Kiera quickly progressed from her first tentative steps at 11.5 months to competent, independent walking within just a few weeks. She understands much of what we say and can follow simple commands such as, "Bring mommy a book from the shelf." She still uses the word dada for most people and points and says "this" for everything else. Occasionally, we hear other words mixed in and she babbles in her own language all the time. It seems like she's on the verge of chattering in real words so we shall see. She weighed 19.5 lbs (25th percentile) at her 1 year check-up and was in the 75th percentile for height. Kiera is just as independent as her older brothers and demands to be a part of any activity (especially the messy ones like painting). She loves toys with lots of parts and her new baby doll and stroller. She also enjoys dancing to music and playing the keyboard! Outdoors, she still loves to swing, but is branching out to slides, sandboxes, and rock pits. Yesterday, she discovered how fun it is to play in a pile of leaves. O yes, and she loves to empty things: cabinets, shelves, boxes. There are times when I literally follow her around the house picking up the messes that she makes.
Gabriel amazes us each day with his growing vocabulary and academic skills. Multiple times in public, people stop to ask how old he is because of his speaking ability and vocabulary. This morning he identified almost every letter correctly and is beginning to associate the correct sounds with the letters. Building puzzles is still his favorite activity. He has an alphabet train floor puzzle that we assemble almost every day. I started some thematic activities along with some alphabet work and number work with him this week and he is loving it! He recognizes most numbers 1-10 and really wants to know more. We have a hundreds chart on our wall and he had me sit down with him this morning and point to each number while I said them. Then he wanted to do it again! He loves hearing stories and has a few memorized so he pretends to read them to be like his big brother. Gabe is just as independent as Luke and loves to be the helper. He still pushes his sister down if she interferes with his play (which happens many times a day)so we're hoping to break that habit soon. We finally helped him stop thumping against the wall/crib to go to sleep at night by taking down his entire bed. We'll put up a toddler or twin bed soon, but we're still debating when we can introduce bunk beds.
Luke continues to progress in his reading skills. This week his Star Wars phonics readers arrived and he LOVES them! Star Wars has quickly become a new interest (right up there with Transformers) so these books were just perfect for him. I love watching him sit down to read with Matt. I really think one of the reasons he picked up on reading so quickly is because his daddy takes the time to read to him or listen to him read so often! Yes, he gets the skills from school and his amazing kindergarten teacher, but the motivation definitely lies in wanting to be just like his daddy. Luke is excited to begin playing hockey and taking skating lessons in two weeks. We will definitely have to post pictures of that.
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