Rowan: 3 yrs. 8 mo.

Rowan finished up her swim lessons last week, and today she started her 2nd year of Pre-school.  Since we had signed up the kids for Kids Village, and could not get our money back, they worked it out with us for the kids to attend for the month of August.  So Rowan is going to Kids Village MWF with Miss Korbi, and will go to her new school, Avondale, T and TH with Mrs. Ashdown.  It will be a crazy 2 weeks for sure!!  She loves to wear dresses now, and insisted on wearing one to her first day of school.  One of the cute words she made up over the summer is 'Pumper'.  I got them a suitcase to use for sleepovers at Grandma's house, and she decided it should be called 'Pumper' because the handle goes up and down.  We thought it was so cute we decided to keep calling it that.  Another word she says is Ibuprofie, for Ibuprofin.  There have been some other words too, but I will have to add them later since I can't remember them all.  So back to her swimming...for her age she did pretty well.  She is pretty stubborn and wants to go at her pace, and do her own thing, so it was a bit of a slow process.  She did learn to go under the water, and do some of the breathing, so that in itself is a great improvement.  She used to hate to get her face wet, but now she is really comfortable with it.  She got to go to a bunch of splash pads over the summer, and really was great with getting splashed on.  When I was let go at work, Rowan tended to get up pretty early in the morning, and she would sit on the top of the stairs and yell 'I want to get dressed now'.  It was pretty frustrating because she would often wake up Liam, who liked to sleep in.  After several weeks, we finally convinced her to come down the stairs quietly, and hang out with us in our room.  Another great improvement that happened in the last week, is she has decided to try some new foods!  In one week she tried 'Szechuan Tempeh', 'Eggplant Parmesan', 'Southern Stir Fry Pasta', 'Sloppy Joes' and Corn on the Cob....she decided that she loved all the new foods...Who knows how long this will last, but we were very surprised and happy about her willingness to try new things!  She has made a new friend this summer, named Meika, who is a little girl of one of my past co-workers.  They don't have many friends around here the same age, so we decided to get them together for play dates.  It has been fun, and hope to continue it over the school year too.  Anyway, I look forward to picking her up from her first day, and hearing all about it.

Liam: 5 yrs. 7 mo.

Been a long while since my last update on Liam, and lots of changes too. Not only with him, but also with our lives.  He has finished his 3rd year of preschool, and is reading so well!  He is also starting to do math in his head.  I keep telling him he has his dad's math brain.  Mike purchased several Sylvan Learning work books at Costco near the end of school, and Liam has been doing the 1st grade language book with ease.  We hope he isn't too bored in Kindergarten, but mostly it will just be getting used to bigger classes and going to school everyday.  Speaking of Kindergarten,  he will most likely be going to the school near our house instead of the one by Grandma's house because I recently lost my job which was in Orem (near Grandma's). 

We decided to continue with swim lessons over the summer even though it is a drive, and we are trying to cut down on our spending.  We feel that swimming is a very important skill to know, and can save a life too.  He is really excelling this summer with swimming.  He is getting very good with the breathing, and learning to float and all the strokes too.  We are very proud of how well he is doing! 

The biggest issue I have about staying home is all the bickering the kids do.  Both kids have dominant personalities which makes for lots of fights.  It drives me insane!!  I know I need to plan more things for them, but I have found it hard to do since they have swimming lessons everyday (Mon-Thurs), and it is right in the middle of the day so it's hard to plan play dates around....but I am trying!!  There is only 3.5 weeks left of swimming and then school starts shortly after....the summer has flown by so fast!  My hope is with school is we can establish a better schedule, and I will have a little 'me time' to get some things done during the day, which will be nice. 

