Hop on Pop by Sarah K.

Nathan's been getting all the video love lately and I'm working on evening up the score. Since he's not the only one who loves to read books, here's Sarah reading one of her favorites, Hop on Pop.

And 18 months later...

One and a half years ago, out sweet Sarah was born...

And my how she's grown!

On Nathan's last day of preschool, I took advantage of our last regularly scheduled Mommy/daughter time to do an 18 month photo shoot.  About 400 pictures later, I present Sarah at 18 months.

We also made a trip to the pediatrician last Wednesday, and here are Sarah's stats.

Height = 2' 8 1/4" (60%)
Weight = 22lb 13.6oz (50%)
Head = 18.35" (60%)

Looks like Sarah's staying right on track, smack dab in the middle of the growth curves.  She's already outgrown almost all of her 18 month clothes.  Some 24month and 2T clothes fit her great, and some swallow her up!

Sarah is talking SO MUCH now, unfortunately lots of times on repeat ("Mommy, Mommy, Mommy..." or "No, no, no!").  She loves her brother and loves playing with him, until he invades her personal space a little too much.  She likes to cook in her kitchen and in the sandbox, always bringing me food or drinks to sample.  She is definitely a Mama's girl and needs to cuddle multiple times a day.  She sucks her thumb while cuddling and when she's tired, but we are trying to limit it to those times (fairly successfully).  Her black Smokey bear is her favorite stuffed animal, though she claims Nathan's bigger black stuffed bear whenever possible.  She loves throwing clothes down the laundry shoot, but we have to keep a close eye on her because she'll toss down anything within arm's reach.  She is sweet and feisty and I'm so thankful for my baby girl!

Jonah and the Big Fish

One of Nathan's favorite Bible stories is "Jonah and the Big Fish".  Last month after leaving the kids with a babysitter for our 80's Roller Skate Night, the babysitter mentioned to us that Nathan "read" the story of Jonah to her.  She said she especially loved hearing him say "Nineveh"!  We were impressed and surprised since we didn't know that he had the whole thing memorized.  So the next day we got him to "read" it to us, and then the next week Brian was able to record it.  And now I've finally got it captioned and posted to share!  I was even more impressed when I was working on the captions because he only missed two phrases from the story and messed one up (God telling the fish to go to Nineveh).

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did!

Last Day of Preschool

I'm completely baffled - how can the school year already be over?! 

Does Nathan look older since last September?  I'd say so!

Now let's compare with Sarah as well...

Of course, an even more pronounced difference in Sarah's appearance.

Nathan really had a great year of preschool, thanks to these two ladies!  I really appreciate all the time and energy and love they put into Nathan and his class.

Tomorrow is a preschool-wide picnic and that will be the real last "good-bye". I'm sure I'm sadder about this then Nathan is, and I know its because this is just the first in a long string of "good-byes" our family will be saying over the next few weeks. One thing I've learned over a lifetime of moving away -  as much as you may mentally prepare for the transition and no matter how ready you think you are before a move, its always difficult to experience the "good-byes".

Sarah's Words

Sarah is going through the vocabulary explosion that toddlers have, so this will most likely be my first and last time listing her words.  Next time I get around to it, I'll probably be reporting funny sentences she's come up with!

Before we left for Boston, here's the list that I had of her words:
date (the fruit, which she loves)
car
tent
diaper
*bubbles
*uh-oh
bee
*ba-ba / ma-ma
*duck
moo
*Daddy
*ah or eh (her "yes")

Lots of these she would only say occasionally after prompting, the starred ones were her favorites that she would spontaneously verbalize. 

In the five days we were gone to Boston, I'm not sure what Nana and Grand Dad did with her or fed to her, but WOW! Here's a (partial) list of her new words she's learned in the past week:

• key (we were getting ready to go to the park today and I was looking for my keys, and she walked in with them saying "key, key, key!")
• cat & meow
• up (She uses the word "up" for when she wants up OR down, so I'm working with her to say "down", which should be less confusing for Mommy and Daddy)
• out (sigh, flashback to Nathan in the car)
• hot (pronounced on any food item that is remotely warm, then requires multiple reassurances that the food is not hot but ok to eat)
• book
• baby
• eat (replacing her sign)
• Nana (Sarah still thinks about Nana all the time!  Now I respond multiple times a day with "Yes, we love Nana and Nana had to go bye-bye to go back to Nana's house.")
• No-no (This week started out with one "no", but now its progressed to the double.  When this girl says "no", she means "no"... well, except when she doesn't!)
• splash
• bug
• bye-bye (she may have had this one before, can't remember)
• bow (she's constantly checking for a bow in her hair, then exclaims when she does OR does not find one there!) 
• ball
• Bible
• star
• boon (balloon)

And today I could have sworn I heard her repeat "Bye-bye bug" after me as I was trying to pry her away from watching a bug at the park.  Yep, I guess that sentences blog post may be coming much faster then I realize!

