1st Day of Preschool

Kaitlyn has her first official day of preschool today. I can't believe my little baby girl is growing up so fast!! She has been SO excited about preschool ever since we got back from Snoopy Day. It's all she could talk about this morning. She was also excited to carry her very own Dora lunchbox. I fully expected tears at drop-off this morning, but she went willingly with her teacher with no protest whatsoever. I think her curiosity and excitement outweighed her fears!

Snoopy Day

Today Kaitlyn got to visit her preschool classroom and "snoop" around on Snoopy Day. We had talked up preschool quite a bit, so she was pretty excited when we walked in. There were a few tears when we left her to go attend the parents' meeting, but her teacher said they only lasted a few minutes. Let's hope the same is true when I drop her off on her first "official" day next week!

I think Kaitlyn already likes Miss Sarah and Miss Sheryl! They're both so great with kids!!

With Daddy in front of the "Snoopy" welcome

With her buddy Austin from church

Coming in from the playground with one of her teachers.

Preschool may be fun, but nothing beats seeing Mommy again :) She's running into my arms after coming in from the playground. I'm going to miss her next week!!

It was actually a little hard to pry her away from all the fun things to explore. My little shy girl is getting braver every day!!

Ethan at 5 months

Ethan is 5 months old today. He's starting to sit up on his own for longer periods and he loves his feet. Normally he's kicking them nonstop, but he decided to just hold them in this picture.

Transitions

Big changes in our house the last month or so...

(1) Kaitlyn is in a "big girl" bed. For the first four months of his life, Ethan slept in the bassinet on his Pack-n-Play while Kaitlyn stayed in her crib. But as he kept growing...and growing...the bassinet started to sag under his weight. So about a month ago, I decided that it was time for a change. We disassembled Kaitlyn's crib and put up a new "big girl" bed in her room, complete with Dora sheets. She has loved it from the very beginning. She's done very well at staying put for naps and bedtime. I haven't taken a picture yet of her new bed and quilt, but I'll post it when I do.

(2) And Ethan is finally in a crib! After a few days of Kaitlyn being in her new bed, we reassembled the crib in Ethan's room. Finally, a firm mattress with no sagging spots! He, of course, never even noticed the difference and slept like an angel in his new bed. And I finally got to use the cute fish mobile that wouldn't attach to the pack-n-play.

(3) Kaitlyn's first hair cut. She's 2 years old and has never had her hair cut, until now! After seeing this picture below, I decided it was time to do away with the wild-child hair.

We went to Snip-Its, a very kid-friendly place. True to form, she started crying when we put her in the chair, but a video, a lollipop and some bubbles helped with that. I didn't get a great "after" picture, but I did manage to save a lock of hair :)

During the haircut--notice the apprehension!


After--still clutching the all-important lollipop

(4) Ethan's eating cereal. He wasn't too sure about it for the first couple of days, but now he is a voracious eater. Green beans coming soon!

(5) Kaitlyn's using the big girl potty. She's been using the potty for almost three weeks. Those first few days were pretty rough. I put her in underwear almost from the very beginning so there were lots of accidents to clean up. But then on Day 4 or 5, something clicked with her and she started doing a lot better. She's wearing big girl underwear at home (Dora, of course!) and has stayed dry at home for over a week. I haven't been brave enough to put her in underwear for naps or when we leave the house. But that's coming soon.

The next big event: Kaitlyn starts preschool next week!

Ethan 3 month pictures

Jeff took these pictures of Ethan about a month ago, and I'm just now getting around to posting them. Better late than never!

Below is a picture of Kaitlyn at the same age and in (mostly) the same pose. Two bald babies!

A Busy Weekend

I guess I'm making up for lost time with three posts in a week! The weather this weekend was beautiful and we couldn't bear to stay inside. So here's a little recap of our fun-filled weekend.

On Friday, Jeff was playing at a local restaurant. His gigs usually start pretty late, well past the kids' bedtimes. But this one started at 6 pm, so I was able to take Kaitlyn and Ethan to watch their daddy play guitar. That's all Kaitlyn could talk about during the car ride over there. We sat right in front of the stage. Lest anyone worry about potential hearing loss, it was a restaurant and people were eating, so it wasn't too loud...and it was more of an acoustic set, not his usual rocking out. Anyway, Kaitlyn was fascinated and kept pointing to Jeff on the stage and saying "Hi Daddy." Her face lit up when he gave her a shout out from the stage :) Here's a sweet picture of Kaitlyn and her hero.

On Saturday, we took advantage of a free event at the nearby local agricultural center. They had farm animals available for the kids to pet. Normally Kaitlyn is a little reserved in new situations and has to be coaxed to try something new. But she marched right up to the horses and started petting them. She even put her hand right up to their mouths and fed them. She's still talking about the "big horsie" and the "little horsie." Guess she's not shy around animals.

