Inside the Lines

Our little artist William is a big fan of drawing. He was always up for art in school and when he's at home it's not unusual for him to ask for crayons and a coloring book. He will flip from page to page randomly scribbling and talk about what he's creating. And this weekend there was a new development -- coloring inside the lines (his best attempts and very, very close)!

Too busy coloring to eat!

Notice the clown's hair (top blue arrow) and the star (bottom blue arrow). I looked over while at dinner and all by himself, there he was very focused on coloring inside the lines of different areas! Yes, it's a funny observation, but I just love to see new abilities! I never encouraged drawing inside the lines. I let him color as he pleases. So it's fun to see him conquer something new on his own. 

Another amazing observation -- William can do small puzzles by himself! We have been doing puzzles with William probably since he was 2. He loves doing puzzles and has always needed assistance. He has understood how puzzle pieces fit and some don't, but we'd guide him along the way. But last week he took a truck puzzle, sat alone and finished it! It's actually a box of four different truck puzzles and he did them all (in different sittings). They're 12 piece puzzles.  

Puzzles!

Puzzle in progress

Puzzle almost finished

All done!

When he completes the puzzle he says, "I did it!" and raises both arms up in the air. So cute!

Another truck puzzle

Bulldozer puzzle this time

I love the concentration! He amazes me every day. Something new all the time. Great job, William!

A New Year!

School year that is! William is in 2 day 2's at the Methodist School with Mrs. Langholz this year. We had our Meet the Teacher Day today. It was actually planned for tomorrow, but I did the class bags and dropped them off a day early, his teacher gave me all the info while we were there. William was with me and immediately headed for the cars. Mrs. Langholz has Lighting McQueen in her classroom and so she's good in William's book!

Went straight for the cars!

After talking to his teacher and some other moms, we tried to leave and William, of course, was perfectly content to stay. I convinced him that he could return next week. No separation anxiety for William! We played on the playground with a friend from last year for a bit and headed home. The first day is next Tuesday! 

The class theme this year is an owl and William loves his new owl school bag! Credit goes to my friend Kristin for stitching the whole bag, but I am proud of my fabric choices for the owl ha!

Looking forward to the new class!

Brought home his new school bag

Now Showing...

Planes Fire and Rescue starring Dusty Crophopper!

Planes Fire & Rescue

Also known as William's first movie theater going movie! 

Saturday night we went to the theater at Disney Downtown and saw the 6 p.m. Planes showing with William. The movie was very cute! Dusty Crophoopper learns how to become a rescue plane in the event of fire, and meets a bunch of friends along the way. William watched the whole movie from his seat. Toward the end he started to lay down in his seat and I don't know if he was antsy or just getting comfortable, but he was very attentive to the movie. Great thing about a kid movie is there are plenty of kids around, so no worries when William would yell out a question or observation.

"Uh, oh! Mommy, BIG fire!"

William's first movie theater experience

The nice part about the Disney Downtown movie theater is you can bring dinner to your seat. We got a pizza and chicken tenders, and William watched the movie while dipping his chicken tenders in barbecue sauce!

Of course there was ice cream following. Strawberry for William!

A very fun first movie going experience! 

11 Months Old

11 Months

Grace is 11 months old! Where did month 10 go?? July/month 10 went by very quickly and has been a lot of fun since Grace walks like a pro now. We've been going to the playground and she loves to go back and forth between some of the smaller toys. Then she's moving all over the house investigating every nook and cranny (can we say, baby proof already) her little fingers can reach. The word of choice to describe Grace this month has been "Busy." Literally, anyone that spends time with her or watches her, will end the visit saying to me, "Wow, Grace sure is BUSY." Haha! Is that a nice way of saying she's into everything??

Running the playground

What? You don't want me in here? Too bad.

Speaking of big brother - Grace and William get along really well. He does push her from time to time when she begins encroaching upon his concentrated block building or train play, but for the most part they have a great time. She doesn't mind when he tries to wrestle and she happily goes back at it. She definitely won't be letting big brother boss her around. She hysterically laughs when he runs around like a crazy man hooting and hollering, and then she tries to catch up with him. I love when we're in the car and it's a bit quiet then I hear the two of them burst out laughing. I'll turn around to see Grace peeking over her side of the car seat and William looking at her, and I don't know what happened, but they have some sort of connection that is very funny! It's adorable. They really have made the past year so easy.

Picture perfect!

Let me steer both wheels Grace. I'll put you in a head lock.

