Seth is 4 years 1 month old!

Another late post again.  But Seth's birthday day was the day before we closed on our new home, so we were a little busy.

This month has been a little challenging for Seth, of course.  It started out fun with his birthday party.  It was a last minute little thing, but he had the boys from preschool all there as well as one friend from church.  He had fun playing with his friends, but had a few emotional breaks.  Just generally, I think he has emotionally had a tough time lately.  Anyways, they mostly played in his room, then they had pizza on a blanket on the floor and we had his Green Lantern cupcakes.  And then we opened presents and they played with the new toys.  Seth got ... gosh, do I even remember.  He got a shark pool toy and a little Disney Little Pirates (or something like that) toy to go with it.  He got ... a couple little board books with flaps, that unfortunately Logan has already ripped all off and some balls that Logan ate part of, so those got thrown away, too.  He got a kite ... we still need to fly that.  And something else I can't recall.

Anyways, other than that, the month was busy with packing and moving.  I wanted to try to see all the things in St. Louis that we love before we move, but I ended up getting sick and that didn't really happen.  We did get to the Butterfly House and also to the movies a couple times.  Seth could not sit still during the movies and was super bored after about 45 minutes.  At which point, he says about every minute "I am bored".

That is the thing with Seth - when he feels something, he whines about it compulsively.  It drives me nuts.  He will whine for something like 20 times  a minute.  And he has been so emotional about everything lately, with the move and going to Japan and everything.  He gets upset and then runs away or else gets angry/embarrassed and starts hitting me to look not so embarrassed.  And half the time, I have no idea what he was even upset about.

Seth also gets bored pretty easy.  He can get really engrossed in something, but he has a hard time sometimes coming up with things to do.  And then he whines to watch TV or play computer games.  He also has this habit of walking into the room and saying "When will we get there".  And to think that I thought that was only for long car rides.  I hear it all the time.  He has this huge amount of things he says/does seemingly on autopilot.  Very interesting.

I think Seth is mostly enjoying our new house.  The last week was confusing, what with being farmed out to people while we packed the truck, and then driving for a couple days with Grandma and Grandpa there, but in the truck, so not seeing them much.  And then Grandma and Grandpa watching him while Katsu and I closed on the house and then bought the ten million things we then needed for the house and while we were unpacking, and then saying goodbye to both the grandparents and Katsu when Katsu left to his conference.  I think it was just a bit much for Seth.  He had a hard time at Primary on Sunday and about half way through the second hour, they brought him to me (and Logan) in Nursery because he was just sobbing.  Poor kid.  He really brightened up in Nursery and was fine after that.  Hopefully, next week, one of us can stay with him for a little while and we can see how it goes.

He likes some parts of the new house.  He is doing fine in his new room.  He loves digging holes in the backyard (which I am not thrilled about) and playing with the hose (which is forbidden, but he does like every 2 minutes and then denies it ... it drives me crazy!).  He loves the pool - we went for the first time yesterday and he is super excited about it.  And he likes being a Pirate.  He told me he is going to live in North Carolina for his entire life.  I hope so.

Fun Things This Month:

• Birthday party at our house - Green Lantern!
• Dentist appt - no cavities!
• 3 Billy Goats Gruff puppet show at the library.
• 4 year old checkup - healthy but his eyes need checking.
• Butterfly house - excited to see his friend there!
• A couple days at the park with friends from church.
• 4th of July - Disney store in the morning, which the boys think is about as fun as Disneyland (go figure) and then BBQ/Boat/Beach with his best friend Miles' family for the evening.  Seth LOVED the water and wearing his lifejacket and then playing on the beach and going down the natural water slides.  He would be happy being out in the water every day.
• Daddy date for fro-yo
• Painting tiles as part of the summer reading program.  Huge meltdown that his didn't look EXACTLY like Andrew's.  I think his ended up looking better.
• 2 free movies in the theatre - liked the popcorn, not so crazy aobut eh movies.
• Juggling Jeff at the library.
• Play date at Miles house.
• Pool party - had so much fun!
• Playing with friends and at the pool while loading the moving truck.
• MOVING.
• Exploring the new house and getting as sandy as sandy can be.
• Our neighborhood pool!

