Kids Growing Up

Okay, this post will have a lot of pictures to catch us up on the lives of the kids.  After Halloween until . . . well, Christmas Autumn practically lived in this Minnie Mouse costume or her Sophia one she got for her birthday.  I even let her go grocery shopping and to the library that way.  What a cool mom am I?

Have I already shared this?  This is from probably November.  I love that baby!!  Although that is probably around the time he started sleeping horribly so maybe that's why I was so happy for a smile.

Learning to eat solid foods.  Fun times for any baby.  I always look forward to this time, until it actually comes and then suddenly I panic that my baby is growing up.  And feeding baby food is tedious and messy.  I wish I could keep them on milk until they magically knew how to feed themselves without making a huge mess, say age . . . 15??  And I know he's holding the spoon here, but that wasn't common practice, but was the reason we eventually gave up baby food from a jar, the battle over the spoon.  Thank heavens for the baby food pouches!

I read a book about de-cluttering and so we attempted.  Basically, we failed, but when we went through our toys to give away ones we didn't want anymore I had a real problem.  Leah put these two stuffed animals in the throw away pile.  Pinguino was her first toy and Pinky was her loved so much bear he hardly has any fur.  How could I get rid of them?!  Okay, so I confess, I didn't.  I hid them back in Autumn's closet (where we store the shared toys) and sometimes Autumn plays with them.  I guess you can see while our de-cluttering failed - me,

 Autumn went potty for the first time and all I had to give her for a treat was a full sized candy cane.  She has given the impression a few times she'd be really easy to potty train.  Tis not so.  She is still not and I kind of gave up today (June 26) and at her asking put her back in a diaper.  She didn't like failing in Pull Ups.  I felt so bad the way she asked to wear a diaper that I just gave in.  Is this turning into a post on mom fails?

 Who doesn't love a cute girl in sunglasses??

 My cousins wife, whom I've never met, is a good little knitter and so via Facebook, I got her to knit me a hat.  Turned out pretty cute I think!

A neighbor in Russia knitted Lance this cute little hat.  We were all set for winter.  Lance got to go with us on date nights until around March maybe when we started leaving him too with the baby sitter.  He does great with her for the most part.

 Things didn't work out for Oliver to go to preschool/pre-K.  I would have had to prove our income and go to a lot of work to get him in the school one and he still might have been rejected.  Then since I was driving Leah to school I just couldn't justify  making the other kids ride in the car yet again later to take and pick up Oliver from preschool at a church or something, not to mention the cost.
He was always a very good sport about it.  He was horrible at cutting at first, but he got so much better!  He hated coloring in the lines at all or even using more than one color on a page.  Tons better now!  I really loved this precious time I had with him while Autumn took her naps.  Lance was often content to sit in the high chair while we worked or sometimes was asleep also.  The program was really good the first half, but then the second half was pretty boring so we kind of quit it and started woring soley on learning to read with a few work sheets, which he loves, thrown in.  I cannot imagine what life would have been like if he had gone to pre-k.  He and Autumn developed such a sweet friendship and played so well together at home.  He was such a helper and was so good at keeping an eye on Autumn and keeping her happy while I dealt with a baby that hated sleep.   I am going to miss him sooooo much when he goes to Kindergarten in the fall.  And I think Autumn is going to miss him even more.  I really feel like the decision for him to stay home this year was truly inspired by God and a great blessing for our family.

 This little girl loves to have a little something in her hand, it started with chapstick when she was a toddler, then to a rock or something, and for a while she had a little egg obsession.  You can ask her nursery teachers.  It came in handy when our chickens started laying eggs in November.  She still loves to go get the eggs.  She doesn't get to go as often as she'd like, probably because she can't put on her own shoes yet.

 This one is out of place, but he's so darn cute I can't delete it.

 Here is our little farm girl!

Part of Leah and Oliver's Christmas present was the gift of swimming lessons.  They were for 6 weeks on Saturday morning.  I'm not sure how much they learned, but Leah had learned a bit in Russia and I was scared for her to forget it.  They are pretty brave in the water . . . as long as they have a floaty.  The kids liked the lessons at least.  I may try again this year.  I figure the more kids know about swimming the better.  Below is Leah in the pink.

 Oliver jumping in to his teacher.

 Both my boy babies have perched in my sink while I get ready in the morning.  There always comes that final day when they turn on the water and it freaks them out and it's all over.  But it is beautiful in the mean time to keep them busy while I get ready.  It would end when they learn to crawl out anyway.

 I work in Primary for my calling and I am over the cub scout program.  This was our Blue and Gold banquet.  I love my calling - the scouts part, not so much.  I am just so ignorant of how it all works that I have a pretty hands off approach with the Cub Master.  I don't have a picture, but I also went to my first Pinewood Derby which was also fun.

 Switching to afternoon church was pretty rough.  Another day more recently it was quite hot and she fell asleep during sacrament meeting and although this girl LOVES nursery probably more than any other kid in history, she couldn't wake up for it.  She just laid on the floor all during nursery until the last few minutes.

 And they don't call them the terrible twos for nothing.  I can't remember what happened I just know she was trying to clean it with the sponge which if I remember correctly was filthy and she had gotten water everywhere from it.  But overall, this sweet little girl has given no reason for me to think of it as the terrible twos.  She is stubborn when she wants to be, but she can be such a sweet little easy going angel.

I didn't have any close ups of Leah here.  But I will say, I have a picture on my refrigerator of her sitting outside last summer.  You don't always notice your kids are growing, but every time I look at that picture I can see how much this girl has grown up during Kindergarten both physically and all other aspects.  Sometimes I just look at her and think how beautiful she is.  Other times she's quite obsessed with saying words like poop . . . . but every kid is a kid afterall. :)