Mother's Day Tea

This past Tuesday, Nathan had a Mother's Day Tea at his preschool.  When we realized that morning that I would be coming to his class that day for a party, he got SO excited!  Then when Sarah and I showed up at his classroom at 10:30, he was almost bouncing off the walls with happiness!  The first order of business was for him to paint my hand and help me make a handprint.  I let him pick the color of paint (blue) then he very carefully, but very proudly, painted my hand and then directed me on how to place it on the paper, smooshing my hand down with his to make sure we got a good print.  While this was going on, Mrs. Holly did a handprint for Sarah, who cooperated excellently!

Next was circle time, where Mrs. Holly read a cute book about an elephant calf and his mommy, but most of the kids were way too excited about their special guests to sit still and listen to the story.  Sarah was pretty funny in that she kept standing right in front of the book so she could get a good look at the pictures, of course not realizing that she was blocking everyone's view! 

The next activity was the highlight of the morning - the kids performed their special "dance" that they had been practicing for weeks.  Mrs. Holly had already told me that Nathan knew the whole dance, so I was eager to see how he would do with performing.  Though he did get a little distracted by some new friends in class (the MWF kids joined the T/Th kids for the party), you can tell he really knows what's going on!



After that there was another song, something about a hot dog, where I started recording, but then the Moms were supposed to go dance with our kids, so I shut off the camera and did that instead!

Next we went into another room for some more activities and treats.  Unfortunately this is where the event kind of devolved for our family because Nathan got sullen and didn't want to cooperate with any of the remaining activities.  Even when his favorite Mrs. Amy, the music teacher, came in to do some songs, he just didn't want to participate.  She even mentioned that Nathan's the one who always asks to do a song/rhyme called "Alligator Pie", but he didn't want to join in that day.

I think the reason that Nathan was acting out was two-fold.  One was that he likes his day to unfold like he is expecting, and I don't think he realized how different his day at preschool would be because of the party.  And the other is that I think he was still going through an adjustment period after I had been gone to Boston - he gave me lots of trouble on Monday and Tuesday morning, just testing, testing, pushing boundaries, defiance, lots of screaming and time outs - yuck!  But thankfully after nap on Tuesday his attitude was much improved and the rest of the week has been back to our normal. Anyways, not to dwell on the bad, but this definitely reminded me of this strong side of his personality that can usually be kept in check, but is definitely part of his nature.

So overall I'm going to remember best the glowing look of pride as he painted my hand and directed me in making my hand print (he came home on Thursday with a cutout of his handprint on top of mine and Sarah's pasted to the side - definitely keeping that school artwork!) and the fun dances that he was so excited about.  Thanks Nathan for a sweet Mother's Day memory!

This and That (March/April Edition)

I was adding to this post haphazardly from late March through April, but never got around to publishing.  So any of the time frames mentioned herein are actually quite a while ago!

Sarah knows how to blow her nose - like, for real!  She's been able to do it since she was about 15 months.  Nathan, on the other hand, just learned a few months ago at age 3+.  I think this says more about my laziness in teaching Nathan then his abilities, and it also shows how much Sarah likes to imitate her brother.  Unfortunately both kids have gotten lots of practice at blowing their noses in the last few weeks, so now they're both pros.  Also, Sarah knows how to cover her mouth when she coughs - again, that imitation thing is working for us!

Unfortunately with all the sickness, the whole family needed to stay home from church one Sunday morning.  Boy was Nathan mad when he found out that we were going to miss church!  He really loves Sunday school and KFC!

*  *  *

Sarah has 2 upper molars that have cut through her gums about two weeks ago, and I may have felt one of her lower ones getting close to erupting.  And I'm not sure if its related to teething or her sickness, but she has been drooling like crazy the past few days! So much so that I've pulled out some old bibs so that her shirts not soaked down to her belly button.  Thankfully she doesn't seem to mind her new "accessory"!

*  *  *

Sarah LOVES to swing, and she wants to swing anytime she sees the swing in the backyard.  Whenever we leave the house to get into the car she'll make her "swing" sign and every time we pull back into the driveway she asks again.  EVERY. TIME.

*  *  *

Nathan sings to himself all the time.  Songs from preschool, from Sunday school, library storytime and ones the family has taught him.  In fact, today he sang a song for me at lunch about his food.  Something like "Food goes in my tummy, food goes in my tummy, food goes in my tummy, and it doesn't come out ever!"

