The Graduate

We have an official preschool graduate in our house. Nathan graduated from Good Shepherd Preschool yesterday during a really cute ceremony at the school. The kids had a nice program singing some of their favorite songs from the school year, including "You Are My Sunshine," "Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee," "Skidamarink" and "God Bless America." At the end of the program each child was recognized individually and given their diploma.

Nathan was especially excited because not only did TJ and I attend the ceremony, but my mom and sister also attended.

The school has been a wonderful place for Nathan. He has had some amazing teachers and made great friends. It has also been a great place for him to prepare for Kindergarten. I am confident that when he heads to school in the fall he will be completely ready.

Nathan's Thoughts on Preschool: Ms. Karen and Ms. Stef were good teachers. I learned a lot. I will miss you this week. I am going to Kindergarten next fall. I liked preschool. I liked the blocks with the tractor set. I learned stuff. I learned how to write letters. It was fun. My friends were Tanner and James. My favorite letter to learn was "F" because "fish" starts with "F." My favorite part of graduation was "You Are My Sunshine."

Happy Mother's Day!

Of course this wasn't my first Mother's Day, but in many respects it felt like my very first Mother's Day. They last six month's have certainly felt like a trial by fire, so being able to celebrate Mother's Day right after the twins turned six month's old felt very appropriate.

Mother's Day weekend started with a Mother's Day Tea at Nathan's preschool. It just so sweet having him pull out my chair and serve me. He had also made flowers out of tracing of his hands, a poem with his handprints and a shadow picture of his profile. I loved being able to spend a little one-on-one time with him.

On Sunday we attended church in the morning as usual and then going to my parents house for lunch. Nathan loved the Monkey Bread we had at his Mother's Day Tea so much that he wanted to make it for dessert for our Mother's Day dinner. Nathan, Tate and I had a lot of fun rolling the pieces of dough in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar and literally throwing them into the cake pan. It's such a simple thing to make and such a big hit with kids!

Baths in the Big Tub!

The babies have officially graduated from the infant tub to the big tub! They love their bath chairs because the chairs enable them to safely splash and play. They have also discovered that bathtime is much more fun when you have someone to play with. They are just so cute! Enjoy the pictures from their first bath together.

Seven Months Old!

Lana and Jackson are seven months old now. They have gotten so big in the last couple of months. At their six month check-up they were both over 17 pounds!

They love their solid foods. I'm really astounded they have both liked everything that they've tried. For breakfast they have oatmeal mixed with a fruit, and for lunch and dinner they typically split a container of fruit and two containers of vegetables. But by far their favorite food are these little baby rice cakes made by Baby Mum Mum. They each can eat two of them at every meal! They are also learning how to hold sippy cups with handles and enjoying a small amount of fruit juice mixed with a larger amount of water.

They're also on a pretty consistent schedule. At night they will both sleep about 12 hours, going to bed around 7:30pm and waking around 7am or a little later. Lana almost always sleeps through the night, while Jackson will occasionally wake up looking for his pacifier. Once he has found it he quickly goes back to sleep. I consider myself very lucky to have two good sleepers. Nathan and Tate didn't sleep through the night consistently until after their first birthdays. Both twins are also taking consistent 2 hour naps during Tate's afternoon nap. Nathan and I LOVE the quiet time this provides.

Lana has even gotten her first two teeth! She loves to show them off! They are both very mobile. They roll everywhere they want to go. Lana is also getting up on her hands and knees and trying to crawl. I suspect it won't be long before they are both crawling, sitting up on their own and pulling themselves up to stand.

An Interview with Nathan

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?
A: A fisherman and a hunterman.
Mommy: "Those aren't jobs. What job do you want to have?"
Nathan: "I want to read meters for a job."

Q: What's your favorite thing about preschool?
A: Going outside in nice weather and playing blocks inside.

Q: What are you looking forward to most about Kindergarten?
A: Going to a school named Deer Crossing (see his original answer to the first question to understand why this is so exciting to him!)

Q: What's your favorite thing about having brothers and a sister?
A: I never had a sister before. I like to play Transformers with Tate and playing Dinosaurs with all of them.

