Dewberry Farm 2013

The original plan for Dewberry Farm was to go later in the month, but when James was given today off, we decided to go ahead and move our plans up by 2 weeks. In the end, I think we all wish we had just waited the extra two weeks. It was hot out. Not just hot, but muggy. A storm rolled in this afternoon and the air got nasty real fast and zapped our energy and enjoyment of what should have been a great trip.

It was so warm the girls had no desire to go on the big slid, swing off of the big haystack, run through the Fort DewHickey or any of the other exciting things to do at the farm that our entrance fee gave us access to. Cadence did swing a little and the girls held my hand as I dragged them through the barn to look at the pigs, rabbits and baby chicks. I was looking forward to doing the corn maze this year, but there was no way I wanted to go in there and have even the occasional breeze blocked off. Poor Connor was extremely uncomfortable in the stroller, even though we poured water down the back of his shirt to help him cool off.

In the end, we used a coupon to get the girls rights to 2 souvenir cups they could fill with wildflowers. James walked them through the field to pick out their flowers. Then we opted to walk to the pumpkin field rather than wait for a seat on the overcrowded hay wagon and its mini-tour of the Christmas tree lots. Patience faded quickly as we all got overheated on the short trek and we were back in the car and on the road not much later. We ran into the storm (the source of the mugginess) halfway home, and it lasted long enough for all of us to cool off a bit.

Unfortunately, I left the sunscreen at home, sitting on the counter and it seems Connor has inherited his dad's skin (my fingers are still crossed I got my little freckle-faced redhead after all!) and both boys came home with a mild sunburn. I'll be more vigilant next time (like our zoo boo trip next week)

She's a Writer, not a Reader

Cadence has known her letters since she was 2, so admittedly I'm a little surprised she's nearly 5 and has shown no interest in the reading I've tried to encourage her to do. Try to get her to sound out words and her eyes glaze over.

I recently realized I've been approaching it all wrong with her. This realization came when she brought a piece of paper over to me. It had been covered with drawings and letters. She settled next to me with her pencil and paper and asked me how to spell "lips". I took a closer look at her paper and realized she had written the 4 words we've used in preschool (Each week, we have a simple sight word, "cat", "bed", "ant" and "dog"). She had written each of the words and drawn an appropriate picture. She had also written her own name and a picture. Then written "BRAVE" and "GISNEY" (with lots of loops, just like the Disney logo).

Something suddenly clicked in my head. Cadence doesn't have the patience or motivation to sit and learn how to read words on the page, but she does have the patience to sit down and sound them out with me to write them.

So, I coached her through the word "lips" by sounding it out with her. Then through the word "doll" and a handful of other words before Connor demanded my attention.

I'll make a reader of her yet. But first, I'm going to make a writer out of her.

Cadence's Coloring Book (Megan, too)

Due to Cadence's love of drawing, I tend to actually toss 99% of her art. In my defense, she can (and has) fill a 70-page notebook with drawings and letters in a single weekend if given free reign. However, I do want to preserve and show off her talent, so I scanned in a few of her recent ones, plus one I could find that Megan had drawn (that Cadence didn't take over and "improve"). So, here you go:

My Little Pony. If you're a Brony like me, see if you can name them all!

She drew the tree, then the girl, then the rain. I'm not 100% sure what the multi-colored thing is supposed to be.

A MLP she created herself and a rainbow and sparkly grass, as described by Cadence. She drew this one for Megan and hung it on the wall.

Megan's developing skill. Two princesses. She picks up a lot of ideas (like the skirts) from Cadence's drawing, but makes them her own.

6 month stats- Connor

Half a year and Chunky Charlie has almost doubled his birth weight. He weighed in at a studly 18lbs 3.5oz, which is larger than both of his sisters at 9 months old (and also heavier than his youngest sister at age 1). Just like his sisters, he dropped a percentile group. Now instead of being just over the 75th percentile line for weight, he's under it, though again, just barely, so maybe 70th percentile total. Keep in mind, this is adjusted for breastfed babies, who tend to not gain weight as quickly as babies on formula.

He's also managed to lengthen out. In fact, his height today was 27.5", which put him just under the 90th percentile line, but well over the 75th. At his 4 month check-up, he was just under the 75th percentile line, so he's gone up almost a full percentile group.

Part of me does wonder if he's acquired a new leanness due to his increased activity now that he's mobile. Both girls dropped percentiles around the same age, and were mobile around the same age. In fact, with Connor, at his last few check-ups his weight was a higher percentile than his height, and now it's reversed. Just last week I held up Connor and commented on how much leaner he looked while talking to James. The only explanation I have is that he's fully mobile now (which seemed to surprise his pediatrician at our check-up).

