Its been a long time since I have written, so this will be very long...its really more like a journal entry about the kids, but I figured maybe some of the family might be interested.
Spencer has grown up way too fast. I can't believe he is almost 1. He still is a BIG boy. At his nine month appointment he weighed 26 pounds and was in the 95th percentile for height, weight, and head size. Well, at least he is proportionate.
He stared crawling at about 8 months--he started off with the army crawl (pulling himself on his belly) but after a month he started figuring out how to do it on his hands and knees and now he is an awesome crawler--and super fast too. He has been pulling himself to standing for about a month or so. He has also been starting to wave, and nod/shake his head during the last few weeks. He can finally say "mama" but I am pretty sure that he doesn't connect that to me.
He is now our little "trouble-maker". He is constantly into everything!!! Although I try to keep everything shut, locked, gated, put away, etc. he always seems to find his way into something, like opening the DVD player, pulling a LONG piece of toilet paper off the roll (and eating it), opening the one cabinet that has a broken child proof lock and spilling bags of noodles and plastic spoons on the floor, digging through the recylce bin (which now has to sit on our counter top), climbing to the top of the stairs when I forgot to put the gate up, ripping up library books, pulling our entry way table over...you get the picture.
If I had to sum him up in one word, it would be "curious". He has always been a very curious little baby, even when he was younger. He always has to check everything out, touch everything, taste everything. He knows when things are new and he gravitates toward them. He is great in the car and anywhere we go. He just loves sitting and seeing new sights. He loves watching other kids play--when he is watching the other kids he just has this look on his face like he wants to play with them too. It has been so nice, because we do a lot of things for Aliyah, like go to the library, museums, playdates, playground, etc. and he just is happy to come along. Even at the grocery store he sits just fine in the baby seat the whole time.
He still is very even tempered and endures ALOT from Aliyah. There are only two things she does to bother him, but she is doing them constantly--taking toys away from him and then trying to hug or hold him (which is always more like a tackle, drag, headlock, or smash). You would think that after 50 timeouts and mini-lectures a day about "leaving brother alone!" she would get it, but so far it hasn't happened. Maybe one day...
He still naps and sleeps great. He takes two 2-3 hour naps a day and then still sleeps 11-13 hours at night (he has been sleeping through the night since maybe 4 months!). I am very happy about this, especially after Aliyah who was a horrible napper and a very early riser (5am) as a baby.
Because he has been so easy going and happy his whole life, I think it is cute when he throws little tantrums. Again, with Aliyah, she cried and threw so many fits all the time, it was very frustrating and definately not cute. But just the last month or two he has definately shown his little personality as a real person and if something doesn't go his way, sometimes (just sometimes though, often he just moves on to the next thing if he is frustrated about something) he gets mad and he'll just cry and kick his little legs like crazy.
The only time it is not cute is when I am changing his diaper. He never used to mind his diaper being changed until about a month or two ago (I am seeing a pattern here, I think as he hit about 8 months he has just totally started changing). Now it is a big fight everytime--and let me say that we have gotten poop everywhere quite a few times. He arches, tries to roll, and kicks like crazy. And man is that boy strong! I can barely keep him down, and his legs are too strong that I cannot hold them in one place with one hand while I change the diaper with the other. And his kicks hurt!!! Seriously!!!
He still is a bit of a snuggle bug and loves me to hold him. My favorite thing to do--pretty much the highlight of my day everyday, is rocking him before his naps and bedtime (and luckily when I am getting him ready for bed, Aliyah plays nicely and quietly in her room!!!). I give him his bottle and then he loves to get snuggled up on my shoulder with his little blanket and his thumb in his mouth while I burp him. THen I just cradle him in my arms a sing a few songs as I rock him. (We "sleep trained" him when he was about 6 months--so we just put him in bed and he puts himself to sleep.) I just love when he looks up at me with his sleepy eyes and just watches me as I rock and sing to him. He has his little thumb in his mouth and his little blanket tucked up by his face. Sometimes, when he is a little less sleepy, we have little "conversations". He just makes little baby coos and then looks at me and waits for me to respond. We coo back and forth for a while. It just melts my heart. I am so thankful for Spencer--he has really helped me appreciate and love all the wonderful little things about babies, they are such sweet and special little things--and this is so hard to see and remember when babies are hard because you are so overwhelmed with trying to deal with them.
I had been really worried about him sucking his thumb and tried for a LONG time to get him to stop. My efforts weren't fully in vain. He almost never sucks his thumb unless he has his little blanket, which is reserved for bedtime and extreme situations. This is better than nothing, I am just so glad that he doesn't suck it all the time, becuase it would be so much harder to break him of it.
