Seth in May 2015

Seth is almost done with kindergarten!  I think he had his final reading test today, but I haven't heard how he did.  I know his teacher has been working so hard with him and was really hoping that he would move up a level.  I have seen major improvements in his reading and fluency this year, though.  He enjoys to read, mostly to me but sometimes to himself, too.  He likes to read the easy readers that are chapter books.  His favorites right now are Mr. Putter and Tabby.  He has been doing great in math with word problems and hard carrying math problems.  He has been teaching himself multiplication and division and likes to talk about which ones he knows all the time.

Seth seems to enjoy baseball, though he was so conflicted when he had to go to baseball practice and miss Andrew's tournament games.  He would rather watch soccer than play baseball, ha ha.  He is doing well in baseball, of course, and always runs straight in the house from school and changes into his baseball uniform.  He is pretty good at catching, throwing, and running and is working on hitting the ball.

Seth has been a little emotional lately and seems to get upset easily.  He whines almost constantly and has been fighting with his brothers more often.  He also has been complaining about his legs hurting a lot at night sometimes.  Hopefully he is growing.  He brought home a sheet from school that showed that he grew 1 inch and gained 4 pounds this year (he weighs 41 pounds now).

Seth is obsessed with a new card game that Andrew got for his birthday - Sleeping queens.  He carries the cards around all the time and tries to get you to play with him.  He is doing the same thing right now.

We started back to the pool.  Seth looks like he is drowning half the time.  I really wish he would keep his head more about the water.  Katsu jumped in the pool after him on the day the pool opened because he thought he was drowning.

Fun Things This Month

• Children's day - going to the Chinese buffet with Dad
• lots of baseball games and baseball practices
• Seth missed his first baseball game after coming down with a stomach flu.  He slept almost an entire day, the poor kid.
• Andrew's birthday party - had too much fun, even though a little sick.
• getting to watch Star Wars movies 1 - 3 for Andrew's birthday
• Ridgewood book fair - Seth was super excited to pick out a book from his allowance and bought a Star Wars science experiment book.  Should be interesting.  We got to listen to Mrs. Brinson read a book.
• Pool opening - we've gone most days since.  The day it opened they had free hot dogs and snow cones, so it was pretty fun.
• Cookout for Memorial Day at the park for church.  Seth had a ton of fun and won the game where you had balloons tied to your leg and are trying to be the last one with a balloon.  Seth was good at hiding and was also incredibly fast at running away from everyone else.
• The last month of kindergarten, they have a letter of the day and do something fun.  Seth has gotten to wear a hat to school, have ice pops, bring a game, and all kinds of fun things.
• Katsu and the boys (minus Noah) went to Busch Gardens again on Memorial Day because we heard it wasn't too crowded.  It wasn't, and the boys seemed to have a lot of fun on the day down there.  They rode rides (not roller coasters because Logan didn't want to) and spent a lot of time playing at the playground.  They got to eat McDonalds' for dinner while Katsu fought off a migraine headache.  What a trip!
  
  
  
  
  

Noah is 10 months old!

Noah is 10 months old today.  He finally made it to his 9 month check up last week and is huge, as expected.  He weighed 23 lbs and 7 oz (he is 75-90 percentile) and his height and head circumference are more in the 50-75 percentile.  Otherwise, everything looked good and healthy and no shots, so it was a pretty uneventful doctor visit.

Noah is a HUGE eater, but is not very big on nursing.  He will only nurse when it is time for him to go down for night or a nap and we are in his dark room.  Otherwise, he just cries and fusses and refuses to nurse.  He will eat almost anything though and is really proficient, especially considering he has only two teeth.  He will grab a hot dog and just eat the whole thing.  He eats pretty much everything - fish, chicken, meat, crackers, pasta, cheese, almost all vegetables and fruit.  He will even get himself food.  When we are harvesting things from the garden, he will pull leaves off the plants and start eating them.  He gets excited whenever we pick strawberries because he loves strawberries.  He also really likes grapes and mangoes.