Anyway, I wish I remembered all the little things Liam has done over the last several months, but he continues to be such a great kid.  One thing I do know is that his eating has improved vastly!  He LOVES spicy food.  He has tried and loved one of our pasta dishes called 'Fiery Fusilli'.  Now that I am home, I have been planning and cooking meals more often during the week.  It took him a while to accept the fact that I can actually cook (since usually dad is the one).  The other day I made an Asian Chickpea salad. He usually will not eat salad, but he tried it, and loved it!  He likes to mix up spices, and makes up recipes and tells us about it. He has been talking about having a cooking contest which we think is just adorable!

comment by mom/grandma on 07/25/2013 Watch out! He just may win a cooking contest, he has an amazing ability to put things together.

Rowan: 3 yrs. 7 mo.

Rowan absolutely LOVED her first year of preschool.  Her teacher Miss Marjan was wonderful, and Rowan still talks about her a couple months after school ended!  We are very sad that she will not be going to Kids Village for 2 more years, but hopefully her new preschool closer to home will be great too!  The tuition is actually less money, even with adding a dance class after school.  She always starts dancing anytime we put a skirt or dress on her.  We think she will LOVE it! 

She tries to keep up with her brother all the time, sometimes we forget that she is 2 yrs. younger.  While Liam is excelling in swimming, she seems to have reached her max this year.  She has learned how to go under the water, and blow bubbles which is a great improvement, but she has a hard time following instructions because she is distracted playing with toys and with bugs in the water.  We know this is normal for a 3 yr old, so we decided to scale back her time in the lesson and give Liam more time.  She doesn't seem to mind or notice, and we figured it was a better solution than stopping her lessons. 

Rowan is such a snuggle bunny, which we feel very lucky about. She is very loving, and is very serious about giving hugs and kisses.  She wraps her arms around your neck and squeezes pretty tight, and then makes sure to plant a firm kiss on your cheek.  While Liam continues to try new foods, she on the other hand is in her Hot Dog phase.  Thankfully, she likes the tofu ones, which are probably not the best thing, but beats whatever is in the 'meat' ones.  I mentioned the Asian Chick Pea Salad that Liam loved in his update....she actually tried a little of it, which is at least an improvement, and gives us a little hope that she will enjoy other foods when she is older. 

Anyway, once school starts, I am sure I will have more to write about!

comment by mom/grandmab on 07/25/2013
She has done amazingly well at swimming for her age. And she really does give great hugs and kisses, even to Koko!

Liam: 5 yrs. 2 mo.

So my last update for Liam was right before Christmas.  He had a great Christmas, and we all enjoyed some time off at home together.  Last month we went to Parent/Teacher conference.  Liam is doing really well in school.  His teacher, Miss Kathleen, was talking about how the kids are learning to blend sounds together to read words.  They have a reading program at school where they send home books to read.  It is meant to encourage parents to read with their kids every day.  We assumed that all the kids in his class were reading the books sent home, but I guess not all of them are.  He's been reading for a year now, so that made us pretty proud of him.  

Liam lost his FIRST tooth.  It started to get lose on Christmas Eve, and I joked that Santa and the tooth fairy would have to come in the same night.  But, it was just barley lose, and he was way too scared to let mom or dad try to pull it out.  Then Friday it was bent out, but he still was too scared to let anyone touch it, but we knew it was on its way out.  He spent the day wiggling it.  By afternoon, I drifted off on the couch while he was playing.  All of a sudden he woke me up shouting my tooth came out. I thought for sure we would have to pull it, and was a bit bummed since I was going to take a video...but, oh well, he did it on his own, and that is pretty grown up for his first tooth. We really didn't expect it to come out just after he turned 5! Both me and Mike were at least 6.  That night Liam asked me if the tooth fairy would know if he's asleep if the lights were on. I told him she would because she would hear him snoring.  He started to go back to his room, then came back and told me 'I don't snore'.  We thought that was pretty funny. 

We have noticed lately that Liam is absorbing more information around him, even if it isn't directed at him.  Mike and I have been working out the last couple of months, and I guess I mentioned to Mike how much weight I lost, because yesterday when I told the kids I lost another pound, Liam says 'So you lost 11 lbs?'  I didn't realize he heard me tell Mike, and I asked him how he knew that?  He then said to me 'I know things'...which we thought was pretty funny!   

