4 Months Old

It's been four months since Oliver joined our family and he seems to fit right in! He's our hybrid child, he looks a lot like Jonah, but acts a lot like Skyler. He wants to be held all the time and when he's not being held he likes to be talked to and played with. Sometimes he'll throw a nap in the mix as well.

He's working on the whole rolling over thing, and while he's done it before, he seems to prefer to go halfway and stop on his side. He is starting to be more interested in toys, mainly in bringing them towards his mouth. He appears to like the crinkly noise that the plastic bag that holds his diapers makes. But, there's this warning about it not being a toy so we try and keep it away from him.

He is starting to like his pacifier again - I don't know if that's good or not. Sometimes it seems to really calm him down, but in a year or so I may be kicking myself for not just taking it away for good!

At his four month check-up, he weighed in at 13 lbs. 9 oz and was 24.75" long.

Big School Event

Skyler's elementary school is brand new this year, so a grand opening celebration was held last week*. First each grade level sang a song. There were so many people there so we weren't close to the action at all, but it wasn't hard to spot Skyler as he walked out with his class.

When we picked up Skyler, we snapped a picture of him with his teacher, and one of him next to his self-portrait.

The school is named after a local author who there signing books. We bought an extremely over-priced book so we could get it signed because I thought it would be cool for Skyler to have such a momento of his elementary school. 

*Make that three weeks ago, I started this post two weeks ago, but didn't finish it!

Labor Day

We spent Labor Day up in the mountains with some friends, first at a national park with a few ruins to explore and then some more hiking further up the mountain.

And I'm On a Train That's Bound For Santa Fe

On Saturday, we rode the train up to Santa Fe. I don't know if I was more excited because it would just a fun thing to do or because it made me think of Newsies all day long!

waiting for the train

The train ride is long (about twice as long as it would take to drive), but since kids are free, money-wise it's a great deal and of course a fun experience. Basically, a good thing to do once so that we can say we did it!

Once in Santa Fe, we went to a park to attend the Santa Fe 400th anniversary festivities. There, the kids got to participate in a lot of fun arts and crafts activities, play at the playground, and ride on carousel. Afterwards, we went to the Plaza to walk around.

And then it started to rain! We were all pretty wet by the time we got on the train.

The ride back was actually quite longer than it was supposed to be. Probably due to the fact that at one station we had to wait a very long time for a very large group of people to board, then two stations later, we had to wait a very long time while most of them got off. This appeared to put us behind schedule, which meant we had to wait at a later station for a train to pass us (we were guessing this train was scheduled to pass at even a later station, one beyond our stop). At least we had some videos on Jordan's iPod to keep the boys occupied.

 And as soon as we got home, I burned the Newsies soundtrack onto our computer. 

Jonah's Ideas

Jonah's new thing is to announce "I have an idea!" Sometimes his idea is um, abstract, like "trees" for example. Other times he never actually gets around to telling me the idea. Mostly, they have to do with space rockets. He'll say that he wants a space rocket to fly up into the air, or, my personal favorite, he wants to put a space rocket on the back of the neighbor's cat.

And just because posts are more fun if they have pictures, here's Jonah all snuggled up with a piece of his Duplo train track. That boy loves his trains!

Three Months Old

I love it when my babies are just tiny and I get so sad as they get bigger. Oliver sometimes seems huge to me, but other times still seems like my tiny baby. I'm guessing he weighs in at around 13-14 lbs. (using the ever so precise method of weighing both of us and then just myself on our not digital scale) and is about 24 inches long.

I've decided it's a good thing that by the time he just starts being not a little baby anymore, he also starts smiling. It's a decent trade-off. He loves attention and will smile at anyone who will give it to him. He likes being held and his "altimeter" is starting to kick in (meaning he definitely prefers that the person holding him is standing up!). He sleeps well at night and not so much during the day (though swinging in his swing seems to help him sleep for longer periods of time). He adores watching the bears on the mobile that's attached to his pack n play. He is far more tolerant of Skyler being in his face than Jonah ever was.

