First Days

We had some exciting days over here over the past month! Oliver and Buttercup started school the second week of August. Oliver wasn't super excited about going back to school, but as all of you can imagine, Buttercup was OVER THE MOON and COULD NOT WAIT TO GO. :-)  

Look how cute they are! So big! Also, Oliver must have had a major growth spurt (and holy big head, Batman), because I don't remember him being this much taller than Buttercup a year ago. 

I took this picture below right when we got to school and were about to walk them in. I thought Theodore was going to be upset to see his big sister go off to school, too, but he was pretty nonchalant about it. :-) I love his sweet little smile!   

Since it was Buttercup's first day of kinder, I gave her the choice of whether we walked her to her classroom first, or walked Oliver to his classroom first. She wanted to see where Oliver's classroom was, so we walked him in first, much to his chagrin. He actually wanted us to drop him off at the front of the school so he wouldn't even have to walk in with us! This is a very forced smile, ha ha.  :-)

Then it was Buttercup's turn! We walked down the hall to her classroom, and found her desk. I was taking this picture (below) and asked Theodore if he wanted to give her one last hug, and she said, "Um, I'm okay, Mom. Can you please go now?" Ha ha!!!! Needless to say, there were no tears and she had a great first day. :-)  

  

Then, earlier this week, it was Theodore's turn!!! He started preschool on Tuesday, and he was so excited! He helped me pack his lunchbag, and couldn't wait to get to his classroom. 

Once we got to his preschool, however, he started to get a little upset that I was leaving him, and he cried and cried when I left. :-(  It's no fun leaving one of your kids when they're crying, even when you know they'll be okay! I didn't get a call, though, so I knew he was doing okay. He did end up having a fun time, although he held onto his lovey all day. :-)  

For preschool on Thursday, he asked me to take a picture of him and me, and he helped me tape it to the back of his stuffed animal so he could look at it at school. :-)  He proudly showed it to all of the teachers on the way to his classroom, and he didn't cry once all day! I'm hoping this is a new trend and that he continues to have a great time without any tears.  :-)  So proud of these kiddos for growing up and doing new things! 

Update!

I have a little bit of time right now, so I thought I'd write a quick update while I have the chance! Our summer is winding down (Oliver and Buttercup start school on Monday, eek!), and we have had a lot of fun adventures that we will remember for years to come. Here's what the kids are up to these days!

Oliver:
At the beginning of the summer, he decided that his goal was to learn how to write in cursive, ha ha! It took him two days to learn how to write all of the letters, and he's been writing everything in cursive ever since. :-) 

Oliver still loves building with Legos and has built several dioramas this summer. My favorite was a mad scientist's laboratory, that was very amazing with all of the details that Oliver added to it. I wish I had remembered to take a picture of it before Oliver destroyed it to build something else! He also built a city with a few different scenes (a park, a beach, a gatehouse with a tower behind it), and is currently working on a diorama of Blue Hole in Wemberley (a swimming hole). :-) I love seeing what he comes up with; he is so creative! 

One last thing about Oliver is that he is continuing to do great with swimming! He loves it, and his swim coach has moved him up to the next level of swim team, which he'll start in a couple of weeks. So proud of him! 



Buttercup:   
She decided that she wanted to learn how to read better this summer, but she refused to let me help her. (Not surprising for anyone who knows her!) It took her a bit longer, but she never gave up, and she is reading pretty well now! She has memorized about 75 sight words, and is pretty good at blending sounds together and sounding new words out. I love this new stage of her life, where I can see her strong will working toward a positive goal. :-) 

Buttercup has also become more of a girly girl this summer. She still likes to roughhouse and wrestle with the boys, but she's more inclined to go in her room to read or play quietly with her babies or Calico Critters dollhouse. She also likes to build her own Lego creations like Oliver, but now she is getting better at putting the pre-made sets together! She used to not have the patience for sitting and following the instructions, but over the summer she put two sets together all by herself! 

And Buttercup is also still swimming, and she's doing really well! She has been on the entry level swim team for 3 or 4 months, and she is doing great. She's one of the only 5 year olds, and she keeps up with (and is usually faster than) the 7 and 8 year olds. She had her first swim meet in May, and she won three of her four heats and even beat a 10 year old!  :-)  

Theodore:
He is still a cute little stinker! He tries to do everything the other kids are doing, sometimes with disastrous results. But he is super fun and he says so many funny things every day! He also likes building with Legos like his big brother and sister, although now we have to watch him very closely when he's building with the little Legos because he ate a small green brick one day when he and Oliver were alone in their room. (Out of our three kids, I definitely pegged him as the one who would eat a Lego.) Theodore is also working on riding his bike, and learning how to swim. He has been stuck on the same level for several weeks at his swim lesson because he refuses to float on his back, but we go swimming 3 or 4 times a week, and he has taught himself how to do an underwater somersault, dive down to the bottom to retrieve a toy, and do his version of freestyle. 