Great appetite and loves food more than a bottle. She is very ladylike (to some degree) when she eats. She takes small bites and chews her food. I gave her a whole banana the other day and she ate it piece by piece with no trouble at all. If you try and help her, she gets a little peeved at the assistance. Miss Independent! I gave Grace her first Dunkin Donuts munchkin while we were in Vero Beach with friends! I thought she might devour it because she hasn't really had many sweets. She had a bite of ice cream in Charleston. But she licked it a little, made a funny face then started to take small bites of the munchkin. I remember William shoving that entire munchkin into his mouth when he first tasted the goodness! She's down to two bottles and I know the bottles will be gone by her first birthday appointment assuming the doctor is okay with that. She'd pick food over bottles any day.

Not sold on the taste of chocolate.

We are still waiting on more words. Grace says "dada" a lot and "mama" too. She definitely mimics "Hi there" and those are the words we notice right now. One of the sitters said she hears her say "Thank you" - I haven't noticed that one, but I'll take it!

She takes two naps a day still, but is flexible if we need to skip her first nap of the day because of plans. She also is flexible going to sleep. We have stayed out late on many occasions and she doesn't even attempt to snooze. She waits until we get home to sleep in her bed.

And we are still in the oral stage! Grace puts everything into her mouth. She shoveled sand into her mouth at the beach while we were in Vero. I thought she might be beyond that, but nope - still eating sand. She doesn't put as much mulch in her mouth at the park though... so we are making a little progress!

Pre sand shoveling into mouth... pretty girl on the beach

Smiles at everyone and is SO happy all the time. She's pretty feisty really! She walks into a room and isn't afraid of anyone. Happy to let anyone pick her up. She just runs around smiling and laughing. No separation anxiety here for this girl.

CHEESE!

Look! I'm inside the block bag!

Grace loves her pink bear and chewing on pink bear's ears. She hugs the bear when she's going down for a nap. Her version of sucking her thumb is sucking her two fingers. Same as William it's done mostly when she's tired. When you put her down for a nap, she pops her fingers into her mouth and sucks away until she falls asleep.

Finger sucking and pink bear - nap time essentials

Wears all 12m gear and I'm looking at 18m clothing now. She's wearing a size 3/4 shoe. Her crocs are a size 2/3, but Crocs run on the bigger size. I got her the cutest pair of ballet slippers and also a pair of TOMS that are lacey pink flowers! They're so sweet!! I thought I'd give her all of William's hand me down shoes, but nope - we're doing the pink thing! Sorry, Daddy! It's a girl thing!

The cutest, tiniest pink Crocs at the pool

And so her 1st birthday plans are on the way... unbelievable. We are planning to have a BBQ at our house for family and friends then she can have her 1st birthday cake moment. It's gone fast. Here's to enjoying the last couple weeks before our baby girl turns 1!

Brown eyed girl

SafeStart Update

William is back at it with Safe Start swim lessons. We had around 3 weeks of lessons in June and didn't wrap up in that time. We went on a few getaways and our instructor broke her arm roller skating, and so we had to resume again toward the end of July. The good news is that the new instructor is a great match for William and he's done in 1 week (4 days actually) what was accomplished in 3 weeks with the last instructor. William thinks a lot during his lesson and so the new instructor knows the right amount of encouragement plus the right way to push him before he thinks too much.

Notice Cars lined up to watch him in the bottom

SO back on track and it's so much fun to see him learning new swim techniques. William loves "getting the wall" the most, which means he pushes off Kristin and swims to the wall to grab the ledge. He's needed to float again, which he isn't enthused about doing like he was last year. And Kristin got him to float in just a couple lessons. Now he's perfecting the swim, float, swim to the wall. He did it all with his swim trunks a couple days ago and this past Friday he did his "test" with summer clothing on plus diaper (which I swear can hold 10 gallons of water, it's impressive!) plus shoes. He needed some assistance flipping from the float to swim and the float to wall with the clothing on - because it got so heavy, but that is the point. He could fall in without us seeing and needs to be able to swim and float with clothing on. He wasn't sold on wearing shoes in the pool or a shirt - he kept asking Kristin to take off his shoes and shirt ha!

Ready to go with summer clothing on

"I hold you." is what he tells Kristin

Nope sorry little guy! Time to kick!

Get the wall!

Floating after a flip

Swimming to Kristin's hand

I was debating starting Grace in lessons because I think it's great to get them used to the water, and she is walking, but I think I need a break myself! If we had Kristin from the very beginning, I'm sure Grace would have already been in lessons and maybe even wrapping up at this point. But it got a little dragged out. So now I'm thinking in the winter. Kristin teaches lessons at the downtown YMCA at the indoor pool, so that may be a nice holiday break activity!