Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Weekend in Englewood

This past weekend I took my trio of kids to Grandma Barb and Grandpa Steve's house. Uncle Louie came in from Michigan so we all wanted to get together. The first night we had a card party and Aunt Lori and Aunt Nancy joined all of us. We played "Trick Your Neighbor", which Isabelle and Seth both really like to play. Of course, things go better if one of them wins! Seth won two games and Isabelle was the winner of one game. We also played a simple dice/cards game that none of us know the name of. I believe Isabelle and Seth both won at this game too.

Seth playing "Trick Your Neighbor"- he doesn't have much of a Poker face!
And the rest of us at the card table.




The rest of the weekend activities were just as fun. Grandpa, Uncle Louie and Seth took several bike rides around the neighborhood. This seems to be one of Seth's favorite things to do there and he's really building his stamina. He often rides his bike on their back patio too. Isabelle joined them for one bike ride (but ducked out of this picture) and rode on the patio too.

Grandma took Parker on several walks. Here's one where he almost fell asleep. How giant Parker looks for a 9-month old!

Grandma treated Isabelle to a manicure and pedicure. Isabelle picked out a bright pink for her fingernails and a really bright orange for her toenails. We can't accuse her of having a bland sense of style!

Here are some creative photos of her nails. She was in the mood for pictures, so we took advantage of that.


Now that he can crawl, Parker was able to explore a lot of new things around the house, which also made it more work for us to make sure he didn't get into any trouble!

We went swimming at Aunt Nancy's neighborhood pool.

Isabelle jumped off the diving board for the first time ever! She liked it!

I caught this photo of Dad (Grandpa Steve) watching the kids swim.


On Sunday, Aunt Nancy offered to take Isabelle and Seth to her house for lunch and to play on the playground. I couldn't pass that up! They got to ride in her convertible and they had a great time playing there. I got some downtime while Parker napped. Thank you, Aunt Nancy!



And thank you to Mom & Dad for a nice weekend!

Friday, August 26, 2011

Seth's first day of Kindergarten

Seth is officially a Kindergartener! Today was his first day. His teacher is Mrs. Wilson, who is the same teacher Isabelle had for Kindergarten. Isabelle loved her (as she does pretty much all teachers), so hopefully Seth will like her just as much. Grandma Diane came over to see Seth off on his first day. She did the same with Isabelle on her first day of Kindergarten three years ago. I expect she'll be back for Parker's first day in five years! Somehow I failed to get a picture of Seth with Grandma. Luckily we did take one with her camera though.

I packed Seth's lunch in his new Cars lunch bag. In it was a pb&j sandwich, vanilla yogurt, honey roasted almonds, oatmeal cinnamon cookies and a Capri-Sun.



Here's a photo I took of my trio this morning. Everyone is getting so big!


We all walked down to the bus stop, along with our next door neighbor, Dylan, who also started Kindergarten today. Here we are waiting for the bus, which comes at 7:52 A.M.






The bus arrived, Seth paused to check the bus number to make sure it was the right one (#154) and off he went!



When Seth arrived back at the bus stop after school, he was really excited to see Parker. I think he missed him. Seth had a good day. He said he had recess and ate all his lunch. Later in the evening Seth said he loves school!


Thursday, August 25, 2011

Isabelle's first day of school

Isabelle started third grade yesterday! She woke up earlier than I did, got dressed, brushed her teeth and came in to my room and said, "When are you going to get up? Because I already got dressed and brushed my teeth!" We still had one hour until the bus would come! She went downstairs and watched the news while she waited for me to fix her breakfast of cocoa puffs cereal. She was talking non-stop all morning. Talk about excited for school! She picked out a shirt from the t.v. show "Shake It Up", one of her current favorite shows. We packed up her school forms, lunch money and glasses and Parker and I drove her to the bus stop, then off she went!