Noah has been a really crummy sleeper lately.  He still goes to sleep more or less on his own, but he seems to think it is party time at night.  I don't know if it is because he is getting teeth (he seems to be drooling a lot right now which is unusual) or just because he is more on the move, or what, but the second half of the night, it is on and off again on whether he will be asleep at all.  I hope this doesn't last very long.

Noah has finally got really proficient at his army crawl and can get around pretty well.  But he really likes standing and cruising.  He is great at going from cruising or crawling back to sitting.  If you turn around for a second, he usually has lifted himself up and is standing holding on to something.  If you hold his hands (or sometimes one hand), he will walk for you.  I think he will be walking by the time he is 1, but I guess we will see.

Noah really just likes to crawl and explore things.  Especially to find anything little small he can find and put it in his mouth.  He is starting to like cars and balls.  He will push the cars around and is even maybe trying to make car sounds.  He also likes to throw things and push buttons.

Noah can say mom and dad and maybe Andrew and bye and hi.  He will clap hands, play "So big", peek a boo, and can wave goodbye.

We took him to the pool for the first time yesterday - I was worried it would be too cold, but it wasn't too bad and he LOVED it.  He likes to sit on the steps and splash and for him to carry him around and to float on his back.  Good, since we go every day in the summer.

Andrew is 8 years old!

Andrew turned 8 years old on Sunday.  Saturday, he had a Star Wars movie watching party.  Not a lot of movie watching happened, but the boys (and one girl) seemed to have a lot of fun.  I gave Andrew free rein to invite whomever he wished - he invited all the boys in his class, the boys from church, and a few other school and neighborhood friends.  We ended up with about 12 kids there I think.  We started out in the backyard - the rain from the tropical storm thankfully let up and the ground wasn't too wet.  The boys played freeze tag till everyone mostly got there.  Then, we had stations set up - pin the light saber on the Jedi, throwing water balloons at plates to defeat the death star, limbo under the light saber, asteroid toss (throwing balls into baskets), and hitting a balloon with a light saber.  The boys especially loved water balloons.  After they got tired of playing, they went throw one more game of Star War freeze tag and we came in for cake and presents.  Besides chocolate cake, there was Jello Jigglers shaped like Star Wars and some veggie straws.  Pretty simple.  Andrew got a couple gift cards to Barnes and Noble and one to the movie theater, some cash, three different lego sets, a retractable light saber, and a ball throwing apparatus.  As he opened the presents, each of the boys got to pick a box of movie theater candy.  Then, we went upstairs and started the movie.  After most of the kids got bored, they went outside and played with light sabers and chased each other, playing football, soccer, and frisbee.  Then, we went back upstairs for some more movie and popcorn until the parents finally came and picked up their kids.  It was a big success and not too much work!  We grilled some dinner after that.  I couldn't go to school on Friday to celebrate Andrew's birthday because the younger boys were sick, but hopefully I can go this Friday.

Sunday morning, we woke up and opened presents from us and from Grandma and Grandpa.  Andrew got a whole bunch of new books by Rick Riordian from us and from his grandparents, he got 3 new games - Stratego, Ticket to ride expansion pack, and Sleeping Queens.  While we were trying to get ready for church, Andrew started to put all the stickers wrong on the Stratego pieces which caused a lot of drama, but we all finally did manage to get to church, albeit with many tears.  The boys had a lot of fun playing Stratego in the afternoon and we also had time for some more cake, looking through Andrew's photo books, calling grandma, having family home evening, and enjoying the birthday on the rainy rainy day.  I still can't believe he is 8 years old!

Andrew has been begging me to do homeschool lately.  I think he gets bored at school - it goes slow.  I also think he is lazy and thinks he could get away with doing a lot less and playing a lot more if he were at home.  Speaking of lazy, Andrew's handwriting has gotten atrocious!  Like horribly bad that I can't read it, his teacher is starting to not be able to read it, and sometimes, he can't read it.  She finally sent home some papers with things marked wrong just because she couldn't read it and comments about the general sloppiness.  Katsu and I spoke to Andrew about it and he brought home work the next day that seriously looked like it was from a book.  Like night and day.  Andrew is just so sloppy about everything because he likes to rush, but if he takes his time he can always do a very nice job.  This is true about pretty much everything.  He'll rush through math or piano and make lots of mistakes, but when he does it slow, he does well.