Anyway, getting little reminders that my baby is not a baby for much longer. The doctor gave me permission to give up a few ounces of juice in a cup to help him learn. I'm also supposed to start him on vitamin drops with flouride (at least until he drinks water more regularly). On top of that, I'm now encouraged to give him table foods, rather than being told "well, if you want to, you can start, but..." As if that wasn't enough of a reminder, his new convertible, big-boy carseat is on a FedEx truck to be delivered this afternoon.

*sniffles* He's getting too big.

I should add that the girls got their flu vaccines while we were there. It seemed silly to wait until November when flu season will be here before then and we were already there. The girls weren't exactly thrilled, but Cadence did really well other than some initial nervousness about having something shoved up her nose. Megan hated it and cried while we waited, but once she was there it went more or less okay. Poor Connor had four vaccines and the flu shot (one vaccine was oral, the flu shot was not). So he got four pricks and I've got to take him in next month for a follow-up flu vaccine. So, we'll be going to the doctor once a month for the rest of the year: October for the follow-up flu shot, November for the girls' annual check-ups, and December for Connor's 9 months. Busy, busy, busy!

Swimming!!!

Our last swimming lesson was today. There's another lesson tomorrow, but because James has a workshop thing to do for work, it was just going to be 100x easier to skip tomorrow and let him drive himself. So, today was it. The girls have been having a blast the last 3 weeks and I think we'll all be a little sad to have no more lessons, but at the same time, getting up at 5:30 3x a week has already gotten old and I'm ready to just be getting up the kids up that early only 2x a week from now on.

Anyway, I'm no expert, but the girls are doing worlds better. No, they're not swimming, they're not even floating. Megan still fights getting water in her ears. However, they're more comfortable in the water, which was my entire reason for taking them. Their teacher has said she's hoping to do another series of lessons before summer starts and I'll for sure make room in our schedule for it again so we can brush up on those skills before pool season begins.

So, here's a few pictures from our last day of lessons. I blurred out their teacher's face, since I don't want to be posting her face all over the internet without her permission, but I couldn't very well get pictures of the girls swimming without her in them, so... Here we go. 

The girls waiting their turn for their one-on-one turn to practice the new skill

Megan "floating" and doing her best to keep water out of her ears.

Cadence did well with her floating, she just got a little tense when not being obviously supported by the teacher. She, too, had issues with her ears in the water, though not as extreme as Megan.

She constantly gripped the edge and would step off the bench to let her legs float beneath her. She thinks buoyancy is fun.

Megan playing at the side of the pool (beautiful shot, IMO)

Cadence kicking her legs and "blowing bubbles" to practice floating/swimming on her belly.

Waiting at the steps after they had jumped off the edge of the pool to the teacher, who let them get in over their heads for a moment before pulling them up and encouraging them to immediately orient themselves and "swim" to the step. The lesson always ended with them fetching the rings from underwater, just low enough they had to get their chins in the water and blow bubbles to reach.

Connor and I chilling at the edge of the pool as we cheer on our little swimmers.

Here a little, there a little

I have yet to take any pictures during swim practice (fingers crossed I get the chance to do so tomorrow, it will depend on Connor's mood). However, here area few pictures to tide you over. :-)

In a quick catch-up, preschool is going well. The novelty has begun to wear off, but the girls are learning and retaining. This Thursday we'll be going to a health museum to match our "science lesson" about how awesome the human body is (for what it's worth, the lesson sucked, but I imagine the health museum will be a blast). Megan is noticeably improving with her fine motor skills and showing definite signs of being a lefty. Cadence is actually struggling a bit because she's been self-taught for so long that she's having a hard time with the formality, but she's excelling performance wise and taking direction well. The problem is she completes the work in 1/3 of the time it takes Megan, so she has a lot of downtime.

Connor cut his second tooth in record time this morning. When I peeked at his gums upon waking, there was nothing to see. At lunchtime, I noticed a solid tooth bud and when I checked again twenty minutes later, it had cut through. On the plus side, with both lower teeth in, we should have at least a month of nothing before the top ones start cutting. He's also extremely mobile now and can be halfway across the living room in the time it takes me to blink. We have his six month check-up next Tuesday, so we'll see how big he's gotten, though most in-town friends estimate him to be about 20lbs by now (considering he was only 16.5 2 months ago, I'm not sure he's that big yet)

I'm also super excited because we've recently decided on a Halloween costume for him and if we can get all the components together, it's going to be super cute (the most important component being taken care of by his grandma!). The girls have also selected their costumes, but their's are store-bought already put together, so no concerns there, though I will need leggings for both of them.