Then we moved on to sheep. It wasn't long before she was instructing the sheep to "come over here and eat!"

After going back home for naps (all four of us managed to nap at the same time! A miracle!), we headed downtown for more outdoor adventure. Kaitlyn has a particular passion for "downtown." She usually asks several times a day to "go downtown and see tall buildings." She even likes to replicate downtown with her building blocks and pretend that her toys are going downtown. So we went to the fountains at Bicentennial Mall. She loved splashing in the runoff stream from the fountains, but didn't care for the fountains themselves. Somehow she managed to stay mostly dry amid the shooting streams of water.

And she got a special treat when a train went by. Here's a picture of her standing in front of the tracks. She loves trains.

The only way she would run through the fountains is if Daddy ran with her. I think Jeff got wetter than she did!

Ethan was hanging out in his stroller for most of the time, but he did get to enjoy some views too. Here he is checking out the fountains.

Ethan and Mommy in front of the state capitol.

Ethan at 4 months...

Ethan had his 4 month check-up this morning. He weighs a whopping 19 pounds and 2 ounces. No wonder my arm feels like it's about to fall off when I carry him in his car seat! For comparison, Kaitlyn was 17 pounds at 4 months, and everyone thought she was a big baby. He is 27.25 inches long and is 97th percentile in everything. He has started rolling over from back to front and loves to kick his arms and legs wildly when in his bouncy seat or on the floor. He's not sitting on his own yet, but he loves to sit up when supported. (The picture above was taken about 3 seconds before he started slowly tipping over.) And he will be starting on some yummy rice cereal soon.

And just for fun...the other three months as well!

Catching Up...

The past two months have been a whirlwind of activity for me. I taught a course at Lipscomb in May, two courses in June and a teacher's workshop last week. I was working very long hours each day, so the blog had to fall by the wayside for a time. But now all of my summer activities are over and I finally get to be at home during the day! So here's what we've been up to lately...

Kasha has been inside more since it's been hot. And Kaitlyn loves it. Here is a picture of Kaitlyn "hugging" Kasha. I'm sure Kasha would rather be anywhere else, but she's a patient dog. Sometimes I take pity on her (Kasha) and put her in her crate during the day so that she can have some peace and quiet.

Since our neighborhood doesn't have a pool, we have to improvise. She loves "Hermie" the water caterpillar. Actually, I should say she loves the idea of him. When his arms are flailing and shooting water everywhere, she runs away. It takes lots of coaxing to get her close enough to get wet. But she's laughing the whole time whether she's getting wet or not, so I guess she's having fun.

We had our annual trip to downtown to watch the sunset on the longest day of the year. It's so much more fun now that Kaitlyn can explore. She loves "downtown" and talks about it frequently. Actually anything with tall buildings is "downtown" to her. From the Capitol, she was able to see the trains and explore lots of interesting statues and flowers. Ethan slept most of the time :)

Daddy explaining things to her as she listens intently.

For the 4th of July weekend Jess, Adam and Noah came to visit. Since all of the kids/grandkids were going to be in one place, Mimi and Papa paid us a surprise visit too. Unfortunately rain ruined our plans to see the downtown fireworks, but we caught the tail end of the Brentwood show. For some reason, Ethan (our happy-smiley baby) was in a bad mood most of the day...probably too many people around and getting off schedule. So the attempt to get a picture of all three grandkids did not go well. Noah and Kaitlyn are trying to figure out what's going on with Ethan! Noah, get used to babies crying!!!

Kaitlyn finally had someone to sit on the other side of her glider.

Kaitlyn's one request every single day is to go outside and "Swing high!" Papa was all too happy to oblige. Notice the absolute glee on her face.

We also got to spend some time at a friend's pool during that weekend. There was a kiddie pool that was perfect to get used to water again. She hasn't been swimming since last summer.

I was a little nervous that she would need some time to warm up to the idea of the big pool, but when I took her in, she loved it immediately. So we put on her swim vest and started giving her some informal "lessons." By the end of the afternoon, she was putting her face in the water and blowing bubbles, and she was jumping off the side of the pool into our arms. And she didn't seem bothered at all when her head went under water. Maybe swim lessons are in our future next summer.

More pictures of Ethan coming soon...

5 years

Yesterday, Jeff and I celebrated 5 wonderful years of marriage. Our lives are full of so much joy!

Bridges

This weekend, we headed out to East Nashville to check out the recently constructed pedestrian bridge across the Cumberland River near the Opry Mills area. We had lots of fun exploring the bridge, watching stuff float down the river and walking through some tunnels to get there. Ethan was asleep the whole time so I didn't get any pictures of him. But here are some pictures of Kaitlyn in her cute little seersucker outfit.