Seth’s 4 year check up

I never posted Seth’s 4 year old stats.  He is 39 inches (25%) and is up 3.5 inches this year.  He is 33 lbs (25%) and is up 4 lbs from last year.  His appointment went well – he got several shots.  They said we need to get his vision checked, but that’ll have to wait till we move, I guess.

Andrew is 6 years 2 months old!

Okay, so I’m a day late AND I missed last month’s post.  We were in Japan and I was busy and also couldn’t remember everything we’d done, so I just waited until we got home and then never got to it.  Whoops.  So here is a double dose.

This has been a couple months of change for Andrew.  We visited North Carolina and picked out a house, Grandma and Grandpa came to visit, Andrew finished up kindergarten, we took a big trip to Japan, we’ve been packing up our apartment and we are getting ready to move.  What a busy time. 

Andrew originally seemed excited about the move, but now he really does not want to go.  I think it is starting to really hit Andrew that it will be an all new place and he will have to make friends.  I thought it wouldn’t be too bad since he doesn’t really seem to have a best buddy, but just friends at school that he plays with.  But I think his school class felt like a second family, so that is making it hard for him.  He is anxious about his new school and talks a lot about not wanting to wear uniforms.  He also refuses to sign up for any new activities there.  We’ll see how it goes when we leave.

Andrew has been up and down lately.  Sometimes he is great.  He made Logan a whole book with car pictures today when Logan was inconsolable.  He loves to help us pack.  But then other times … most of the time … he is a little devil.  Arg!  I know that he is getting bored and that is part of it.  We have had basically no play dates, so aside from a couple days at the park with friends, he hasn’t had any playmates since school ended, and that has been hard.  Plus, a lot of things are packed up, so we have a limited toy selection.  Plus, he is stressed about the move.  So, maybe his behavior will improve.  I was finding myself getting more and more frustrated with him, but I am trying to be a lot more patient.  Instead of punishing him, I just have him do work – either house work or school work – when he is misbehaving to give him something to do.

Andrew hasn’t been doing a ton of school work, but I have seen a huge improvement in his handwriting just from the little work he has been doing.  He is reading pretty well, too.  I think he wants to read chapter books (those are what he picked for his summer reading club selections), but he is not quite there, yet.  He can read Level 2 books pretty well now.  I am also impressed at how well he can do addition as we have been working through his summer math packet.

Andrew seemed to really enjoy Japan and had a great time.  He definitely adjusted much better than the other two boys – he is a great traveler.  He loved all of the food … although even he got sick of the rice after a little bit.  He was the only one who wanted to eat at the hotel buffet in the morning after awhile.  He would eat several rice balls there and miso soup every morning.  Andrew also enjoyed trying to learn some of the language.  The only time Andrew really lost it on the trip was on the way home.  He finally feel asleep right at the end of our trip from Tokyo to LA.  Trying to get him through passport control, customs, security and to our next gate was AWFUL – he was crying, yelling, kicking.  But other than that, he was really a great traveler.

Andrew had a fun little birthday.  Not too many of his friends could come, but I think it ended up better that way.  Matias, Brendan, Eli, and Colin were there.  The boys played all over the playground (we had it at Tilles Park), we had pizza from Dominos, and then did the pinata.  Then, the boys kicked the soccer ball around and played some more.  Andrew got some pretty fun toys – a science experiment kit (we still have one more to do – Andrew has really enjoyed it), a bug catcher (the boys loved playing with that one at the park), a rubber band board, and a Cars camping chair.  

Andrew enjoyed picking out a house with us, I think.  I still don’t know if he is sure which house we picked out, which is kind of funny, because we visited that one like 3 times.  The boys loved checking out all the rooms – especially any attic spaces or cool things like that – and the backyards especially.  But what the boys really liked was eating out with our realtor every day.  We basically ended up eating out at Chick-Fil-A a lot with the playground and the boys LOVED it.  I think they think Chick-Fil-A equals Greenville.  It was a little stressful with all the boys, but I think it was worth it to include them.