One last update/note, I got an awesome deal on an electric keyboard, with piano-weighted keys (muy importante). Once the keyboard stand and sustain pedal I ordered arrive, I'm excited to start playing again. I was never very good, but it's something I enjoy. The girls and I already spent an hour yesterday printing sheet music to some of their favorite church songs so I could attempt to play them. Their eyes just lit up when I first pulled out our Friend magazine and began playing "A Child's Prayer" and they realized what this new toy was capable of. The best moment was when Cadence sat next to me softly singing along, kicking her little legs and smiling (tears to me eyes, I swear). Next, they sat next to me and instructed me to sing while they "played the song". Oh yes, it's going to be an awesome addition to our home. Eventually I'd like to get an actual piano, but since we're still moving around, a quality keyboard is the next best thing.

Preschool & Swimming Lessons

The school year has begun and so have we! Our schedule got thrown for a loop on our very first day. I planned to start on Monday, completely forgetting it was a holiday, so I rearranged plans to fit into the new 4-day week. Then, a woman from the ward offered preschool-age swimming lessons for a few weeks and I scrambled to rearrange my schedule once more to allow for the 3 weeks of 3x/week lessons. Conveniently, I already had plans for an interrupted schedule on Wednesdays and Fridays (story time and grocery shopping days, respectively), but Monday had to be altered and all those lessons had to be shifted.

However, the new temporary schedule is in place.  Yesterday was more or less a miss in terms of following the schedule, but that was because I didn't get around to re-working the schedule until yesterday afternoon. We did get about an hour of working together on letters and shapes and it did give me a good insight as to the capabilities of each of the girls moving forward. For example, Cadence, my little budding artist, can trace and write like the almost-kindergarten-aged child she is. Megan, however, is much younger and not so advanced in her fine motor skills, and has difficulty tracing even a straight line. She's also still ambidextrous and is starting to favor her left hand, but this could be the natural ambidextrous tendencies from the lack of refined fine motor skills (a preference is often only shown as the fine motor skills improve).

Today went better. We spent about 45 minutes doing "paperwork", before we moved on to some ribbon dancing to classical music (to make up for no swim lessons) and geometric shape puzzles (you know, the yellow hexagons and blue parallelograms made into flowers and fish shapes). Tomorrow will be our first "full day", complete with a lesson about magnets, an art project, and a "journal page" (where they write the word of the week and draw a picture).

As for swimming, we haven't started the actual lessons yet. Yesterday was just for the teacher to evaluate their current ability. As expected, both girls are in the "beginner" class. Cadence did surprisingly well. She didn't swim, but she took to the water better than I expected and did her best to do what was asked of her. Megan took a little longer to warm up to the idea and only did the exercises because I bribed her. They paddled and kicked and tried to float while supported by the teacher.

Our first lesson was supposed to be today, but Connor and Cadence went to bed with stuffy noses and a dry cough and woke up with mild fevers. Thankfully, the cold seems to be a minor one, but I chose to keep all the kids home, let them sleep in, and relax for the day so we can be in good health for the next lesson on Friday! I will hopefully have pictures to be included later once they've advanced enough for me to make another brag post, I mean blog post. ;-)

Mustache

  

Do these pictures really need me to elaborate? :-P

5 months!

The summer is nearly over and Connor is now 5 months old. Sometimes, it feels like the last few months have whizzed by. Other times, it feels like forever, because of the whole cliche "I can't imagine life without Connor" thing. Our family really does feel complete with this spunky little boy in our midst. :-)

5-months old and developing quite a personality. He's so ready to be independent and now that he's 5 months old, I need to seriously look into baby proofing everything! For example, I should probably move the DVDs off of ground level...

He's getting so big. The girls stayed smaller for so long I kind of took it for granted, but Connor's already outgrowing his infant seat. He's wearing jeans his sisters wore at 1 year old (yes, he's wearing girl jeans) and pajamas Megan wore until she was nearly 2. He's not abnormally large, it's just odd to me to have a kid fitting into clothes that are actually marked for his age. At 5 months, he's slipping right into 6/9 month clothes, but still fitting some 3/6 month clothes. So, I guess he's right on track. But everyone who sees him comments on how big he is! No updated stats until next month, though.

He's beginning to want to master skills, which is a milestone of sorts. He can sit up by himself for a few seconds, but if he get excited (which he does easily), he'll topple over. Slowly but surely mastering the tripod skill, though most of his sitting is him bent practically in half (the tripod skill is advanced so not expecting mastery for a few more months). He's attempting to fly to toys out of reach, by lifting his arms and legs while on his belly. He's perfected the form over the past month or so, but has yet to levitate. I suspect in the next month or two, he'll give up on trying to fly and attempt crawling instead.

