Gabriel 20 Months

Gabe is making intellectual jumps like crazy! He has learned most of his colors, can count to 5, names his shapes, recognizes a few letters, loves puzzles, and has amazing fine motor skills when it comes to building with blocks or any other small objects! He is also growing (at least a little). His teeth are finally making their appearance as well. He got the bottom two teeth around 17 months and now has 7-8 teeth. We can always tell when a new tooth is breaking through because he is insane at bedtime! We end up having to make Luke leave their room and sleep on the futon until Gabe calms down. He's not usually crying - just talking and making crazy noises! If Luke is in the room, he goes on even longer trying to get his attention. Gabe has started speaking in small sentences and even asking questions like, "Where Luke?" while shrugging his little shoulders with hands held out.

Gabe is also becoming quite an artist. He loves to get out his Thomas coloring book and color/decorate with stickers. He also loves paint, glue, and anything else he can get his hands on. Ironically, he doesn't like to get messy. As soon as something gets on his hands (even marker), he panics and starts crying for a towel.

Tuesday, he wanted to stay at school with Luke instead of coming home with me! His interest in other children and exploring the world beyond his home is definitely in full bloom. Of course, he'll still surprise us and have a hard time being left in the church nursery from time to time.

A Visit to the Dentist

Luke had his second visit to the dentist today and loved it! I never expected a child to be so excited the night before his dentist appointment, but he was. Even now he's asking when he gets to go back! I guess that means we chose a good dentist for him. It doesn't hurt that they have a treasure box :).

Kiera 4 Months

(I bet you can guess who took the picture with the sword!)

Kiera is nearly 4 months old already! I haven't really had time to sit down and record her milestones so I better get to it! Kiera reminds me a lot of Luke when he was a baby. She is a night owl and sometimes we can't get her to go to sleep until after 10, but once she's down, I don't hear much from her until 6-7 the next morning. I definitely appreciate this sleep. I have hope that once she begins solid food, she will go to bed a little earlier so that Matt and I have some time to see each other kid-free in the evenings. Overall, she's a very happy baby. She smiles at nearly anything we do - so sweet :). She also knows what she wants and will let us know (very loudly) if she isn't getting it. Kiera's been on a nursing frenzy AGAIN so we assume she's growing AGAIN. I looked back at Luke's development and he grew a ton during this time frame too. She has her next doctor's appointment in a little over a week. Our scale puts her at about 14 pounds. She never seems full during the day, but she sleeps well so I can't complain too much. We'll see if she can go ahead and start solids when we go in. Luke started at about this age, but I know nowadays they try to wait until closer to 6 months so we'll have to see.

Back to Reality

The holidays and Matt's vacation time flew by way too quickly! Christmas weekend was filled with baking and decorating cookies for Santa, watching the light show, attending Christmas Eve service, baking a cake for Jesus, and of course opening all those gifts from Santa. Gabe was in love with anything train related and darts. At one point he ran off with a package of darts and refused to open more gifts! Luke was excited about every gift he opened (even clothes)! Some of his favorites were: bow and arrow, Nerf gun, Batman costume, Batcave, and a transformer. Kiera just watched not too sure what to make of all the commotion.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Kids Say the Darndest Things

One of the kids will say/do something hilarious or memorable and I always think, I should write that down so I don't forget (and then I forget)! So I'm going to try to compile a list of interesting things our children say.

Luke (age 4) - "The bank's stealing all our money mom."
He overhead daddy talking about something that wasn't getting transferred correctly at the bank.

Luke (age 1 1/2) - Holding a towel, he says: "Dry grass." He really wanted to go outside.


Luke (age 4) - "Can I please have more (broccoli)? Thank you, thank you!"