Let's Try and Resume

Jack was tired and whining over and over about wanting to see Grandma on the way home from Chillin' and Grillin' where he just saw Grandma.  We’ve been doing a word of the day and a week early the word was “fixated.”  Hadn’t used the word in a while.  Just when I (Andrew) was losing it and telling him to stop crying b/c he just saw Grandma he said while sobbing, “I know daddy, I know, I’m just really fixated on grandma right now. “

We also learned the word emit.  For a few weeks once a day Jack would stop whatever he was doing, pop up and run to the bathroom and say, "Sorry guys, gotta go emit some poop." 

These Kids

These kids crack me up. On our way to Grandma P's this am:

> Madelyn - saying "night night" and closing her eyes and pretending to sleep, complete with snores. Then we'd say "morning Mads" and she's raise her arms up and clap

> Jack - upon arriving to the house and being greeted by an excitable dog "ok, ok, just simmer down now, Jack. Simmer down."

Clearly my blog has suffered lately, but that is certainly not from a shortage of things to write about. Madelyn is 15th months going on 3 years. She is so coordinated - running, "jumping" and doing whatever big brother does all over the place. She says a ton of words and tries to repeat almost every time when asked. She is also VERY sure of what she wants and doesn't want. We've already seemed glimpses of tantrums out of her, and I am legitimately scared for what the future holds in that department. 

Jack is still hysterical and sweet. He just completed a week of vacation bible school and despite telling me he didn't want to go every single morning, I know he had an "aweshome" time. He's had a few weeks of some night time fears that started with a song from the Christmas Toy, but he's found a new friend, Teddy, that helps keep him safe every night. He is still taking gymnastics and has moved into the big kid class and goes all on his own while Grandpa Jim hangs out. We're doing soccer, though we've only had 1 game so far. And he does a really good job riding his bike, and loves going on bike rides around the block 

A Gem

Last night when I got home, Andrew and the kids were in the yard enjoying the 70 degree day. Jack LOVES to play in the car so he was doing that while I was brushing dirt and snot off of Madelyn. When it was time to go in, Andrew was trying to coax Jack out of the car. Jack's response?

"You're wasting your time, Daddy."

Andrew's response?

"You don't talk to Daddy that way."

Who does this kid think he is???? But, I can't stop giggling about it. 

11 Months!

My pretty girl:

Randoms

Jack is quite a character. When he's not causing us to pull our hair out with some 3 year old antics, he is the funniest person we know. A few funnies from the drive over to Grandma P's this morning:

1. Last night he started a new game called "Hotel." It works very similarly to "Restaurant." We check into the hotel, or motel, as he calls it. So this am I said I was taking him to the Mokena Motel for the day. I asked if he knew how to get there:
 J: "Yes. You just go, and then you stop at Starbucks and get a blueberry muffin, and then you turn and go to Grandma's. And then you did it!"

2. My parents had pulled out P's car out so that I could pull our car into the garage when we arrived:
J: "There's Grandma's car so we can get in the garage. How did she know that? Grandma is amazing!"

3. Grandma eating her granola bar this morning.
J: "What are you eating Grandma? A banola bar?"

Catching Up

I've fallen a weeeee bit behind on the blog. I'm not happy about it, it's just really flipping hard to find time to sit down and data dump with these 2 kiddos. So, this will be a gigantic catch up post to bring us up to speed and then promise I'll do better going forward.

Jack turned 3 last month! It can always be a bit annoying when you hear parents give you unsolicited advice on your kids (and I know I'm guilty of doing the same sometimes) but for all those that said 3 is worse than 2, you are so smart. People would look at me like I was crazy when I would say that Jack never had big tantrums or crazy mood swings...and then he turned 3. Like literally on his birthday a switch went off. I blame part of that first week of 3 on the holidays - lots of time home with no activities, too cold to go outside, etc. because since then it's not been as bad. We still have some big struggles sometimes, but the majority of the time our sweet boy is still around :)

He is such a hilarious kid. Every day I could write a page long entry with the crazy things he says. And sweet things. Just this morning I won Mommy of the Year for finding some tissue paper in the basement (tissue paper is used to make garbage to fill up his fleet of garbage trucks at Jack Harold's Garbage Co.) and he said "you're the best mommy in the world. Can I have you for the whole time?"

In addition to playing garbage company, he loves to play movies, and act out every scene of his favorite movies (Cars, Monsters Inc, Bug's Life). His favorite game is still playing chase, and no less than 5 times a week, you can catch the entire Noble family running like crazies around the kitchen. He is still taking gymnastics and has improved SO much! Just yesterday we were at a jump zone place with all these jumpy houses and an obstacle course, and he could do everything and jump without falling all over the place. He also does music glass with Grandma Susan on Wednesday mornings, and library with Grandma P on Thursdays. And, since November he also attends a preschool class at the Methodist Church. He still "cries" when I drop him off, but mostly I think that is because it's his routine, because there are never real tears and he's always done with it by the time I am even out of the building. But, it still stresses me out every week, so I'm really hoping he will cut that out very soon. But it's been so great for him to get some independence and I know he'll do great next year as well.