He's pretty laidback, as I've said many times before, but as he grows more aware of the world around him, he's beginning to get frustrated with his lack of ability. He's wanting to be held more often so he can move around with a little more freedom and sit up easier. When I hold him, he wants to grab everything I have. Thankfully, he's able to sleep through just about anything, which means when I put him to sleep during senior primary, he'll sleep through their noisy singing time. He's a great sleeper, as good as Cadence was. At 5 months not only does he sleep through the night (8pm to 7am), but he puts himself to sleep at night, too! He has had a few rough nights, but most of the time I can put him down in his crib and if he hasn't slept recently, he'll roll over and put himself down. Just the other night, the girls woke him up about 40 minutes into bedtime, but he put himself down again. I was thrilled. And he wakes up in a good mood, too. He and Cadence will chat and play while I take my sweet time dragging my lazy butt out of bed.

 He looks way too old in this picture. He almost looks like a kid!

Also, while he loved the orange vegetables, like carrots, squash and sweet potatoes. When I attempted to trick him and move toward the greens with a peas & carrots purree, he very clearly disliked it. Poor boy was gagging on every bite. We gave up after only a few, lol.

So, what've you been up to?

All remains quiet in the Smith household. There are pros and cons to that. The biggest pro is there's pretty much nothing to stress about. The con is there's pretty much nothing to talk about. In a few weeks we start our "preschool", which I'm looking forward to. It's only a few hours 3x a week, but add in story time at the library once a week and trips to the museum or park every other week and we'll be pleasantly busy, though still with very little to blog about.

Connor is only a week shy of being 5 months old and getting quite a personality on him. As social as Megan was, Connor is twice that and gets fussy if left on his own for too long. He's so ready to be sitting and standing and gets mad when it doesn't work the way he wants. He hates how much his carseat reclines and it's not uncommon to peek back and see him holding his head up so its perpendicular to the car floor. His favorite toy is a slightly-squished water bottle, so we have a few laying around the house to be handed to him whenever we see one. I used to roll my eyes at people who tell me "boys are more difficult" and wonder if they'd even met my girls (and those that do know my darling girls well enough have backed me up on this, so I never second-guessed my eye-rolling tendencies). Now, however, I'm beginning to fear this may be very true. Only time will tell. And my only saving grace may be that there is only one of him to handle when he gets to that really difficult age, since he'll be 2 1/2 when Megan starts kindergarten.

Cadence and Megan... I almost can't even think of them as a separate entity some days. Love them individually, but they're paired together in my head more often than not, which is most unfortunate for Megan who is 3 1/2 and often chastised for not acting 4 1/2. Though I have recognized that many of Megan's current behavior issues are ones we just outgrew with Cadence, so I do see the age difference, even if I don't automatically acknowledge it.

Anyway, their days are spent with books, princess dolls, and crayons (though they've lost access to crayons recently due to pictures appearing on my walls again). Ever since mastering the computer, they want to play "the game on the computer", aka Starfall.com, every chance they get. I need to get some more games for them to play. I've already decided to incorporate "screen time" into our preschool week. Only once a week, but in this day and age, being able to manipulate technology is going to be an important skill, so... I'm even hoping to pick up a tablet for my birthday, with the secondary intention of having a slew of learning apps for them to play as well as the laptop, so they don't have to share.

I'm realizing that Cadence is probably mentally ready to start school, if not quite emotionally ready to be away from me. She's begun asking questions, becoming very aware that there is more to the world than she immediately knows. I keep wanting to tell her "slow down! we're going to start learning that in just a few weeks!" We're either going to butt heads as I attempt to get her to sit down and really learn her letters, or she's going to love it and we're going to have a great time. Or, more than likely, both depending on hers or my mood. Megan, of course, will be happy to do whatever we're doing, which is good. I feel like she's so behind where her sister was at the same age, mostly because I didn't encourage it with her than way I did with Cadence (who I would quiz about her letters as soon as I realized she was learning them). She's smart, though, so she should pick up on it. And if she doesn't get it right away, she'll get a 2nd helping of it next year when we repeat in anticipation of her kindergarten year.

Other than that, we're looking into moving soon, but not too soon. We're thinking around Feb/March and hoping to find something in a specific neighborhood. Unfortunately, in our preferred neighborhood, their cheaper rentals are at the top of our price range and barely at that. Our fingers and toes are crossed that something turns up in the Feb-May range, or we'll have to consider other options. We're also hoping to get a second vehicle. Those two things are, of course, made more difficult as we attempt to also save for our trip to California in November.

Also, I received a new calling in church a couple weeks ago. My first "real calling" as I've jokingly been calling it. After being a primary teacher for most of the past decade, I've moved on to primary secretary. And in my second week in the position, I had to spend all day walking the halls and asking kids questions to put the primary program together, which is only a month away. Yikes!