Last week ended my busy time with the filing of my 10-K. This past weekend was my first “normal” weekend in a long time, and it’s been nice to have my evenings back to be able to do whatever I want!
Here is what has been going on over the past couple of months with everyone:
Kylie: Kylie has been busy with school, friends (mainly Isabella, her BFF) and gymnastics. She has been doing wonderfully in school – her teacher has put her in a couple of “challenge” groups for math and reading. She and her little group work on some harder things than what the class as a whole is working on. The stuff that she comes home and “teaches” me is amazing! Of course being homeschooled I was never on a normal schedule when it came to what I learned when, but even talking to others it’s amazing how early kids learn things these days. I’m also so amazed at her reading ability. There is absolutely nothing that I can’t give her to read. Yesterday we worked on a school project where she had to research a famous person on the internet, so we printed out the page and I handed it to her to read. She did it without a problem! The only area she needs to work on is remembering/understanding what she is reading. She can fly through a book, but sometimes if you ask her what it was about, she won’t remember.
She and Isabella have sleepovers/play dates just about every weekend. The two of them are so cute together! And while if they’ve been together for too long they can definitely get irritated with each other, 99% of the time they play perfectly together and do a good job of including Josh and Ryan in their games.
Kylie and I have such sweet moments together. She still tells me just about everything, and while she definitely has her own opinions and can be very strong-willed, she is still my sweet little princess. She has become a huge help at home – she frequently sets the table for dinner (with Josh’s help when he’s around), she helps me take her clothes up after the laundry is done, and she’s really good about cleaning and organizing her room when I tell her to do it. And she is still the most caring sister I have ever seen! She loves playing with Joshie, and she is such an adoring sister to Ryan. If I need to go and do something, I can tell her to watch him and not worry. Making dinner at night has gotten so much easier because I can have Kylie watch Ryan in the playroom while I cook and not worry about him!
Joshie: Joshie is my buddy. He is currently obsessed with video games. We now have to limit his time with them because he would sit and play Super Mario Brothers on his DSi all day if we didn’t watch him. Unfortunately this has led to him not playing as many hockey games, which I have to admit, I really miss. Everything now revolves around Super Mario Brothers. At least he and Kylie (and me when I get roped into it) have started playing “Super Mario Brothers real people,” which means that he is Mario, Kylie is princess Daisy (or whoever that is) and I try to be Luigi but he wants me to be princess peach. At least this involves running around the house and fighting bad guys.
Joshie still doesn’t eat a lot, and I feel like we have tried everything! It’s not that he’s picky, he just doesn’t eat much, and in turn, he’s a skinny little nothing! It will be interesting to see what the doctor says at his five-year check-up. Maybe it’s normal, but right now he’s lighter for me to carry than his little brother is!
The biggest thing we’re gearing up for with Joshie is Kindergarten next year! I registered him a couple of weeks ago, and he’s been working really hard on reading and math. He can now read the easy-reader books that we started with Kylie, and we’ve been working on Kylie’s old sight words with him. I’m really impressed with how well he’s doing! And in math, he’s doing basic addition and subtraction. My dad has come up with a deal with him…every minute he works on school stuff is an extra minute that he gets to play his DSi. He does really well with this and understands the concept of earning more play time.
This spring Joshie will be playing football and t-ball. Football doesn’t start until April, but he’s so excited about it and gets to play with one of his friends from church. I’m excited because hopefully the games will be nice and warm, instead of worrying about the weather each week (although we did get so lucky last fall with each Sunday being really “gorgeous” (for October) for his games.
We still get some great time alone with Joshie at night. He does everything from watch sports with John on the couch, to come up with me in my scrap room and color pictures and make tickets for his games.
Ry-Ry: My little man! This little (and I don’t mean that literally, the kid is so heavy and does not appear to be losing any of his baby fat now that he’s walking) guy is developing such a personality! He plays with you, teases you and always has a smile on his face. He is a great walker now, and has made some attempts at running. Thankfully he’s not a climber and he really doesn’t get into anything.
He is talking like crazy now! He will repeat everything you say, and even if what he’s saying does not sound anything like the real word, we have learned what it means (he has a word for “pop tart” and “Guess Who” that sounds nothing like those words, but we know what he means!). He can say all of our names very clearly (although he won’t say “Kylie,” just “sissy”). The funniest thing with him is he won’t say “yes,” he’ll just get a big smile on his face and say “aahhh” with his mouth open wide!
He is following in the footsteps of his brother and just about every other little boy out there and is now obsessed with trains, and loves Thomas. He calls them Choo-Choos, and sleeps with at least one, if not two trains every night. When we’re by a TV he points to it and says either “Choo-Choo” or “Amis” (Thomas), meaning he wants to watch Thomas. I can’t believe how I have forgotten how cute this obsession is. Some of it is coming back to me (Joshie was so obsessed with Thomas and trains…I remember promising him a new one of he gave up his paci). My poor dad…every time Ryan sees him he says “Pappaw, choo-choo.” My parents have a big train set up at their house next door, and Ryan loves it! My poor dad never gets a break! But he says he’s enjoying it because he thinks Joshie is pulling away from him a little bit, so it’s nice to have Ryan there wanting attention from him.
Ryan is also playing so well with Kylie and Josh. Just last night John and I were cleaning up after dinner, and we watched and listened to the three of them run around and play their game. It was usually Josh and Kylie and then Ryan tagging along behind them trying to keep up, laughing the whole time. This is the age that makes up for the 12 months of hard times we had with him. Babies are hard and make you question whether you’ll ever have another child, but at 17 months he’s a dream and watching the three of them together makes me forget about all of the sleepless nights and desperately trying to get him to stop crying!
Ryan is definitely our stubborn one, even more than Kylie. Just last night we had a 10 minute battle with him about throwing his train on the ground. He was made that I made him leave the room while Kylie was reading her school book, so he threw his train down in a temper-tantrum. We sat there for 10 minutes while he was crying telling him he had to pick his train back up. Finally he did and life went on, but things like that show me his determination and his will and what we have in store for us :) He definitely knows what he wants when he wants it. We got home from the grocery store one day and as we were putting the groceries away, Ryan went in the pantry because he wanted a pop tart. I told him “no,” but as I was putting things away, he got out a package of pop tarts. But then he decided that wasn’t enough, and brought out the whole box to me and kept telling me “pop tart” (only it was his special word for pop tart). He did the same thing with juice one time…he went in the pantry and brought me the big thing of juice!
Ryan loves milkshakes (which we've gotten in the habit of making most nights). And for a while, the minute I would walk in the door, he would get excited, go to the cupboard where we keep the cups, get out the "milkshake cup," go and get a straw, hand them to me and say "milkshake" (except it does not sound anything like "milkshake," but we know what he's saying :) ). It's so adorable!
So that’s a quick update of the kiddos. They are growing up so fast that John and I are desperately trying to slow down and enjoy every minute. They are all so fun and I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like when we don’t have little ones running around the house yelling…so I’m not going to think about it – I’m just going to enjoy my time with them right now!
Kids Riding in Laundry Basket from Debbie on Vimeo.
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