She wasn't as excited when she got home. She was tired and said they took tests all day. I'm not sure if these were tests for the teacher to figure out what the kids already know or if they were state tests. She did meet a new friend named Amy. Of course, because Isabelle makes friends everywhere she goes!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

School Starts Tomorrow

Isabelle and Seth start school this week! They start on different days because the school has a staggered start determined by grade and last name. Isabelle will start 3rd grade on Wednesday. Her teacher will be Miss Black. When I was in 3rd grade, my teacher was (a different) Mrs. Black. Isabelle is so happy because she says she got the nicest teacher in the world. 3rd grade is a little different because she will have Mrs. Black for homeroom, social studies, math and science. Then she will have Miss Lester for reading and writing. So this will be the first time that Isabelle won't be in one classroom for the entire school day. Here's a picture of Isabelle with Miss Black.





Seth will start Kindergarten on Thursday. His teacher is Mrs. Wilson (the same K teacher Isabelle had). He will go on Monday, Thursday of each week and every other Wednesday (they call this the blue schedule). He's really excited to start going to school! And of course Isabelle is really looking forward to getting to ride the bus with Seth and help him find his way around school.

The school had an open house Monday and the kids could go inside a school bus. This picture was taken after they both ate blue icees.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Weekend Fun

Over the weekend, we got to do some fun things and some relaxing around the house. I went to a kids clothing resale where I got several winter sleepers for Parker, most size 18 months. I'm sure they will fit perfectly by winter! Then Isabelle and I went to the farmers market in Grove City and got a couple of tomatoes (for me) and hand-made jewelry (for Isabelle). On the way home we stopped at a church's yard sale. They had all kinds of odds and ends and we ended up with a few things Isabelle picked out. She loves to shop the garage sales. Later in the day, Shane took Isabelle and Seth swimming at the Y while Parker and I played and made a trip to Meijer. Parker seems to like shopping with me. He's always been well-behaved (knock on wood).

I was adjusting the settings on my camera and managed to get some really cute shots of Parker that show off his blue eyes and great smile. Also one of him standing holding onto the chair. He can pull himself up to stand really easily now, but hasn't quite figured out how to sit back down.




Here's Parker playing in the tent. He loves this!


And this is how he helps me with the laundry.



Friday, August 19, 2011

Clifford the Big Red Dog

Last night, Seth and I took our first bike ride together using the Alley Cat. The Alley Cat is a bike seat and wheel with pedals for a kid to ride behind an adult bike. Shane unhooked it from the back of his bike, pumped up the tires on my bike, and hooked it up for me. We rode a little over a mile to the library. Seth talked non-stop the entire way! He checked out three movies including a Clifford the Big Red Dog one. Grandma Barb has picked up some of the stuffed animals from the Clifford cartoon and given them to Isabelle and Seth. Tonight they put the dogs to good use as they set them up in front of the t.v. to watch the Clifford movie.


Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Parker's 9-Month Snapshot

At 9 months, Parker weighs 24 lbs 13 oz, which is in the 96th percentile! He is 28 " tall, which is in the 50th percentile. I've read that around 9 months, babies usually stop gaining weight so quickly because they are more mobile and filling up more on food rather than milk or formula. He has four teeth on top and two on bottom. He doesn't roll over a lot. When he does, it's from his back to belly and then he stays in that position. He learned to crawl last week. At first it was putting one foot on the ground and pushing off, dragging the other leg behind. Now he knows how to crawl on hands and knees. Here's a video of him doing both crawls.

He can also pull himself up to stand and just yesterday I saw him sit back down from standing. Being outside and taking walks in the stroller are two of Parker's favorite things.

I've been taking a photo of Parker on the 2nd of each month to record his growth. Up until now, he would sit nice and still on the couch for the pose. This month he wasn't interested in posing. But, I did manage to get a couple of shots and a cute one of Seth with Parker.






Sunday, August 14, 2011

First Blog

Since I'm having trouble keeping up with any sort of scrapbooking to document our family events and everyday happenings, I'm going to give blogging a shot.

Welcome to our new blog!