We went to Disney Jan 7-10th. It was freezing cold and rainy the day at the Magic Kingdom, and Jack had a horrendous cold, but we powered through it and had a great time. Jack was a trooper and waited in line very patiently, and we packed in everything we could in the 10 hours we were there. He met Pluto and Mickey, and saw all the other Mickey characters but didn't want to hug anyone else. He loved Mickey's Philharmonic show, the barnstormer roller coaster, and his favorite was the Magic Carpets. We did that one 4 times I think? He was awesome on both plane rides. On our way out, it was just me and him, and he kept saying throughout that day "I'm so happy to be on this plane with you, Mommy" and "It's just me and you today, Mommy."Super excited for when we can go back with Madelyn and do the whole Disney experience :)

And now for the little girl. Madelyn is 10 months old, though sometimes I think she is about 18 months :( She started crawling mid November, and within a week was pulling up to stand and cruise around things. Here and there she would test herself and take a step or 2 to go from the couch to a toy or something, and just last week she started full on walking. Andrew and I had made a bet back in November on when she would start taking steps - he said Jan 31st and I said Feb 28th. He hit it right on the head! The weekend of Jan 30th she was talking maybe 8-10 steps, and she is now ALL over the place, just a week later. She'll walk circles around the island, change directions, bend down to pick up a toy and continue on, walk with objects in both hands - she's nuts. And she's very aware and controlled with her falls, unlike her brother when he first started walking.

At her 9 month appointment she clocked in at 20lbs and 28inches, which I think was in the 80s somewhere for both. Oh, and so I don't forget, at 3 Jack is 40inches and 37lbs.

Right at 9 months, she finally got her first 2 bottom teeth! Nothing since then, but I think she is working on at least 1 more right now. She can now actually drink water from a sippy, and is starting to self feed little bites of puffs, Mum mums, banana, pancakes, bread, soft apples, and oatmeal.

She is taking 2 naps a day, and going to bed by 7:30pm and up usually between 6-6:30am. Since she cut her teeth, she has been sleeping very well at night. This will change now that I just wrote that. She still has 4 7oz bottles a day, and lunch and dinner with a few bites for breakfast thrown in there from time to time.

She is the sweetest, happiest baby. I seriously could eat her up every second of the day. She has quite a few tricks in her bag these days:

- she jabbers all the time, and puts phones and other objects up to her hear and says something that sounds like a "hello."
- she loves the push car she got for Christmas and loves to be pushed around the house in it. I always say "go! go! go! go!"to her when she's in it, and she can mimic that as well.
- she can do peekaboo with a blanket and do "so big." She used to do a baaa for a sheep, but I've not gotten her to do that one lately.
-The other day we were in her room after her last bottle and she wasn't falling asleep so I started singing "Let it Go"to her. I noticed when I got to the last line, she would raise her arms up all on her own. She consistently does this and it's the most awesome thing.
- she loves to be chased. She picks up speed and squeals when you get close, or she'll lay down on the floor as it to give up and succumb to the tickles sometimes too.
- she loves to feel her hair hit her face, and shakes her head back and forth all the time, especially when she is crawling.

She absolutely LOVES Jack and is interested in every single thing he does. As soon as she sees Jack in the morning she gets the biggest smile and squeals with happiness. Jack does not return the favor. He still struggles a bit with sharing toys and parents with her, but there are also moments when he's very sweet with her. If she's crying, he'll ask what's wrong, or say "I think she wants to see me" and he always includes her in playing movies or chase. He'll come around all the way, I know.

That's a decent update to get back up to speed, right??? Next up, weeding through the thousand of pictures to post from the past 3ish months...

7 month update...almost 3 months later

I STARTED this post back in November. I will be playing catch up on the blog soon...I hope

- She is army crawling all over the place, and will stay up on her knees to take 3-4 crawls before going down to her tummy every once and a while. Won't be long! She is also starting to half pull herself up to things, getting up on her knees in her crib and some toys.
- She is becoming VERY vocal, and I love it! She is always jabbering in the morning in bed with us, and loves to practice yelling and "talking" throughout the day. She seems to think she has some very important things to say :)
- She continues to be very content and can easily entertain herself. She spends most of her days crawling from one toy to another, especially ones that her brother has left scattered around every floor surface in the house. She is always interested in what Jack is doing and what he is playing. If he builds a train track or lego tower - the "Madelyn Monster" will have it in her sights and is quite persistent. But again, take something away from her, and she doesn't make a fuss, it's just on to the next thing.
- She is quite easy to entertain and loves to giggle. Shake a rattle in front of her. Crumple a magazine paper in her face. Crawl your fingers across the carpet towards her. Go on, try it. She'll love it.
-She is taking 4 bottles (26oz) and 2 meals a day. As of a week or so after hitting 7 months, we are done nursing. Ole girl LOVES to eat and is always pretty eager for her food. In the next couple of weeks we'll probably start trying some early finger foods and see how she does with those.
- It would probably help with finger foods if she had some chompers, but still no such luck! Hopefully they don't all sprout up at once.
- Sleep is pretty good these days, but we still have occasional random wake ups in the middle of the night. She's gotten pretty good at wailing if we attempt to just give her the pac back and leave, but that doesn't happen every night.