Off to School

It's hard to be five.

All I want is to play.

I'm starting at school,

and I don't get a say.

 School seems so scary.

School seems so strange.

 I'm only five.

My whole world's going to change.

-From It's Hard To Be Five by Jamie Lee Curtis

Overall, I'm very okay with Skyler starting school. I've been entertaining the kids nonstop for five years and I'm ready for a break! But reading this page gets me everytime. I do worry that he'll be scared. I worry that he won't know he can ask for help. I worry about what he might do if he doesn't get his way. I worry that he just isn't ready (he's just barely five afterall). But he was so excited today, until we got into the classroom and then he didn't really know what to think. I'm sure he had a great day, hopefully great enough that he'll be anxious to go back!

Skyler's Last Week

My dad referred to the Christmas before my brother left on his mission as his "last Christmas". This drove my mom crazy because of course Kevin would have plenty of other Christmases to enjoy. But in a way it was his last Christmas. Our last  Christmas seeing as I was married before the next Christmas rolled around and Christmas will never quite be the same as it was.

And so it is with this past week. It was Skyler's last week of Summer. And despite the fact that he will have many more "last weeks" before school starts, this one is different. Never will the anticipation and excitement be quite the same. Never will he seem like the little kid that he is now. So what did we do to celebrate this last week? Not much actually. I guess that is the beauty of this being his last week, we don't really know what we're getting ourselves into, thus that strong desire to savor every last bit of Summer isn't there yet. Here are some things we did do during these last days of Summer

We did go to the zoo though, where getting the boys to look at the camera was quite a feat considering that gorilla was sitting right there.

I've been trying to discover all the parks that the city has to offer, so we've had some fun park days, with friends and just by ourselves.

We went to the children's museum that the kids both love. They opened extra early one morning, so Jordan was able to join us.

We spent a weekend at Jordan's parents' house playing with cousins and swimming. We even snagged a picture of all the cousins on Jordan's side!

And um, Skyler is currently obsessed with doing the laundry. Does he know how to spend the last days of summer or what?

Jonah Goes To Ice Cream Land

Yesterday, Jonah grabbed his backpack and announced that he was going to Ice Cream Land. Apparently they have lots of Oreo cookies in Ice Cream Land.

I estimate that he ate approximately five.

The Big Three-Oh

Jordan turned 30 a few weeks ago. The boys helped me make him a cake. They chose the frosting color, frosted it and put the candles on (upside down, rightside up, it doesn't matter).

Jordan got a web cam for his birthday

And this

Which he actually won't get until next month. Next time I'll try and plan the release date better.

Thus ends the birthday season at our house (otherwise known as summer in other households). Now they all have plenty of time to plan for my birthday!

Oliver's Blessing Day

Last Sunday was Oliver's blessing day. This was a much more low key celebration compared to the other boys' which was kind of nice, but we did miss the family members who weren't with us.


These are the family members who participated in the blessing circle. This was the first blessing where Jordan invited non-family to participate which was pretty exciting because it means we've met some good friends here.

With both sets of grandparents

Just our family - a shot we didn't get on Skyler or Jonah's blessing days

Just the boys. Jonah was mad, he wanted to go to nursery class

 

And here's little Oliver on the first of hopefully many special church occasions for him

Sabino Canyon

While in Arizona, we spent a couple of days with Jordan's sister and her family. On Saturday, we went hiking at Sabino Canyon. Can you say crazy people? We decided it was in honor of pioneer day, so we packed our backpacks full of capri suns, sandwiches and doritos (you know, so as to be all pioneer-like) and headed out. There was much murmoring until we reached our destination, and then much fun was had.

We found many "peepers", tiny little toads just coming out of the water.

We played in the water, ate lunch, then played some more so as to get all cooled off in preparation for the hot return to the car.

 

Jordan and I spent a lot of time in Sabino Canyon when were dating and newly married, so it was so much fun to go back there!