7 Months Old

Our sweet little Ollie is already seven months old!

At seven months, he...

...eats rice cereal, peas, carrots, and sweet potatoes, but likes paper the best.
...is a serious little guy - getting a smile from him is nearly impossible, but Skyler is the best at it.
...can't quite sit up, but started army crawling on his seven month birthday.
...seems to be allergic to milk, which is causing eczema.
...thinks blowing raspberries is just the coolest.

Welcoming Winter

On the first day of winter we headed to the new playground near us. With temps in the upper 40s it was the least winter like day we've had in a while! Oliver tried out the swings and the big boys rolled their soccer balls down the slides.

The Christmas Pictures Post

Setting up the train on Christmas Eve

Jonah loves his new space rocket tent.

Skyler got a Wonka Bar. Turns out the Elves are good friends with the Oompa-Loompas and hooked us up.

Jonah decided on Wednesday that he wanted a new airplane from Santa. Good thing this little spaceship seemed to qualify.

I always have a hard time getting the kids' reaction to their gifts on camera, mainly because they refuse to ever look at the camera, but also because I never knew when to be ready for the perfect picture. I mean, who knew that upon opening two matchbox cars, Jonah would smile and declare, "I totally love these!"  (besides grandma and grandpa who purchased the cars, that is). I knew, however, that Skyler would be excited upon finding that we now had a membership to the local children's museum.

Jonah's Gingerbread House Decorating Technique

Dip

Lick

Stick

A Visit with St. Nick

We went to a local bookstore for a storytime with Santa. Jonah was super excited to go see Santa, but Skyler didn't want to go at all. Once we got there and it was time to see Santa, Skyler rushed to get in line (but he wanted to be last - I guess he still was a little nervous) and Jonah ran off to the side of the room saying he didn't want to talk to Santa. When it was our turn, Jonah came away from his spot at the side of the room and climbed right on to Santa's lap! He told Santa he wanted a new airplane. Then it was Skyler's turn and Skyler couldn't think of anything that he wanted.

Christmas Countdown

Each year I try and come up with a Advent calendar that has Christmas activities to do each day. Normally, I fail miserably. This year I didn't do so bad. Here are some of the things we did:

Christmas Storytime at the bookstore

Making a Lego snowman and Christmas Tree

Skyler did the snowman by following the directions all by himself!  Looks like he is really ready for the big kid legos.

Watching Christmas stories and reading Christmas books

Christmas Crafts

Jonah loved this one especially. He sat and painted these little wooden shapes for an hour. Skyler had been bugging me to do this one, but he gave it up quickly, left for awhile and then came back. All the while, Jonah kept painting and painted.

Making Christmas cookies

A Whole Lot of Coloring Going On

We were all having a great time coloring the day away as part of our advent celebration. That is, until Skyler wanted Jonah to color his snowflake green and Jonah was coloring it brown, Skyler retaliated by scribbling green on everyone's pictures. It's Skyler's way or the highway, folks!

And yeah, for some reason the kids are a bit obsessed with gluing candy onto paper.

A Half of a Birthday

Jonah was so excited when I told him that it was his half birthday. He asked about his cake and I told him we'd eat it after dinner. He started crying and Jordan started singing "it's my party, and I'll cry if I want to" at which point Jonah stops crying and says to Jordan, "it's not YOUR half birthday, it's MY half birthday!"

Here he is with his cake. Some of you (okay two of you) were hoping for pictures of Oliver's cake from last month. It totally stuck to the bottom of the pan, so I scraped half of it off from the pan and kind of piled it on top of the other one, using frosting to piece it all together. So, though this one looks far from perfect (next time I need to be more careful about making sure my halves are equal), it's a million times better than last month's attempt!

Jonah really wanted to blow out a candle, we didn't have any cake candles, so we lit this apple spice one and had him blow it out - he was content!

At two and a half, Jonah still seems like such a little kid to me. When Skyler was this age, he seemed like a big kid already. It's hard to believe that two years ago, he was rolling around on the ground like Oliver is now and that just a year ago he started nursery at church. Last Sunday, his nursery teachers said he's acting like one of the big kids now!

He talks so well, it's unbelievable. He loves dinosaurs and trains (and you PBS viewers can probably guess his favorite show!). He gives hugs and kisses very willingly and enjoys a good cuddle every now and then. He loves to do puzzles and is very good at them. For the most part, he's very gentle with Oliver and is always saying what a cute baby he is. He likes playing with Skyler and is usually surprisingly good at taking orders from him.  He is so good at making me smile when I need it most and for that I am extremely grateful!

Willy Wonka and the Haunted Chocolate Factory

Two months ago, Jonah started becoming quite fascinated by "spooky" things. It was a word that popped up frequently in the Halloween books we had borrowed from the library. He loved to read the spooky Halloween books and would recite lines from them with the same inflection and intonation I would use when reading. It was one of those cute things that I told myself I'd record next time.. until there wasn't a next time! He liked to watch the spooky Halloween show (The Nightmare before Christmas - a scary show for a two year old, but he loves it!) and loved to put his blanket over his head and say that he was a scary ghostie (and oh, how I love how he would say 'ghostie' instead of just 'ghost').

Skyler is currently obsessed with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  Last month, his kindergarten class took their first field trip to see a play based on the book. Skyler's synopsis of the field trip was the play was long and the bus ride was bumpy. I told him that we had the movie and put it on for him. He lasted only a few minutes (not a surprise, he's not one to sit in front of the TV for more than 20 minutes or so). Another day he wanted to try again and I suggested that I skip ahead to the part where everyone is in the factory. He loved that! So for several weeks we'd watch just the second half at least once a day. The kids would both dance around and sing the Oompa Loompa songs. We got the book from the library and have been reading chapters each night. Then Skyler decided he wanted to put on his own play. Apparently the audience could chose to watch the live version in the living room or the 'taped' version in the family room. For the taped version, he set up a camera and then a long string of blankets that led from the camera to the TV - those were the cords. On Wednesday night, he performed his one man (sometimes two when Jonah would cooperate) version of Willy Wonka. On Thursday night there was a repeat performance, but this time Jonah didn't want to be Charlie or Grandpa Joe, he wanted to be a ghostie. So he put his blanket over his head and wandered around the 'stage' saying "I'm a scary ghostie!"  I hear there might be another performance tonight. :)

When Jonah Grows Up

During a recent Aquarium trip, Jonah announced that when he grows up he can be a fish. A few days later he told me that when he grows up he can be a rock. He's got high hopes for his future, that's for sure!

And here he is being cute at his tumbling class. He has a lot of fun jumping and dancing and parachuting.

Skyler's Soccer Team

Skyler finished up his fall soccer season a few weeks ago. This year was a lot of fun because there were tons of kids from church on his team (all the kids were from church actually), so many that they actually had two teams. They held practices together and at the last game they were able to play each other. The kids definitely did their best at that game! Skyler had a decent season. He could kick the ball and knew what he had to do, but so many other kids on other teams were just faster than him! He got a little weird at the end and sometimes wouldn't want to go in and play when it was his turn and we couldn't figure out why.

Here he is with Coach Mario and the neat medal that he loves and will keep forever until someday his wife makes him throw it away. ;)