Here's a funny story about Theodore!  He loves to say potty words (which we're working on), and after church last Sunday, he climbed out of the car, hopped on his scooter, and rode up and down the sidewalk, saying as many potty words as he could. It was like he had held it in all morning at church, and just had to let it out!  I had to go in the garage so he wouldn't see me laughing! It was so funny.  :-)    

Hi!

Howdy! I realize that it's been a while since I updated our blog. Sorry about that! I do have a bunch of fun, summer pictures to upload, and will do that some time soon (in reality, it will probably be after the kids start school). But in the meantime, here's a super cute video of Theodore swimming (or "swimming") and diving underwater to touch the fish on the bottom of the pool. Enjoy! 

Theodore at the duck park

One morning this week, I didn't have any errands or playdates planned, so Theodore and I headed to the duck park to play and explore. Here are some cute pictures! 





The next few pictures are a series of him jumping onto the metal grate:

Nothing like a stick, rocks and some dirt to make a kid happy. :-)

Theodore-isms

Hi! Well, it's been about a week and I still haven't gotten around to getting Christmas pics off of my phone and onto my computer. (I don't know any other way of doing it other than the slow way of e-mailing myself each picture and uploading it to my computer . . . if anyone knows a faster way, please let me know!)

So, I don't have Christmas pics, but I do have something a little bit better, perhaps? I've been writing down some of the funny things that Theodore has said this week, so now I have a bunch of cute Theodore-isms for you! 

-- One morning, Theodore and I were at the park, talking about what he wanted for lunch. He said he wanted beans. Well, by the time we got home, I forgot and made him a PB&J instead. He was mad when he got to the table and saw a sandwich instead of beans (the horror!), and threw a little fit. I ignored it and started praying over our lunch, and said something like, ". . . and please help Theodore have a good attitude about his sandwich."  After I prayed, Theodore said, "Okay, I eat this. Thank you, Jesus, help me make good attitude words!"  

-- One morning while I was driving Buttercup and her friend to preschool, the girls were talking about their favorite animals. I asked Theodore what his favorite animal is, and he said, "My favorite animal is element. Elephant? Elephant. That my favorite animal on the carousel."  

-- We were on our way to Hobby Lobby one afternoon, and Theodore was having trouble pronouncing the name of the store. He finally got it figured out, then about two minutes later he was trying to ask me if he could bring his snuggle friend (lovey) inside the store. He said, "I bring my snuggle on Wobby Hobby?  Wobby Wobby?  I not know how saying it.  Wobby Wobby."  HA HA! 

-- Theodore has a favorite library book about blimps that we've been reading every day at naptime and bedtime. He just about has it memorized, so every once in a while I'll pause at a word so he will say it for me. One of the paragraphs is about how blimps were used to drop bombs in WWI. The last sentence goes, "but the bombs were small, and did little damage."  One evening, I was reading that last sentence, and I paused after "but the bombs were small . . ." and Theodore chimed in with, ". . . and did widdle tiny baby damage!" He even said it in a tiny baby voice! It was so funny! 

-- This afternoon, I took the kids to the pool. While we were swimming, Theodore kept slurping up mouthfuls of pool water and spraying it into my face. I warned him a couple of times, then the last time I used my Stern Mommy voice and told him he would have to sit on the side if he did it again. He used his sweetest voice and said, "Or, I could jump in like elephant and make elephant sound???" And then he jumped in the pool with his arm up like an elephant's trunk, while making a trumpeting sound. What a goofball!!    

Warning: this one is potty-related (but CUTE!). 

-- We were about to leave the house, and I wanted to make sure Theodore wouldn't have to go #2 while we were out. I asked him to try to poop, and he was sitting on the toilet for a minute or so, making lots of loud grunting sounds . . . and then he said, "It not working! My behind no has batteries. Pee pee has batteries, but my behind no has batteries."  :-)

Here are some cute pictures! The first two are of Theodore trying to wink at me, and the last one is of him admiring himself with his new Mickey Mouse bike helmet. I love that sweet little face!  :-)

Update!

Well, summer is over, and now we're back into the school routine. This school year has started off much more easily for me since I knew what to expect, and Buttercup has also been doing better this year with her Oliver gone all day. :-) Theodore, on the other hand, doesn't understand yet why Oliver is gone all day. He's doing okay though, and hopefully he'll continue to do okay after his big sister starts preschool next month!

Here are some updates! 

Oliver: 

Well, the biggest news is that Oliver has accepted Jesus as his Savior! We talked about it for months, and at the beginning of the summer, I finally started to think that it was "real" and not just Oliver repeating what we've been teaching him and what he's learned at church.  I made an appointment for him to talk to our pastor, and the pastor agreed with me -- that Oliver really has accepted Christ into his heart! He was baptized at our church a couple of weeks ago and it was such a happy, joyful moment!!!  We are so proud of him!  