The next week Grandma and Grandpa came to visit.  I think Andrew was a little jealous, because Seth and Logan did some fun things with them while Andrew was at school and then by the weekend it was raining and we couldn’t all fit in the car, so we ended up just sticking around Clayton and then going to the ward picnic and it wasn’t as fun.  But the boys got new scooters from Grandma and Grandpa for their birthdays so that was exciting.  They always love spending time with their grandparents.

I expected Andrew to be a little more emotional about ending school, but he wasn’t really.  The last day was a half day and then we went to a little party for Mrs. Kay.  Of course, the weather was super pouring rain, so it was an interesting last day.  We had cupcakes and said good-bye to Mrs. Kay.  It was her last year of teaching, so I feel like she had spent the last month giving us little things – anything Japanese she could find, she gave to us.  So cute.  I know Andrew misses her a little and wants to talk to her.

Andrew is so funny.  He is very insistent that he wants to live with us forever.  He will work and give us all his money so we don’t have to pay so much for our house.  But this week, he was telling me that he won’t get married or have kids since he wants to live with us forever, but that Logan should get married because Katsu and I need to have grandchildren.  So funny.

Andrew’s new favorite hobby is audio CDs.  We have picked up the A to Z Mysteries from the library and he has listened to like 12 of the chapter books or something!  We checked out 7 and have about a week or so till we need to find all the library books and take them back.

Fun Things This Month:

• Andrew’s Army birthday party at Tilles Park.
• House hunting trip to North Carolina.
• Magic House with Seth’s preschool.
• Field Day at Shaw Park.  Andrew was with his family group and really seemed to enjoy it – he wished we could have come and helped but my parents were in town.
• Grandma and Grandpa in town.  Going to the park, dinner out in Clayton, ward Memorial Day picnic, etc.
• End of school Carnival.  Andrew was initially nervous about the rides and said he wouldn’t go (I was irritated because we had spent an arm and a leg on armbands for the expensive rides), but he ended up going on lots of rides, though none of the scary ones.  Andrew was especially determined to win a cake in the cake walk and did it like 20 times before he finally won.  Most of the cakes were gone by that time, but he picked out a mud cake and brought it home and boys loved it.  It was a late evening, but Andrew had a lot of fun.  At the end of the night, he did a few rides with a girl from class, Alexa, and they were holding hands.  It was so cute.
• Last day of school and party for Mrs. Kay.
• Well check with Dr.  All good and no shots!
• TRIP TO JAPAN
• Summer reading program and events
• Celia rocks, a music performance that jet-lagged Andrew slept through
• Puppet show of 3 Billy Goats Gruff
• Juggling Jeff
• Dentist appointment – no cavities and Andrew’s first adult teeth, his 6 year old molars, are coming in.  Andrew is really excited and tells everyone he meets about the teeth coming in and is always opening his mouth wide to show me their progress.
• Butterfly house and play date with Matthew.
• Park with Gages.
• 4th of July – we went to the Disney store during the day because that is what the boys really wanted to do.  Then, we had dinner at our friends’ house and then went out on their boat.  The boys weren’t really interested in going out on the boat, so they stayed and played in the water in their lifejackets, which they LOVED.  They also spent time playing in the sand and going down some mudslides.  We saw the fireworks and then went back home, sandy but happy.  It was a really fun day.
• Daddy date to Johnny Rockets and the Disney store, which the kids almost love as much as Disneyland.
• Painting tiles at a pottery store (a reward from the summer reading program) and then playing in the water at Millenium Park.
• Free movie at the theatre – Chimpanzee.  Andrew had seen it before, but didn’t remember it much.  He really enjoyed it, but the other boys only lasted about an hour, so we went to Sonic afterwards to have fun.

Logan is 20 months old!