School has been fine.  He is sad they have no more breaks except Memorial Day and is ready for the end of the year.  They have been a unit on mealworms at school and have all had mealworms and he will come home and give us some updates on which life stage they are in.  They had the school spelling bee.  Andrew was 3rd in his class, so he got to go to the 2nd grade spelling bee.  He did pretty well - he came in 6th.  He knew right when he made a mistake (according to Katsu - I couldn't go because I was at work), but he will tell you now that he did it on purpose because he didn't want to be in the bee anymore (right, Andrew - this kid will NEVER and I mean never fess up to anything less than favorable).  But he still did a lot better than I expected as spelling is not his strongest suit - he frequently mis-spells his spelling words!

Andrew played his season of soccer.  Katsu says that he tried really hard and made a lot of improvement - I didn't go to all the games and practices this time around.  He played pretty well ... he just isn't aggressive and doesn't put his all in when it comes to running and trying to get the ball, so he isn't super competitive at this stage.  He loves talking to his teammates and wants his team to win, though.  He keeps track of the points always.  His team went to the tournament and won the first couple games.  He really wanted his team to win the whole thing, but sadly, it was not to be.  We are still undecided on doing soccer or other sports again in the future.

The ward has been completely incommunicado about either his baptism or Cub Scouts.  We have taken a few steps to planning the baptism ourselves, but Cub Scouts isn't going to happen without some of their input - Andrew is pretty particular that he doesn't want to participate, and that is fine by me.

Otherwise, Andrew is busy with his nose in a book, building and playing, running around, and causing havoc.

Fun Things

• Jump Rope for Heart (he got enough donations to get a couple ducks and a free jump rope)
• Starting soccer
• Friend's birthday party at Jump Fit.
• Ward Chili cookoff and talent show.
• Corned Beef and Cabbage for St. Patrick's Day - I also made a little treasure hunt with clues for the boys to find some candy leprachaun hats that I had made.  The boys loved it and had a lot of fun finding it hiding in Katsu's closet.
• Little Princess musical - I went with Seth and Andrew.  The boys were perplexed at the beginning by all the singing and kept asking me when it was going to be done.  The first act did start out pretty slow, but I think they enjoyed it.  They kept asking me when "half time" was - i.e., intermission.  They fell fast asleep on the drive home, all tangled on top of each other.  Pretty cute.
• Neighborhood easter egg hunt - boys rode their bikes over and grabbed tons of eggs.  A cold day, but a lot of fun.  Seth and Andrew were too cool to take a picture with the easter bunny, silly boys.
• Went to feed the homeless with Katsu.
• Katsu was out of town a couple times, so extra time with mom (and more TV time than usual).
• Watching the play of Treasure Island with Katsu.  We had tried listening to the book on tape on a trip earlier, so I think Seth sort of knew the story.  The story was pretty well done and Seth enjoyed it.
• A sort of abbreviated Easter celebration week - we talked about Palm Sunday, watched some of the church Easter videos, did a Jesus dinner on Thursday and had hot cross buns, but Katsu was out of town most of the week and then he was home for a day and then we were out of town, so it was kind of crazy.
• Easter egg hunts at school - they all came home with tons of candy and toys and eggs.  Craziness!
• SPRING BREAK!!!  On Friday morning, we drove to Williamsburg and then we went straight to Busch Gardens.  We bought season passes and were able to get free ones for Seth and Logan.  The first day, we went to the first Sesame Street place and did all the rides and ended up waiting in line for awhile.  Once, we got outside of that part of the park, we were able to see lots of other things.  There were rides for the kids everywhere and lots of fun ones.   We even got to see animals and watch a couple shows - Irish Dancing and a wild animal encounter show.  After we were all thoroughly worn out, we checked into our hotel.  We were staying in a vacation rental and had two big bedrooms and a full kitchen and a patio.  The boys LOVED it.  We went to Trader Joes and got all of our favorite foods and ate like kings over the weekend.  The second day, we had breakfast and then went to Busch Gardens again.  This time, we had a better idea where to go and we didn't wait in as many lines.  We got to ride everything and it was really fun.  The boys all had a blast.  Once we were worn out and had done everything, we went back to the resort.  The boys all went to mini golf and the pool while Noah took a nap.  They LOVED it, especially the mini golf.  Then, they came home and all slept in one of the bedrooms and got to watch Nick and all the cable shows.  They were in paradise.  And even better - on Sunday morning, they woke up and the Easter bunny had come.  They ran all over searching for eggs.  We packed up, checked out, and drove to Great Wolf Lodge and bought a wand and the boys worked together and did MagiQuest, for like 5 hours!  By then, we beat the first dragon and were SO worn out!!!  So, we drove back to NC to enjoy the rest of the spring break.
• The rest of the spring break, we just relaxed.
• One day of spring break, I took the boys to an Andean and South American music concert.  Andrew seemed to enjoy it alright, but didn't love it.
• Pirate Fest - the boys got to see a BMX show while chowing on free chips and drinks.  Seth was walking in his cleats the whole time from soccer which was a little tiring, but it's always fun to see the whole town dressed up as pirates and we even saw a live mermaid this year!  The boys played games and earned candy along the river and then we cooled off with some ice cream.  It was a lot of fun, even after two tiring soccer games!
• Camping with Dad and Andrew and Seth for a ward campout.  The boys had a blast - smores, foil dinners, playing with friends, in the water, etc.  
• Field day at school
• Children's Day - the boys went to the Chinese buffet
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Logan is 3.5