Oliver also started first grade about 2 weeks ago, and he's enjoying it so far. The first day wasn't nearly as emotional for me as kindergarten was! All of last year's kindergarten classes were rearranged into new classes for first grade, so he doesn't have all of his old classmates with him in his new class, but he still gets to see his kindergarten buddies on the playground at recess. :-)  There is another Oliver in his grade, and this year they're both in the same class! 

Oliver has been moved up to the next level of swim team and he'll have his first swim meet at the end of next month! He's not nearly as excited about it as his sister is, ha ha.  She really wants him to win "all" of the medals. :-)  Since the new swim team practices 3 times per week, Oliver decided to quit gymnastics team so he'll have time to do fun stuff after school, too. 

Buttercup:

She is really turning into a big girl right before our eyes! She's able to ride her bike without training wheels, run next to me on the trail, and she's also a big helper in the kitchen! She loves to cook and help me stir, and chop ingredients whenever she can. She also loves to watch The Pioneer Woman (a cooking show). :-)

Buttercup is continuing to do really well at swimming. She is really close to graduating from swim school -- she's in the second level, at station 8 (there are 10 stations).  Right now she's working on butterfly, and she was so excited to start learning it last week! It was the first time in almost 2 years that she was able to learn something other than freestyle or backstroke. :-)  She is really excited about getting to be on the swim team like Oliver! 

She is also still taking dance classes and she loves it. It's so funny how she is so much a tomboy, but also kind of a girly-girl, too. :-)   

Theodore:

Mr. T is still adorable and funny and such a little ham. His latest phrase is, "Why not?" And the really funny part is that he uses it appropriately, too!!  It kills me when he says it. This morning we were on the way home from a playdate at the park, and he asked if he could have a hot dog for lunch. I said, "No," and he said, "Why not? Why not, Mama?"  LOL!  It's just super cute coming from the cute little baby boy. :-)  

Theodore can also count to 10, and pedal his bicycle forward a little bit! Another really cute thing he does is that he'll tell you that he's 6 if you ask him how old he is. Oliver and Buttercup think it's hilarious, and one afternoon they spent about 15 minutes trying (in vain) to get him to say that he's 2. He's pretty convinced that he's 6.  :-)   

One not-so-cute thing that happened recently was that Theodore went through a sleep regression. It happened for about a week and a half, but thankfully now he's sleeping just as well as he was before it started -- only difference now is that he has to sleep with his favorite song on repeat and with his favorite cars in his hands. But at least he's sleeping!!!!  :-) 

Reading on the floor during Buttercup's dance class:

Another ridiculously adorable video of my baby boy singing

Theodore likes to sing along with me when I rock him before bedtime. We usually sing "Praise Him, Praise Him," but one night last week he started singing "Jesus Loves Me" instead. So we sang together, and it was so cute that I had to run and get my phone to take a video!  

Here it is. :-)  Enjoy!

Video of Theodore singing

I still sing "You Are my Sunshine" to Buttercup when I tuck her in for naps and bedtime, and Theodore has learned the song over the past few months. Here's a cute video of him singing along with me. :-)

When you have a big sister . . .

Buttercup loves to dance and dress up . . .

. . . so it's really no surprise that Theodore wants to dance and dress up, too. :-)

 

Two years old!

Theodore is TWO today! Can you believe it??? This is such a fun, fun age....I want time to stop so we can really enjoy every moment of it! He is just so fun to be around. Such a sweet, funny little guy, with a sweet little voice and squishy cheeks. He does and says so many adorable things every day! We are so blessed to have him in our lives. :-)

We had Theodore's birthday party last weekend at one of the sprinkler parks around here. About 2 months ago, I rented a pavilion at the park for his party -- and good thing! The park was packed!   

It was pretty windy when we were setting up, with huge gusts of wind coming out of nowhere.  All of our stuff was blowing over:

And the mean old wind kept blowing away the birthday boy's balloons! 

:-(

 Thankfully, the birthday boy has an awesome big brother who is always ready to save the day!

(Only one of his many trips to rescue the stray balloons.)

Ah, reunited at last!

This is what happens when you ask a 7 year old to smile for a picture:

This is what happens when you ask a 6 year old and a 7 year old to smile for a picture:

And this is what happens when you ask a 6 year old, 7 year old and almost 2 year old to smile for a picture:

We had the usual antics from Heather and Anna:

This is Theodore's BFF, Analiese (or, "Ahh-wee", as he pronounces it):

Theodore showing off his best balloon-dancing moves:  

Since the party was at the sprinkler park and there were lots of grownups around to supervise the kids, I planned on taking pictures of the kids playing in the water and having fun. But, as things usually go, I ended up putting my camera away "for a minute" at the beginning of the party and never taking it out again. The only reason we have pictures of kids eating cake is because my sweet friend Jessica asked if she could take pictures for me, which was very nice of her and for which I'm very thankful! :-)  

Happy birthday, Theodore! We love you!!