Finally, a new post!

So I think I'm going to take a page from my sister's blog and do a list today. I haven't updated on here in a long while so I'll just do a run through of what the kids are up to right now.

Riley:

-She has started first grade now which is a big deal for us since her kindergarten last year was only for half the day. This is our first experience with getting up first thing and getting her ready to go (she was in the afternoon kindergarten last year) and then having her gone all day long and then on top of that she's having lunch at school. She was so excited about eating in the cafeteria this year and seems to be doing fine with all of that. She loves her class and her teacher and appears to be doing well and remembering everything she learned from last year.

-Her most favorite thing to do right now is still playing with her friends. We've had some skirmishes relating to how informed she keeps me while she is out playing and how long she stays out but I think we have a system down now that she remembers and that I feel comfortable with.

-The Sunday after school started, Riley lost her second tooth, the other bottom front. Now the permanent tooth that was coming in in the space next to it is really starting to show up since the other tooth is out of the way. One of her top front teeth is pretty loose too so pretty soon she'll really be our toothless wonder. :) She looks so cute with those spaces in her mouth now. It's really going to change her look to have permanent teeth come in. She'll look so much more grown up!

-A couple of weeks before school started, I cut Riley's hair off to just below her ears. She had been saying she wanted it cut and would show me where she wanted it cut to by putting her hand on the back of her neck. I probably cut it slightly shorter than she wanted, but I do mean slightly. Of course, she didn't like it though. Her hair had been pretty long before then. So now I've told her I'm not cutting her hair off anymore. Once it's to a good length again, I'll only trim it. She's really going to have to beg for me to be willing to cut it off again. She has stopped complaining about it now but I know she'll be happy when it's longer again.

Jake:

-Jake, Jake, Jake...:) We are still having poop issues with the little stinker. And I mean stinker literally because now that we are on him a lot not to poop in his pants, he is holding it for at least a couple of days at a time which leads inevitably to smelly gas. TMI I know. He'll love reading this when he's older. :) It's my revenge for the frustration this is causing me. I've resorted to just putting him on the toilet at different times of the day and just making him sit there for awhile hoping he'll poop. I especially do this before bed time and have had success once. I really just started doing that time on a regular basis though. I hope to have him start sitting on the toilet about an hour before bedtime every night and hopefully his body will take the hint and begin to get the signal that that is poop time. At least until he starts telling me when he's feeling the urge to go. Right now he doesn't tell me when he needs to go. He just slinks off somewhere alone and poops in his pants. So anytime he leaves my sight right now when it's been more than two hours since the last time he pooped, my last comment to him as he leaves the room is “Don't poop in your pants!” I'm a great mom, I know. No “I love you sweetie!” Nope, just “Don't poop in your pants”. Nice. On the bright side, he is doing so well with the peeing part that he is wearing underwear even to bed at night. He was the one who wanted to do that and has yet to have an accident. I still offer for him to wear a pull up to bed but he always chooses underwear.

-He's just recently learned to pedal his tricycle. All summer he's been pushing it around with his feet. I was so excited when I looked out there and saw him actually pedaling. :)

-One of his favorite things to do right now is KLOVE concerts for me. KLOVE is the Christian radio station we get here that he listens to at night while he's sleeping. He has learned a bunch of contemporary Christian songs from that station and will just randomly sing them. The lyrics he gives them are so funny but he gets them pretty close, enough so that you know what song he's singing. He'll get on our love seat while I'm feeding Tyler on the couch and he'll sing and dance around and play the drums on the arm of the seat. I need to take a video of him doing it some time.

-Some of Jake's favorite questions and phrases: ~“Where we going?” (asked repeatedly even when I tell him we are going no where. Even when I have told him where we are going he'll still ask repeatedly where we are going.) ~“Mom? What you doing?” To which I now always respond, “What am I doing, Jake?” because he's always watching me do whatever it is I'm doing. ~”Why the chicken cross the road?” He doesn't say this too often at home, although one place he does say it here is on the toilet. Go figure. The place he usually says this, repeatedly without pause, is at church when we are setting things up for services. He'll get a hold of one of the microphones and just say this over and over. Sometimes he'll say it till we answer and sometimes he'll answer himself with responses like “to get groceries” or something like that.

Tyler:

-Sweet little Tyler can now roll over from his stomach to his back and I think he's close to being able to go from back to front too. He does this over and over and over, especially at night and nap times. I can't wait till he can dependably be able to go both directions because he can't seem to go back to sleep once he gets onto his back so he cries till I come and flip him back over. Or he wakes himself up too early from a nap and then won't go back to sleep.

-We went for Tyler's four month check up a couple of weeks ago and he weighed 15 lbs and 2 ozs and is 25 inches long. He seems about where Jake was at this age and is in the 50% in every measurement. He is holding his head really steady now and wants to be held sitting straight up and not laid back at all against your arm or chest. I recently brought down the jumperoo and he seems to enjoy bouncing in it. He can really get himself going too! He looks so cute in it.

-He is now grabbing for and holding toys more consistently. He improves in his ability to do it every day. He can get things to his mouth a lot better when he's laying back or in his car seat but he still likes to grab for them. He is also starting to practice putting his paci in his own mouth. If I hold it out to him with the nipple pointing up, he'll pick it up from my hand and can usually manage to get it in his own mouth. The trick is for him to get his hand to let go of the paci and leave it in there. He's getting better about that too though. It's such a relief to me because I know that within a month, two at the most, I'll be able to just put a few pacifiers in his crib and when he fusses I'll know he can get one and put it in his own mouth.

-Tyler is now eating baby cereal and I've started him on sweat peas and green beans now too. He loves the cereal, the peas and beans, not so much. Though I think he's starting to get used to them. At first he would shudder and gag a little with every bite I gave him. I don't think he swallowed more than one bites worth. Now though he swallows more readily and doesn't gag at all. There is still the occasional shudder, but who can blame him. I would shudder too if I were being fed mashed up peas. I hope he'll like sweet potatoes and squash better. We'll be starting on that soon.