*  *  *

Nathan continues to love to read. He randomly picked out "Love You Forever" from the library (its the one that makes you cry the first 20 times you read it, which is why I've purposely never gotten it for us to read).  His preferred method of picking out books is reaching through the shelf to the books on the other side and grabbing a random book.  In every book we read he tends to pick out one or two "favorite" pages based on the illustrations.  Also, he's started asking to take books with him to bed to look at for a minute before going to sleep.

*  *  *

Aunt Karen came for a visit in March and brought lots of cool things for Nathan.  One of his extra favorites is his USA map place mat!  He loves talking about where we live, where family lives, who lives in a particular state, who lives in the ocean, etc.  Also, whenever one of the adults tries to look at the map for some reason, he gets pretty possessive.  Yesterday I tried to put his plate on the place mat, and he informed me that he didn't want me to do that because then he couldn't look at it!

*  *  *

Sarah has decided that my name is "Ba-aa".  We'll ask her, "Sarah, can you say 'Ma-Ma'?" and she'll always reply "Ba-ba!"

We Visited Boston!

Last week Brian and I took our first trip away from the kids since before Sarah was born! We went to Boston for an apartment-hunting trip and (we had hoped) a relaxing time away from the kids. We found an awesome apartment but there was certainly nothing restful about the trip! It was stressful trying to find an apartment that we were happy with, and then the will we/won't we be able to get the apartment once we finally made a decision was no fun either. Add to that the tired feet and sore legs from all the walking (we walked and took public transportation the whole trip) and that we both got sunburned on our first day... whew!

The kids, on the other hand, seemed to have an awesome time with Nana and Granddad and barely seemed to miss us. However, Sarah did learn the word "no" while we were away and she still wakes up calling for Nana, but I guess that was the price we had to pay! :)

But onto the details! Here is where Brian's going to be spending a significant portion of his life next year. #1 Children's Hospital in the nation?!  That's my Brian!

(I took way more pictures around Boston.  Which may or may not ever make it up in a separate post!)

And here's where the kids and I will be!  We are the second floor, two right hand windows (plus all the windows you can't see on the far side of the building).  Our entrance is the first arched doorway from the corner on the left side of the building. We are going to live above a store!  Weird, but makes me feel like we're really embracing big city living!

From the door into the apartment, you can see the dining area... (look how bright it is!!  I'm so happy!)

...and the kitchen.  (Brian's not mad, I just caught his thinking expression.)

As you can imagine, the kitchen was a big selling point for us (me, in particular, and Brian, because he wanted to make sure I would be happy!)  We saw some really terrible kitchens, one in particular where I could stand in the middle of the "room" and touch all appliances/cabinets/counters with my outstretched hands!  So I was really, really happy to get a great kitchen!

Here's the living room looking back towards the "front door" (not pictured, those doors are the water heater and a closet).  We will obviously have a lot less furniture so there's more room for toys and running kids.

From the kitchen, there is a long hall to the back of the building with the remaining rooms coming off the right hand side.  Here's the first "bedroom".  Its super small, but has a decent closet for more storage.  I'm thinking it will be the kid's playroom and guest room (once we whip out some air mattresses and rig up some kind of privacy curtain for the french doors). 

Here's the main bathroom which has a shower stall.

This is going to be the kid's bedroom.  Its the largest of the three rooms but unfortunately we didn't get a good look at it either time we were at the apartment because of the sleeping nursing student who lived there.  We were told it has a walk-in closet! 

And here's the master, also with a walk-in closet!  Amazing!

And finally, master bath (with the tub).

Having a THREE bedroom, TWO bath was what I dreamed of, but I didn't dare to hope that we would actually get it! Plus we are in an absolutely fantastic location, with lots of parks, playgrounds, the public library, a grocery store, lots of restaurants and a CHURCH within half a mile. AND the T stop (train/subway) is a 5 minute walk from the house and the hospital is only one stop away from us.

We definitely did have to make some compromises for the apartment:
1. Parking. We are renting one parking spot for $150 month (on top our our already outrageous rent) in an uncovered lot 0.25 miles from the house.  Grocery shopping is going to be a logistical challenge and when there's bad weather I'm not going to be driving anywhere!  But since we hope to travel around New England during Brian's time off, we don't think we could make it without any cars.
2. Rent. Housing is so, so, so expensive in Boston, and Brian and I agreed that we didn't want to live in a dump for a year. This whole experience was going to present enough challenges already, we wanted to make sure that we would have enough space and a nice home environment. So we'll just be eating beans and rice for most meals (interspersed with amazing food from an amazing variety of restaurants all around Boston).

So we are happy and excited and still nervous about the whole thing. But at least now Boston isn't just some hazy, mythical-seeming place in my mind. Its a real city with a real apartment waiting for us in July!