Spencer got his first tooth on June 23rd (9 1/2 months), which is right about the same time Aliyah got hers. The second one will be through any day.
He is definately a boy--he loves cars! I didn't think babies did this so young but he already loves pushing cars around the floor.
I love this little boy sooo much. I never get tired of him. I look forward to him waking up every morning so I can see his cute happy little face. I love holding him and playing with him. I thank Heavenly Father everyday for bringing him into our family and letting me be his mom.
And now...on to Aliyah...
She is still definately Aliyah. She is still strong-willed, smart, energetic, enthusiastic, loud, bossy, sassy, opinionated...and many other "strong" characteristic traits.
Looking back over the last year or two, she has definately improved in behavior. She is better at following directions and I can most of the time trust her not to get into trouble. (Although, about 6 months ago she was going through a sneaking and lying phase, but luckily that was short-lived) The biggest problem I have with her is just her attitude. I basically have to equivocate it to that of a teenage girl--major attitude and drama. Here is an example, I will ask her to do something and she will yell at me with the meanest dirtiest look a little 3-year old can give, and her hand on her hip and say "No mOM! I don't want to!" Then she will get sent to time out, and she will run there while wailing "No, not again!". She'll throw herself into the corner and scream, so I will add another minute to the time out and again she'll wail "Oh no! Now I will never get out of here!" or "I'll be in here for FOREVER!" After a few more times addding minutes, she'll be quiet and finish out her time out, and then act like nothing ever happened.
She loves reading books, coloring, playing with her little figurines and doll houses, playing with her kitchen, and going places. She has an imaginary friend named Kaylee. I think that she is more of just something that Aliyah talks about, I have never seen her "talk to" or "interact" with Kaylee. She just comes with us places, they have the same birthday, she has a purple unicorn... Its kindof cute, I am not too worried about it.
Almost every morning Aliyah is up before us. She loves to come get in our bed. She usually just sortof kicks and moves all over so we don't really get to sleep but at least we can lay in bed a few more minutes. And she loves to eay breakfast with daddy. She makes me stay in bed (and of course I don't complain!) while she and daddy go eat cereal together. It is really cute.
The other day she told us about a dream she had. It was pretty intesteing and elaborate. There was a unicorn and a bad witch and they were fighting, and a lot more things that I forget now. About 6 months ago, she woke up in the night, just an hour or two after going to bed, and didn't want to go back to sleep. She said, "I don't want to sleep because when I close my eyes I see a fox." It was so cute and sad, I bet she had a bad dream about a fox.
She is very active and imaginative and ALWAYS wants to be doing something. She is not very self motivated--she rarely just goes off and plays by herself. I usually have to get her set up with an activity and slowly ease out of it. But most of the time when I am trying to get my housework or dinner done she just pesters me with a series of requests, I am hungry, Can I have a treat, can I have gum, can i watch a movie, etc. I tell her to just go and play and she rarely does. Its really hard to try to keep her busy and entertained as well as keeping Spencer out of trouble and getting everything done around the house, but thats the challage of being a mom.
I am really excited for her to start preschool, just one more month. It is Mon through Thurs for 3 hours a day (noon to 3). With getting ready and travel time, it will really take up more like 4 hours a day. Although I am excited to have a few hours to myself (its during Spencer's nap time), I think the best thing will be for her to have structured environment with educational activities. She has the hardest time (and the worst attitude) when she is bored. With me having more free time to get my things done, I will have more time devoted to her and Spence while she is home, and there will be less time to try to fill with activities. I have noticed she is usually her best and happiest when we are out and about doing lots of things. Her little mind just craves stimulation and it just makes her irritable when she is stagnant.
I am also hoping it will help her learn a little more self-control and discipline. I know that she responds so much better to other people (besides Bill and I) teaching her things. She gets very stubborn and doesn't want to cooperate when she doesn't remember something or doesn't understand something. Like when I was teaching her how to write her letters, or working with her phonics cards, as soon as she did something wrong or forgot something , she just shut down and wouldn't do anything else. She loves learning though. I have a little letter book that she traces by herself and she loves to play with her flashcards. I think she will do very well in school, as long as she gets her attitude in check.
Wow! Thats a lot more than I thought, but I am just happy to get all these things written down before I forget.
The Bed and Breakfast we stayed at near Zions
The night before the hike.
A view (from the top) of our destination--Indian Gardens (the brighter green patch in the middle of the picture).
Us in Indian Gardens
Indian Gardens--the green Oasis halfway down the bleak canyon
At the end our our hike