Logan is 3.5 and the biggest news is he is finally potty trained!!!  I was just completely fed up with him and diapers (a 30 minute ordeal, where he hides, you finally find him, drag him down and change him, he runs off naked, you find him again ....).  He said he wouldn't potty train till he was 12 or 20 or 50 or 70.  Depends on the day.  So, tough luck, I put him in underwear and then dragged him over to use the toilet.  The first few days were really rough - lots of dirty underwear, few successes, but he finally got the hang of it by the end of my spring break.  And now, he is doing great.  He wears a diaper at night, but otherwise, he pretty much just tells us when he needs to go and does it.  Hardly any accidents!  Yay!  He got a Jake the Never land pirates bath set as a present for potty training.  He has already thrown one of the pieces on the roof.  Too bad we don't have a ladder yet ...

Logan is in the fits age.  He needs to throw one huge screaming, on the floor, will not be consoled fit a day, at least.  Over who knows what.  He also is very loud.  Very loud.  He has one volume - loud - and often tries to do loud obnoxious things at the worst times - most usually in sacrament meeting.  He will burst into theme songs or just talk at the top of his lungs.  But he is also sweet and well-behaved some of the time.  He hates to share things, tends to take things, is too rough with Noah.  But he also plays really well by himself, loves to build things, loves to make his bed into a fort and hide under it, loves hide and seek, loves to read books, loves going to preschool and playing with friends, but also loves "home" days.  He wants nothing better than to sit in my lap and be read to, but he tends to wiggle and jump and fall all over me and I am left with bruises by the end of it.  He loves to eat, though it's starting to get less so ... but he could live on snacks and cheese.  He has a way of trying to (and often succeeding) get his way at everything, prizes and treats at every turn.

Preschool and sunbeams are going well.  He is happy to go in by himself and seems to really need that independence.  Yay!  He is starting to have friends at both.  We probably should have some play dates for him, but he mostly plays with his brothers and the neighborhood friends.

He loves to play outside.  Draw with chalk, ride his scooter, play on the neighbor's trampoline (trying to convince me that we need a trampoline).  He likes to help in the garden, climb on the climbing structure, swing.  He is trying to learn to ride a bike without training wheels.

He can cut with scissors and trace a maze and likes to work on both.  He seems to know the exact story line of the hundreds of books we own.  He loves to watch "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" on the computer when he uses the potty.  He loves M&Ms and cheese sticks.