So not much else has been going on the last couple of months, the kids, especially Liam, are very excited for Winter to be over so we can do fun stuff outside.  He really misses riding his bike and just running around outside!  And now that I am in a lot better shape, I'm pretty excited to get a new bike and ride with him too this Summer!

comment by mom/grandma on 02/09/2013
Liam is such a great kid. He and Daniel had a blast riding bikes Thursday, and it was perfect because he was really missing his cousins!

Rowan: 3 yrs. 2 mo.

Rowan had a great Christmas too.  She got lots of new dolls and a really cool Little People Castle.  We went to Parent/Teacher conference for the first time for Rowan.  Her teacher Miss Marjan said that Rowan has come out of her shell, and has really blossomed.  We were really surprised when she told us at the Christmas party that she was the quiet/shy one in the class.  She is the spit-fire in the family, but I guess they always are different around other people, but it sounds like she is more comfortable now, and being herself at school now. 

Rowan is now in her BIG Girl bed!  She is a whole year younger than her brother was when he graduated from the toddler bed, but such is the benefit of being the 2nd kid, also she is much less of a mover when she sleeps. She has adjusted quite well to the bed, and it has helped a little with her wanting to nap and go to bed at night.  She likes to have everything in its place, and will organize her dolls, and toys just the way she wants them on her bed.  She keeps her bed very tidy, and she loves having all her cozy pillows and blankets too.  And a couple months later she is still LOVING her big girl bed.  She sleeps very well at night, and is even starting to sleep in a little on the weekends.  Not sure if it was the time change in November, but she was up EVERY single day of our Christmas vacation by 7:15 AM. She started to come down stairs on her own, and want to snuggle in our bed.  It was nice, but wish it wasn't that early. 

She has done quite well with her potty training over the last few months. Once in a while if she is really into her playing she will forget to tell us she has to go, and has a little accident.  And sometimes I had wished we waited for her to mature a little more because she will use the potty to insert her control.  But perhaps that is just more a girl thing than an age thing?  It happened one time when we went out to dinner with a friend, and she kept saying she had to pee, but she really didn't need to go, but it seemed like she enjoyed making me leave my dinner to take her to the bathroom.  

Sometimes she will sit on the potty way longer than she needs to.  She also uses the potty to delay bedtime which is a big pain in the rear.  But, for the most part it has been a great thing to have her trained, and I'm sure with time potty time will improve. 

She loves dancing, and when she puts on her tutu she turns into a ballerina.  I have no clue where she learned some of her moves, but maybe it's just innate for girls.  She then tells us we should take her to a dance class.  So that is something we will have to look into in the near future.  Another cute thing she does is make up costumes.  At Halloween time when she had her princess dress on, she grabbed Liam's skeleton mask and made a funny combo 'Princess-Skeleton' costume.  Most recently she had her tutu on and then found Liam's Spiderman mask, to make her 'Ballerina-Spidey' costume.  The girl cracks us up, she is such a ham.

comment by mom/grandma on 02/09/2013
She is quite the dancer here too. So cute. She comes up with the cutest things, she keeps us laughing all day:)

Liam is 5!

Liam is 5 now!  It is hard to believe!!  I was putting him in his car seat this morning, and said to him 'You are 5 now'.  And it just sounded so crazy, but it's true.  He has grown up so much over the past year.  He loves super hero's now.  It started with Spider Man.  He was introduced to Spider Man from his best neighbor friend at Grandma B's house, Daniel.  It was his first friend influence that got him into something new.  He also likes Bat Man, and Green Lantern, and a bunch of other Super Hero's.  Dad also introduced him to a show called 'Teen Titan's'.   He loves playing games on his phone...although we swore we wouldn't go down that road after seeing how much kids can become addicted to them!  We really try to limit the time he is on it, and also make it a reward for good behavior.  He is quite good at games, and realize it does provide some benefit to coordination, and some learning.  I do prefer the learning games though, and hope we can steer him in that direction with the tablets that Mike got the kids for Christmas.

