In Between the Big Things...

June 2013

 

So I'm taking a little bit of a break from blogging about what we've done, just to focus on the kiddos.  I don't want to take so much time writing about what we do that I forget the little everyday things. 

 

Olivia

At 13 months, Miss Olivia's personality is really starting to shine.  She absolutely loves books and won't let Mommy or Daddy put her to bed without one.  Her current favorites are Goodnight Moon (she especially loves pointing out the bunny in the bed), any Sandra Boynton book (Moo, Baa, La, La, La and Red Hat, Green Hat are particular favorites), and Olivia and the Puppy Wedding (starring Olivia the Pig).  

 

She is much more of a Mama's girl than Jack ever was, but she especially loves her big brother, who adores her as well.  She loves to eat - spaghetti, teddy grahams and blueberries are a few of her favorites, along with anything anyone else is eating at the moment.  She's starting to talk more often and will try to say anything that begins with a B - favorites being book and baba (her bottle/sippy cup).  Probably because of my efforts to make sure she said Mama before Dada, she now says Mama and points at herself, copying, I imagine, the many times I would point at myself and say the same thing.  Ha!

 

Like her brother, she seems to have picked up her Daddy's love of music and dancing.  I really hope this sticks with them as they grow up - I always wanted to be able to dance without feeling like a fish out of water!

 

She's been pretty healthy so far, other than a double case of the hand, foot and mouth virus (which you are only supposed to get once), and a moderate case of excema that caused her cheeks to turn bright red and scaly.  Fortunately, Dr. Le prescribed a gel for her face that makes the redness and dryness go away within just a few hours.  This winter, when the cold weather came back, so did her excema, so I was so glad to have something that helps so much.

 

Jack 

My happy, goofy, bright little boy.  He still loves Spiderman and superheroes, but his focus is definitely starting to shift to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  He also loves Bubble Guppies and Monsters, Inc.  He can type in the password to unlock the iPad, find Netflix and select the show of his choice.  When Grandma and Grandpa were in town in June, Grandpa and Mommy took Jack to his third theater movie ever - Monsters University.  Grandpa even bought him popcorn and he had a big time!

While he loves his movies and shows, he also loves to be active.  We signed him up for Touchdown Tots at school, where he learned the basics of football, teamwork, and athletics in general.  Football wouldn't be my first pick as a sport for him, but this program was really more of an exercise and teamwork class, which he loved.  I must admit I'm really hoping he decides he likes soccer or baseball better!  He also took his third set of swim lessons at Emler over the summer.  I took lots of cute pictures of him at his last lesson - one with him holding his ribbon and a video of his last swim, all lost in the phone wipe-out :(.  These lessons focused on starting to teach him how to take breaths while swimming.  By the time the lessons ended, he could swim 15-20 feet by himself taking a breath in between and loved to slide down the big slide at the end of lessons!

 

He has also really taken a liking to coloring and gotten suprisingly good at coloring within the lines. I love the focus on his face when he gets out his big box of markers and sits down at his little table with his coloring books - Spiderman, Bubble Guppies and Ninja Turtles, of course.  But you know, a 3 1/2 year-old boy can't always color in the lines.  I picked him up from school one day and found this:

Luckily, the markers were washable!!

 

I'll close with a few pictuers of Jack and Olivia together.  It is really fun to see them start playing together, even if it does sometimes end up like this:

 

They were both having a ball, I promise!

 

Finally, my little Longhorns.  I don't know if they will grow up sharing their parents love for the University of Texas, but for now, I can teach them to sing them the Eyes of Texas and Hook 'Em Horns and they wear their burnt Orange with pride!