I am out of energy to post this, but here goes …

The main thing this month, of course, was our trip to Japan which took up almost the whole month when you include adjusting to jet lag.  I don’t know how much fun Logan had – it was quite an adjustment, but there sure were parts he liked, most especially watching all the trains go by.

Logan has also been teething his canines this whole month which has also made him cranky.  He has also gotten very clingy (probably related to the trip to Japan) and wants me with him pretty much all the time.  When we go to Nursery, he holds me in a death grip, even though we stay for the whole thing every week.  I also tried to wean him cold turkey, which didn’t go so well (mostly for me physically), but we are down to one or two times a day and that is going well and is probably fine till we move.   He still asks more often, but he knows I will say no. 

Logan is just a boy now.  He doesn’t seem too much like a baby and has seemed to outgrow all his baby things.  No more sippy cups, no more baby toys, no more baby clothes (only 2T now – the 18 months show his belly).  He still has a cute baby run, but even his baby chubbiness is fading away.  He even is starting to lean more towards non board books, as long as they have his beloved trains or trucks in them.

Logan basically wants to play one, or maybe two, things all day every day.  The train set.  He is still too little to really put the pieces together, but he will bring the pieces to you one at a time and grunt and squeal until you put it exactly where he wants it.  And then, in playing, he is constantly knocking them over, so it is building up and down and up and down for hours.  It is a little tiring.  He is so excited when the boys wake up and he can run in their room and get his train.

He also likes to play cars and run them down the race track or sometimes drive them around the house.  But only after he has exhausted his train love.

Logan is talking more, but still not tons of words.  He has all our names down and cat and Joe and no and yeah and nurse and truck and car and more and all gone.  He has cute expressions where he puts out both his hands palms up to the sides to show he can’t find something or doesn’t know something. 

Logan is still a good eater and won’t sit in a high chair (well, won’t sit anywhere confined – think shopping cart – unless it’s fun), though halfway through dinner he likes to come and sit in my lap and finish eating that way.

He likes to scribble a bit and read a bit, but mostly trains.  And Seth – he has really latched onto Seth the last week or so.  And he wants to hold Seth’s hand and have Seth follow him – to play, to the bath, to eat, etc.  He wants to do everything that Seth does and it is SO cute.  He even was trying to pee standing up like the boys do – though I don’t think he gets that their peeing, but by golly, he’s going to stand in front of the potty and push his clothes around because that is what the big boys do.

Logan is starting to develop his compassion and when his brothers or parents are sad, he will go over and hug them a lot and kiss them.  It’s very sweet.

Fun Things This Month

- JAPAN – many many blog posts later, need I say more.

- Dentist appt.  No fun, but Logan sat and cried while they cleaned his teeth.  One step forward.

- Concert at library.  Logan danced away while the rest of the jet lagged family fell asleep.

- Puppet show at library.  Logan was pretty interested, but too timid to sit up front with Andrew and Seth.

- Butterfly house.  Logan loved watching the butterflies flit by, but was a little scared of them.

Seth is 4 years old!

I can’t believe he’s four already!  I hope he had a good day – it had it’s ups and downs as we are still all grumpy from jet lag and all the disruptions to our schedules for the last month … or two … or three.  We are planning a little birthday party – kind of thrown together since we’ve been out of town – on Saturday.  Still unsure of the theme, but I don’t really do themes anyways, so it’ll be a Super Friends / army / something party.  Sure …  Today, we just made a cake with the Green Lantern symbol on it.  It looked pretty crappy, but the boys liked it.  We also opened presents from us – a new Trio Joker set and some Batman books and another Superhero book.  He is hoping to get more presents from friends, but we’ll see.