He has become pretty enamored with zombie's over the last several months.  Not sure exactly when it started, but it might have been when dad installed a zombie game (that isn't too scary) on his phone.  He talks about zombies all the time, and even asked for a zombie shirt.  We were able to find a 'plants vs. zombies' shirt on Ebay, and it is cartoon-ish, so not very scary either.  Although, all the talk of zombies does end up in some bad dreams every so often.  Even Rowan, gets into the whole topic too.  She came up with the term 'Pickle Zombie' recently from an episode of 'Martha' on PBS.  We thought it was pretty funny, and saw the resemblance to zombies after she mentioned it.  Even though he it totally into Zombie's Liam decided he wanted to be Spider Man for Halloween.  Rowan was a purple fairy, although dad thought her 'Princess Skeleton' costume was pretty great!

Liam is enjoying school this year.  He loves loves loves having Rowan go there with him.  Before this year, he always wanted me to bring him to his classroom.  And this year, he wants to me to drop him off in the back, so he can be big brother and take Rowan to her class.  Sure saves me some time in the morning, so I am happy about it.  Liam's reading and writing has improved a lot since he started school.  It is amazing how quickly he rebounded after our lull in the summer.  We are pretty determined to not let that happen this summer.  So speaking of school, we are so up in the air as to what to do for Kindergarten next year.  We need to go and talk to the public school teacher's very soon!!  I already talked a person at his current school about him going public next year, and what to do if it just isn't working for him.  She advised to enroll him, and pay the $100 fee to save a spot for him, just in case, and we thought that was a good idea too.  Only time will tell, but we will do what we need to make sure he is happy and adjusted regardless where he's going.

He had his 5 year check-up recently and his new stats are:  38.14 lbs. (34.2 %), 43 inches (57.46%), 14.5 BMI   (18.42)...so as you can see he's tall and very skinny, which makes it difficult to clothe him as of late.  His 4T pants are getting short.  And I didn't realize this at the time, but the brand that I generally buy him only offers 5/6 size.  Anyway, it will make for a few awkward months, but hopefully he will catch up soon.  He had a great birthday party this year, and we are glad we can still 'get away' with a combined birthday party.  He was especially happy this year because not only could he invite his cousins, he was also able to invite a friend from school, and a couple of his best buds from G'ma's neighborhood!  They all seemed to have a wonderful time sliding over and over. They made up games too as the party went on, like making trains to go down together.  

He loved all his gifts from everyone, so thank you again for all that came and celebrated our kids turning 5 and 3 : )  He still is into his cars and trucks, and he loves all his super hero stuff. And even if he takes a break from his Thomas trains, he tends to keep going back to them.  He keeps asking for these obscure, hard to find ones for Christmas...but unfortunately, he only started asking when it was too late to really get them. Hopefully, he will be happy with the couple that he asked for a LONG time ago, and were able to get.  Another thing he has done within the last month or so, is he decided he LOVES this little stuffed gorilla that I got him several years ago.  He never paid much attention to him, but all of a sudden he has given him the name 'Boo Boo', and he brings him all over the house, and makes stories up about him.  A little odd, but still cute.  And speaking of cute, I will end his update with something he told Mike a few weeks ago.  He told him that he wanted to go back in time to when Mike was his age, so that they could play together as kids, and be best friends.  Mike thought that was one of the sweetest things he has ever heard, and I thought so too.  Happy 5 years 'Little Man'- We LOVE you!!

comment by mom/grandma on 12/24/2012 That is so cute, he is such a sweet loving boy. He and Mike would have been best friends for sure, after all, they are now!

comment by Gaylene on 12/24/2012 That is one of the sweetest things ever, Liam is naturally sweet...and 5 does sound so much older. I never thought the boys first year went fast, but it certainly did this year. Thanks for the fun updates.