Q: What is your least favorite thing about having siblings?
A: When they knock things over that I build.

Q: What are your favorite...
Food: Fish
TV Show: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
Movie: Wall-E
Toy: Wall-E
Drink: Chocolate Milk

Q: What other things do you like?
A: I like Spongebob. I like to play games that Tate can't play.

Q: What are you looking forward to the most this summer?
A: Warm weather outside

Q: What do you want to be doing when you're....
10 years old? A. Hockey
15 years old? A. Playing Soccer
20 years old? I don't want to go where grown-ups go to school (college) after Big Boy School (high school). I want to get a work job.

Tate Talks!

I've written before about how little Tate talks. He's still pretty far behind a typical 28 month old, but he has really started to add new words to his vocabulary. He is still only saying one word at a time, and he doesn't say his name either, but nonetheless we're excited about the progress he's making. Although we're still waiting for him to use action words and words that express his feelings, he does a good job of telling us what he needs and wants. He is still making up words, which can make it difficult to figure out what he's trying to tell us, but overall we're excited to finally see him making progress. He's been saying basic words like ball, brother, boat, hat, fire and hot for awhile now. By far his favorite word is "eat." The child eats me out of house and home! We're really hoping that he continues to make steady progress because his increased vocabulary has really cut down on the number of temper tantrums he throws and helped him to not be so moody, frustrated and whiny.

His new words are:
Pizza
Trash
Tractor
Sticker
Tigger (his favorite show right now is My Friends Tigger and Pooh)
Key
Cheese
Juice
Scissors
Eye

Some of his made-up words are:
Gig-e-ya: we still don't know what this is
Guy-ya: represents anything liquid or the color blue. For example: water, juice, milk, rain, lake, river, etc.
Ga: Pap
Bab-O: Baby or Babies (specifically the twins)
Bee-boo: Binky
Bay-boo: Bottle
Gi-Gi: Basement

Happy 5th Birthday Nathan!

I really can't believe that my little boy is five years old already. He has really fallen in love with Snoopy in the last year and wanted to have a Snoopy themed party. He had one party of our large extended family and one party for all of his little playdate friends. He loved both parties and really enjoyed all of the wonderful gifts that he got.

Here are a few pictures from both parties.

Happy Easter!

We had a blast Easter weekend doing all of our traditional Easter activities. This Easter was particularly special because it was Lana and Jackson's first. As a bonus we had gorgeous weather that weekend too!
Easter weekend for us is always filled with fun activites. One of our favorite activities is to dye easter eggs with my parents and my sister. The kids love making colorful eggs, but I think it's always Laurie and I that have the most fun. We also attend the Easter Egg Hunt at our church. The kids especially love the Magic Show performed by a christian magician (although the adults are getting a little tired of his tricks since he never seems to change his act very much from year to year. LOL!)

Easter morning at our house always starts with a hunt for easter baskets hidden by the Easter Bunny. It's getting harder and harder for the "Easter Bunny" to find creative places to hide their baskets, especially because he has to hide 4 baskets now!

Of course Easter to about more than the Easter Bunny, Easter Eggs and Easter Bunnies so we celebrate Christ and everything that he means to our lives at our morning church services.

After church we went back to Nonny and Pap's house because the Easter Bunny had hidden some eggs there and the kids had Easter Baskets from my parents and from my sister. Then we headed over to Nan's house for dinner with the Higgins family. Nathan and Tate especially loved being able to play with Fred, Wyatt and Patrick all afternoon. Lana and Jackson loved all of the attention that they got.

TJ missed most of the day because his mom was sick, but the kids and I reallyenjoyed every minute of the day.

Time Flies!

A friend of mine asked me at the end of April when I had made my last blog post. I replied "at the beginning of the month." But I quickly realized that my last blog post was at the beginning of MARCH, not April. It was rather shocking to me that it had been almost two months since my last post. It certainly didn't feel like that much time had gone by.

We've been quite the busy bees. I'll try to catch up in the next couple of weeks.