All three are smiling in the same picture! Its a miracle!
More Silly Spencer
Here are more funny camera faces
These are pictures of Spencer's "I'm a cool dude" dance. It is the same dance every time. He dances around in circles doing some of his signature Spencer moves. Then he gets down on the ground and "break dances". All while singing/chanting the words...mostly about being the "coolest dude."
We have been transitioning out of naps for Spencer. He still needs one, but if he takes one he has a hard time falling asleep. Since he is still waking up at 5:30am no matter what time he goes to bed, we try to get him to bed early. Here are a few pictures of him falling asleep on his own. This is something that Aliyah NEVER did.
Russell
About 6 months
Aliyah Update
Aliyah is doing great in school. Her teachers both love her. Bill and I went in for parent/teacher conferences in October and they only had wonderful things to say about her. She listens, follows directions, helps other kids and is very friendly and nice to everyone. She is very smart and does well in all they are working on. We were worried that she would be too loud or not able to sit still and listen and keep herself under control. But no, that’s only at home. J She was excelling in all the subjects they have been working on.
She can count to 100. She is reading really well. She is
doing very well in her writing. She is doing great in her math addition and
subtraction. Not that we ever doubted, but she is very smart.
She has gotten four “Priate Pride” cards—essentially it is
when her teacher or other staff see he going above and beyond in “citizenship”.
One was when she was really nice to and helping another student. Another was
when she was helping to pick up the library without being asked.
It makes me so happy and relieved that she is excelling in
every way at school. She has great behavior, great academics, and loves going
to school.
At home, she still has her tendencies…she is loud and rough
with Spencer and Russell. She always wants to be entertained or talked to. She talks
almost non-stop. She still loves running around, screaming, and being crazy.
She also loves riding her bike. She has mostly stopped playing with her toys.
So both kids Spencer and Aliyah are high maintenance in
entertainment. Very rarely can they find something for themselves to do and
spend a good amount of time at it. When Aliyah is not at school, she complains
about being bored and having nothing to do about every 15 minutes. Spencer has
followed suit and now has a hard time entertaining themselves. This is very
frustrating to me so I often resort to just turning on the TV, because I can’t
entertain them all day and I have stuff to do and it just irks me to have them
following me around whining and complaining about having nothing to do.
So finally I got so frustrated about it about 2 months ago.
I had long threatened that if they are so bored, then they don’t need their
toys, since they never play with them anyways, so I will just throw them away.
One night after a long day of complaining from them (mostly Aliyah) they were
getting ready for bed and I just boxed up their toys and put them in my room.
Aliyah thought I was going to throw them away and she started screaming and
wailing like she was dying. Spencer wasn’t sure exactly what was happening, but
he knew something awful was happening, so he started screaming and wailing as
well. It was quite traumatic. We kept the toys in our room for a couple weeks
before we let them start using a few at a time (months later there are still boxes of toys in our room
that nobody even misses!) The funny thing was, the next day went about the same
as the days before—nothing really changed because they honestly never played
with their toys! They spent most of their time following me around, whining, or
“playing” with random stuff like a blanket, a laundry basket. I would tell
Aliyah to do something, so she would just pick up a blanket and just start
throwing it around on the ground. It is really weird.
The problem is is that she is so social, she has very little
ability to self entertain. And I think Spencer has adapted to be like her. When
he was littler he would play by himself a lot. And every once in while he still
will. But I think he has picked up on her attitude and phrases like “I am
bored’ “There’s nothing to do” etc.
Luckily on school days, Aliyah has very little free time to
be bored. But weekends are hard, and we usually let them watch way to much TV
just so we can sleep in and get a few things done.
Valentines Day
We got the kids a few little gifts for Valentines Day. Bill continued his tradition and took Aliyah out for dinner on Valentines Day. Aftin took Spencer out for icecream that night, as well. We went out for our Valentine's date on the weekend.
Daddy-Daughter Date - Aliyah wanted to wear a "fancy" dress. She did her own hair, and Aftin helped her put a little makeup on.