I feel like I have blogged a lot about our past month, so what to add?  I think Seth liked Japan, but I can tell it is really really hard for him to travel.  He really likes to know what’s going on and to be in control of things and to have his own quiet time, pretty much none of which got respected on our trip.  A perfect example would be, before the flights, Seth would sit in his seat, look through the emergency information brochure thoroughly and then, often, go to sleep.  He has this little maturity about him sometimes.  He wanted to spend a lot of the trip either playing the arcades and buying Ultraman figures at Aeon and throwing massive fits when we were done (I think this kid has the greatest potential to get addicted to video games … although who knows if that could ever happen because Andrew always takes over what Seth is doing) and also looking through his coloring/activity and sticker books and talking about super heros.  He also really enjoyed watching Doraemon movies at the Funai’s home and watching cartoons in Japanese at home.  He really latched on to learning new Japanese words as well and is still saying “Arigato” for thank you at home sometimes.  But … oh, the meltdowns and the tears.  And now he has been waking up crying with nightmares several times a night since we got home.  Poor kid.  He is just not a traveler.

Seth is just a sweet kid.  He puts up with a lot from Andrew – Andrew is his best pal, but he also can be mean and rude and very spur of the moment.  I can also see a sweet side of Seth coming out now and then with Logan and it is fun to see them start to play together more.  Seth comes over and cuddles with me and tells me how much he loves me every morning when he wakes up.  He never wants to go on a mission or have kids because he wants to live with me forever.  It’s cute – I know that won’t last.

Seth is really starting to learn to read and it is fun to watch.  He is up to about lesson 42 in the teach your child to read in 100 lessons.  He sounds out really well, but isn’t quite at the point where he can read a word without sounding it out slowly out loud.  He loves to practice.  He is good at writing, too, but is very much a perfectionist and gets very frustrated if things aren’t just so.  He was making a beautiful card for our neighbor and then refused to give it to her because he spelled something wrong or something like that.  Poor kid.  He also has very good number sense and loves to try to do addition and talk about numbers.  Infinity is his favorite number.

Seth got new shoes while we were in Japan – blue ones – and is very attached.  He believes that he can run very fast now that he has them.  He also believes that if he eats food from a certain color he will get super powers.  For example, if he eats green food, he will be like Green Lantern, brown/yellow/red like the Flash, etc.  It actually has encouraged him to branch out a little in his eating … his favorite dinner is probably spaghetti with cheese – maybe a little sauce, and meatballs and some edamame and garlic bread (what we had for dinner, minus the meatballs).

We love Seth so much.  The last 4 years have flown by, buddy.  Here’s to many more great ones.

Fun Things This Month:

• Carnival at Andrew’s school.  Seth was a bit nervous in the beginning but after going on some rides with our friends, the Shumways’ sons, he was ready to go and loved riding everything he was tall enough for.  It was such fun to see him laughing his head of.  He tried the cake walk, but got bored a lot faster than Andrew and went and did more rides by himself.  It was a fun, exhausting evening.
• Trip to Japan – already explained in many posts.  Seth’s favorites
• New ultraman figurines
• Arcade games at Aeon
• Playing with blocks and ultraman monsters at Funais
• Watching Doraemon
• Watching Mickey Mouse clubhouse in japanese
• Watching the conveyor belt sushi and checking for the special prizes
• Train museum – though he was very sick, poor kid
• Seeing the monkeys and finding things in the book at Nikko
• Picking out candy at Kawagoe
• Toy Story ride at Disney Sea – he asked us like every 10 minutes when we could go back and do our fast pass
• Little roller coasters at Disney Sea
• New shoes
• Little birthday party at home

Last day in Japan: Disneyland

We are home in the US now … yay!  Our trip back was mostly uneventful, but very long.  We left Tokyo on Tuesday at 4 pm and arrived 9.5 hours later at 9:30 am (traveling back in time …) in LA.  Seth and Logan slept a lot of the flight (and only screamed some) and Logan even got the only extra seat in the plane.  But Andrew fell asleep like the last ten minutes, so getting him through passport control/customs/security and onto our next flight was a NIGHTMARE.  No, we can not carry 3 boys without any strollers through all of that.  Anyways, we are hope and now in jet lag Act 2.  Everyone else is napping.  I guess I should be, too.  Oh, well.

