Happy Easter!

It was sort of an insane weekend, but we managed to squeeze in all the essentials!  We dyed eggs on Saturday morning -

The Easter bunny came between church and leaving for Easter dinner

I think all 3 kids had a nice Easter!

Toby has decided he should start wearing more ties to school so he can be more like Daddy - after all, school is his "job"!  LOL!  Love it!  Toby and Lucy are both on Spring Break this week, and Curtis took the whole week off, so we are having a Stay-cation and getting some things done around the house - as soon as we've recovered from the weekend! 

Up this week: Housecleaning, building a raised bed garden (and getting dirt, and hopefully planting peas!), catching up on some runs, and hopefully welcoming spring!

Whoa, 9 Months?

Yes, that is a question. Where has time gone? In no time, Jay-Bird is 9 months!  We're starting to peek around the corner at that one year mark...and it's a scary milestone!  Not sure I'm ready to really say goodbye to babyhood forever (and yet, I am, I SO am, no hidden messages, just nostalgia)

We did his 9 month pictures today, because frankly I forgot yesterday.  We've had a run of bad nights around here.

This is how we ended the shoot.  He's definitely mobile now!

And he managed to rip his sticker off right away.  Smart little booger!

He's cruising proficiently now and crawling like a champ...he's very fast, and faster when he knows he's about to reach some super desireable object he's not allowed to have - like the dog bowl.  Lucky for us, he laughs hysterically when he gets close, so we get a heads up :)  When he learned to crawl and cruise he quit talking for a few weeks, but is back to his babababaaaaa now...no other consonants yet, but I'm sure they're coming.  His fine motor skills are improving as well - he is able to grasp small pieces of food and self feed cheerios and puffs, and he started clapping last week.  His absolute favorite game is chasing balls or balloons around the room - he spends the better part of his days in this pursuit.  And chasing the dog.  He loves the dog.

Sleep is still bad, but we're employing some strategies to hopefully improve that situation.  Will have to update that one in the future.

It;s snowing.  Again. 

Swim Class

Lucy's been back in swim class this month - and she asked to learn to dive!  She is old enough for swim team this summer, so they've been teaching her skills to prep her for that - oh yeah, she was the only kid signed up for her time slot!  So its pretty much private lessons this month.  Lucky lucky girl!

She's been learning a lot of strokes this session too - breaststroke and butterfly are her two new ones, she is great at the backstroke already.  I have no idea what we'll be getting into with the swim team stuff so it should make for an interesting summer!

Happy Birthday Toby!

I can't believe that it was just 7 years ago I had my first baby! While much has happened in 7 years, it still seems so recent that we had him! I so clearly remember that labor - the longest and hardest by far of the three, and those first weeks at home - well, I don't remember so much about them!

In 7 years he has matured and grown so much, into my big first grader who always has a smile and a helping hand, loves to cuddle and make me laugh, and always has something to say!

The lucky duck had 5 inches of snow for his birthday, AND a snow day, AND a snow day for Daddy to stay home and play for him!  I'm not sure any of his presents can top that!

They played in the snow for 2 hours this morning!

His birthday is themed Lego Batman this year - these are the sugar cookies that should have gone in to school this morning but will go tomorrow instead!

I think this was his favorite present - he's been asking for one for a long time!

Lex seriously photobombed 75% of the pictures.  Silly dog.

We had dinner out at Steak and Shake tonight, the kids loved their milkshakes!  He'll have his party on Saturday - after this snow, we're looking forward to some Springy 50 degree weather!

Sleepy Jay

He loves his Bath!

He can really crawl, but I guess he got so excited at the thought of a bath that he lost his ability to think through the crawl and reverted to the scoot. 

He gets really perturbed if you let him get all the way to the tub then take him back to the room for bed :P

First Grade: The Inside Story

So this morning, Toby's friend was over to catch the bus with us and I overheard this little gem of a conversation -

C: Toby, I know your secret.
T: No you don't!
C: Yes I do - Christy is your girlfriend!
T: I have lots of girl friends!  I know Christy and Avary and Paisley and Ava and Olivia and (and so on, naming all the girls he knows)

I was amused, especially that he doesn't discern between a girlfriend and girl friend, and I have to admit, a bit happy that he hasn't encountered those situations at school yet.

Or maybe he's just so dense that he doesn't know what is going on around him.

When he came home from school he brought home a sweet little book - see, last week he was the VIP of the class (each student gets a week), and as part of that all the kids wrote him a letter and today he brought home a little bound book with all the letters from his classmates.  I have to say, I melted a little when I saw it - I mean, really, how sweet is that?  And what a fun insight into his classmates' minds!

So a few excerpts:

"Your the best Toby.  You are good at math.  You are six or seven."  [I'm not sure if he's the best Toby she knows, or just the best, period]

 "I like when you are qwite (quiet)"  [LOL, the real story emerges!]

 "You are asom" [What is so endearing about 1st grade spelling?  I love it!]

 "You are very cute."  [Hm, I thought there was no boyfriend-girlfriend thing going on?]

"What are you doing tomorrow?  Will you come to my house?"  [This from another girl]

And then the kicker.  Miss Christy writes, "Thank you for being my boy friend."  Either the boy is completely oblivious or he's holding out on me...and as a mother I have to admit...he might be clueless.  LOL. 

Overall most students admire his tag playing ability and his shoes (brand spanking new last week and very bright orange and lime green).  The letters were so fun to read and Toby's grin was practically ear to ear as we read the letters - it meant so much to him to hear the nice things his class had to say.  How could this not be the highlight of my week?