Rowan is 3 now!!

Rowan turned 3 on November 26, 2012!  She is loving Pre-School.  She doesn't talk a whole lot about it, but she mentions her teacher's name 'Miss Marjan'.  And one day when we were in the Dr's office waiting for the kids Well Check-Up, she saw a girl walk in, and she said "That girl lives in my classroom".  I wasn't positive because I haven't seen all the kids in her class, but when the other girl said, "That is Rowan". I knew she was right.  She is very good with her ABC's, and loves to learn them.  

When I suggest that we put in a Leap Frog DVD, Liam will complain because I think he's bored with it, but Rowan is excited and agrees that she needs to learn her letters.  She sometimes will say the sound they make rather than the name of the letter, which we think is adorable.  At the Dr's ofc. we learned that she weighs 29.76 lbs. (41%), she is 35.25 inches (13.07%), and 16.84 BMI (79.21%)...guess they don't do head measurements anymore.  Her poor brother had to have 4 shots!! And she got lucky, and didn't have to have any, which is good because after he had his, she was pretty shook up.  This was the first time I took them both for their well-visit at the same time.

She is pretty much 100% day time potty trained now.  It kinda happened on a whim.  I was planning to potty train her over the Christmas break, since we would both be home to work with her. So mid-November, I was curious, and put on some underpants just to see how ready she was.  She peed through exactly 5 pairs in a row.  She HATED the feeling and would scream.  After a while we realized the scream was becoming her warning signal that she had to go.  And ever since that day, she has just improved.  We were really surprised it was that easy with her because anytime we mentioned potty training, or going to the bathroom in the potty, she would just grin and say, I will just go in my diaper. Anyway, we are more than pleased that we can save money on diapers now (at least for the day time).

We had the kids birthday party on November 17th.  We tried to think of a different activity than last year, but with it being cold, and needing to be inside, our options are pretty limited.  We decided if we couldn't think of a better option, that the bounce slide would be our back-up plan.  I think it worked out great though.  The thing I like most is that it is a private party, and we don't have to worry about the smaller kids being knocked over by a bigger kid, like you see at the public bounce house places.  We went to Kangaro Zoo with cousin Rainier over the Thanksgiving holiday, and it was super fun, but pretty busy, and would hate to see what it is like on a Saturday.

Some say 3 is harder than 2, and some days I totally believe it.  She has been super hard to please lately.  She will ask for something, and you bring it to her, and it's not the right way, or on the right plate, or she simply decided she doesn't want it anymore, which can be pretty frustrating at times, especially if you went to the trouble to make (or bake) something.  She also has discovered that she can get out of her bed and play after we tuck her in.  For the longest time she never got out of bed, but I think that partly is because she is having a hard time going to sleep at night.  She is in that stage where she still needs a nap, but the nap makes her well rested, and she's not ready to sleep at bedtime.  It will be a rough year in that regard. 

She loves to give hugs and kisses.  And she loves to play with her 'Little People' toys.  She loves her Jack (from Nightmare Before Christmas) and has him and Sally in her bed every night.  She thinks that Santa is Jack in a Santa suit, and also called the bald baby Jesus ornament 'Baby Jack'.  She also has to listen to the music EVERY night!!  She also loves playing with cars and trucks.  She loves to be called 'sweetie pie'.  While we were potty training her, we would ask 'Are you dry?', and she would say 'Yes', and then we would say 'Let us know if you need to go pee or poo', which would sometime be shortened to 'go potty', and then she would reply 'Pee or Poo'.  Sometime she would reply 'Yes, I'm dry and clean and adorable!'  And that she is!!  We love you Rowan!!

comment by Gaylene on 12/13/2012 She IS adorable! Oh I'm so worried about the inevitable with the boys. It'll try my patience for sure. I think your party place sounds perfect. Happy belated to both of your cuties!

comment by mom/grandma on 12/12/2012 She is adorable. It's fun to see that she is pretty much the same here as at home. We love her too!