Back to Disneyland on Monday.  We thought Monday would be less crowded.  HA!  We have since looked and Katsu saw it was a Chiba prefecture holiday (the “state” that Disneyland is in), so that explains the hordes of children who we thought should have been in school.  I thought we were running quite late until I realized that the kids had changed the clock on me!  So, we made it to Disneyland before it opened again and stood in line whiel I slathered the kids in sunscreen and all the Japanese looked at me completely baffled.

The park was PACKED.  Seriously, I was grumpy and claustrophobic most of the day.  And it still doesn’t hold a candle to when we went when Andrew was a baby during the New Years holiday and rode a grand total of 2 rides.  So, we didn’t want to make the same mistake of waiting forever in line for a FastPass, so we skipped Star Tours.  Hopefully, someday Andrew will forgive us, but until then he reminds us continuously about how he didn’t get to do anything he wanted in Japan and that was the only thing he wanted to do. 

Instead, Katsu got us fast passes for the Pooh ride, since that usually has at least an hour wait and I took the kids on Dumbo.  Andrew decided he didn’t want to go and Katsu showed up before we had to get on and took him on Snow White instead (probably too scary for the little boys anyways).  The boys loved Dumbo and we took some pictures afterwards. 

Then, we did the teacups and It’s a Small World.  Actually, I could be totally getting the order confused, but we did something like that.  I enjoyed the tea cups as I was with Logan and he did almost no spinning of the tea cup.  Andrew and Seth, on the other hand, spinned Katsu dizzy dizzy dizzy.  Poor guy.  Logan LOVED It’s a small world – really the first ride he enjoyed much and the other boys really liked it, too.  Though waiting in line for 30 minutes to see it was a bit much for the boys because it was very sunny and very humid (though not too hot, actually). 

Somewhere in here we went to Adventureland and went on Pirates.  Logan got pretty scared and Andrew was obsessed with counting all the pirates, but it was nice and cool and not crowded.  By the time, we got, the line on Jungle Cruise just kept multiplying, so we decided to skip it.  We did the Swiss Family Treehouse, but then had a bathroom emergency, so we had to run there. 

Sometime, Logan fell asleep and so Katsu and the boys went through Haunted Mansion with fast passes (a very popular ride in Japan which still baffles me), while I sat with him.  Then, the boys and I went and explored some of the houses in Toon Town for a bit.  Logan woke up just then and so we all went with our fast passes to do Winnie the Pooh’s ride.  This ride is probably one of the very best in Disneyland.  The ride is beautiful – waiting in line, you walk through pages of the book and then you ride in little carts.  They don’t run on a track, and each one goes a little different – it’s very interesting.  You follow the story of Pooh, one part you can actually smell the honey.  I am really enjoying the incorporation of smell on rides, now.  Logan was a bit scared during the Heffalump dream scene, but he seemed to really enjoy this ride, too.  The boys all liked it (though I am usually in the car with Logan so I know how he likes it better).

We also did the Pinocchio ride, somewhere in here.

We went back to Adventureland and did the Tiki room.  We were hoping it would be air conditioned, but no.  And the story, which incorporated Stitch, was just kind of boring.  It was almost parade time, so we thought we could get into a restaurant without a wait – it was 3 pm after all.  No such luck, so we bought some ice cream and headed over to Tom Sawyer Island.  The kids were having fun running around and exploring, but I was getting super hot and worn out since I had been basically holding Logan 24/7 since he wanted nothing to do with Dad.  So, after a while, we took the ferry back and decided to just deal with it and wait for a restaurant.  We ate at the Crystal Palace and were much happier afterwards.

We headed over to Toon Town and the boys took turns riding the roller coaster with us (Logan was too small to go) and then we went to see a new 3D show with Mickey and music.  I actually enjoyed it a lot, but by this time we were just all getting so tired.

Finally, we watched the Electric Lights parade because Katsu said it was always his favorite part when he was a kid.  I was a little skeptical that it was going to worth staying up for, but it was really really beautiful.  I especially liked the newer floats.  My favorite was probably the Genie as he lighted up in all kinds of different colors and patterns.  Really amazing.  Then, we walked to the train station and took a city bus back to the hotel.  A very tiring day.

Pictures from Japan: Disney Sea