows in books, especially books that I'm (trying to) read. His favorites to point out are "N for me" or "M for you" or "S for Sarah" or "D for Daddy". His favorite letter to find is N and the other day he was looking on a page in my book but couldn't find one. So I decided I needed to start putting effort into teaching him his lower case letters. Fortunately one of his favorite books to read right now is Dr. Seuss' ABC books, which talk about the big and little letters. This afternoon before nap we were reading it and we practiced finding little n's on the "n" page. Then on the next page he tried to find another one and pointed to the "h". Pretty close, and also made me realize again how tricky the lower case letters can be. Then he read me "I Love You Through and Through", his FAVORITE book to read aloud to me. We got to the page "... your silly side and your mad side..." and he told me he wanted to look for n's. I said there weren't any on that page, but he looked a little more, then TURNED THE BOOK UPSIDE DOWN and pointed to the "u" that had now become an "n"!! I gave him a big ol' kiss and told him what good thinking that was!

Sitting and Eating and Crawling, Oh My! (Part 2)

Here are the two videos, as promised!

The first video was taken on June 1st, a week and a half ago on the first day Sarah started crawling.  You can also see in this video her love for playing the little piano, the irristable appeal of Nathan's blocks (she loves eating them, though Nathan and I try to prevent it) and hear some of Nathan's favorite songs!  Sarah's little tumble into the blocks at the end of the video cuts off my explanation, but what I was planning on saying was "She's really started crawling for the first time today."

This second video was taken last Friday and gives a better idea of her mobility right now... although I know every day she will continue to go even farther and even faster. For those who were wondering, we have reattached the door closer on the basement door so (please dear God) that will prevent this little one from falling down the basement stairs.

Sitting and Eating and Crawling, Oh My!

While all has been quiet on the blog front, changes have been happening by leaps and bounds.  Sarah's six month check up (almost a month ago now, yikes!) went well.  Here were her stats:
     Weight: 17lb 12oz (82%)
     Height: 26.5 inches (77%)
     Head: 17inches (71%)

Right after her six month birthday, I took Sarah into the nursery at church and one of the little girls plopped her down in a seated position and she fell right over.  The little girl apologized, she thought Sarah could sit up because her little sister (about 6 weeks older) could.  It got me thinking that I needed to have her practicing sitting up more, so that afternoon I took her outside and we got to work.  See this big smile?

Well, it was because she decided that she was going to sit up by herself after all!  Ta-da!

A few days later, Daddy was home (post-call, I think) at a good time for us to feed Sarah solid food for the first time.  We went with baby oatmeal for her first foray into real food.

As you can see, she was super cheerful about the whole thing, but had no idea what to do with the cereal.  I would say about 99% was spit right back out of her mouth.  But its all about baby steps, right?

Oatmeal does not an impressive "messy face" make.  But you gotta love these sweet smiles!

The next day we didn't have any more luck with swallowing vs. spitting out the oatmeal, but she did enjoy practicing using a spoon herself!

Since we are now experienced parents (haha! not quite), we threw caution to the wind and introduced lots of foods to our second child in rapid succession.  The baby oatmeal was followed by carrots, sweet potatoes, avocado, applesauce, pears, prunes and "Baby MumMums", all introduced within the course of about a week. I did keep a log of what she ate each day just in case she did show sensitivity to any of the foods, but thankfully she was perfectly fine.

A week or two after Sarah started solids, I sprinkled a few cheerios on her tray to keep her entertained during our meal and surprisingly she got a few in her mouth that first day. It was cute because she would work really hard to grab some in her hand, but as she brought them up to eat them, her thumb would pop into her mouth instead of shoving the Cheerios in. I guess that motion was just reflex! Over the next few days she quickly overcame that small obstacle and now she loves Cheerios and gets visibly excited when I bring out the box.

Sarah also started crawling at 6 1/2 months and is working on her speed and endurance.  I have videos that I was hoping to share tonight, but I was having trouble uploading so they're not going to make it.  Hopefully tomorrow night they'll be up as part 2 to this post!  And I plan to be back with posts much more often now that I'm done with my unplanned two week blogging vacation.