He is still huge - in 4T clothes and sometimes, I have a hard time telling him and Seth apart from the back.  He hates to wear shoes and flings them off as fast as he can.  He never makes it through sacrament meeting with his shoes still on.  The car is usually full of his socks and shoes that he takes off as soon as he gets in.

He just started Tball on Saturday.  He seemed to have fun, but you can tell that listening to a coach and following instructions (and trying to pay attention to the ball when it's easier to just zone off) is something new for him.  His glove came in the mail later that day (he needed one for the other hand since he throws with his left) and he wants to hold it all the time.


Fun Things in March and April

• Starting T-ball
• Friend's birthday party at Jump Fit.
• Ward Chili cookoff and talent show
• Corned Beef and Cabbage for St. Patrick's Day - I also made a little treasure hunt with clues for the boys to find some candy leprachaun hats that I had made.  The boys loved it and had a lot of fun finding it hiding in Katsu's closet.
• Neighborhood easter egg hunt - boys rode their bikes over and grabbed tons of eggs.  A cold day, but a lot of fun.  Logan got a cute picture with the Easter Bunny.
• Katsu was out of town a couple times, so extra time with mom (and more TV time than usual).
• A sort of abbreviated Easter celebration week - we talked about Palm Sunday, watched some of the church Easter videos, did a Jesus dinner on Thursday and had hot cross buns, but Katsu was out of town most of the week and then he was home for a day and then we were out of town, so it was kind of crazy.
• Easter egg hunts at school - they all came home with tons of candy and toys and eggs.  Craziness!
• SPRING BREAK!!!  On Friday morning, we drove to Williamsburg and then we went straight to Busch Gardens.  We bought season passes and were able to get free ones for Seth and Logan.  The first day, we went to the first Sesame Street place and did all the rides and ended up waiting in line for awhile.  Once, we got outside of that part of the park, we were able to see lots of other things.  There were rides for the kids everywhere and lots of fun ones.  Seth went on everything he was tall enough for.  He even went on a water ride (Pompeii) that I think was a little scary for him.  We even got to see animals and watch a couple shows - Irish Dancing and a wild animal encounter show.  After we were all thoroughly worn out, we checked into our hotel.  We were staying in a vacation rental and had two big bedrooms and a full kitchen and a patio.  The boys LOVED it.  We went to Trader Joes and got all of our favorite foods and ate like kings over the weekend.  The second day, we had breakfast and then went to Busch Gardens again.  This time, we had a better idea where to go and we didn't wait in as many lines.  We got to ride everything and it was really fun.  The boys all had a blast.  Once we were worn out and had done everything, we went back to the resort.  The boys all went to mini golf and the pool while Noah took a nap.  They LOVED it, especially the mini golf.  Then, they came home and all slept in one of the bedrooms and got to watch Nick and all the cable shows.  They were in paradise.  And even better - on Sunday morning, they woke up and the Easter bunny had come.  They ran all over searching for eggs.  We packed up, checked out, and drove to Great Wolf Lodge and bought a wand and the boys worked together and did MagiQuest, for like 5 hours!  By then, we beat the first dragon and were SO worn out!!!  So, we drove back to NC to enjoy the rest of the spring break.
• The rest of the spring break, we just relaxed.
• Logan and I went to go see Curious George (along with Logan).  It was a musical, a lot like the TV show. Logan was pretty tired, but he said he wouldn't fall asleep and he didn't.  He seemed to enjoy it as much as he could for being so tired.  It was pretty cute and surprisingly well done.
• Pirate Fest - the boys got to see a BMX show while chowing on free chips and drinks.  It's always fun to see the whole town dressed up as pirates and we even saw a live mermaid this year!  The boys played games and earned candy along the river and then we cooled off with some ice cream.  It was a lot of fun, even after two tiring soccer games!
• Camping with Dad and Andrew and Seth for a ward campout.  The boys had a blast - smores, foil dinners, playing with friends, in the water, etc.