Katelyn, Conner and Caleb! » May 2007 Journal Entries » AboutMyBaby - online baby scrapbooks, photo albums, videos, birth and pregnancy announcements

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Thu, May 31, 2007 10:46 AM
Tooth number 4 arrived last night. Eric and I had been checking all day because we could see how close it was. But it hadn't broken skin yet. Then last night (late) Caleb got incredibly fussy and wouldn't sleep. I felt in there before heading downstairs and it hadn't broken through. But then a little while later after he'd played for a bit, it had.

Whew.

There aren't any others that look close at this time. So we should have a break from the massive drooling and the congestion for a while. Caleb is much happier this morning and tried out his new tooth by eating some egg yolk. He just wanted to be like his older siblings who were also eating egg.

I forgot to mention in my last post about our Memorial Day. It was full to the brim. But lots of fun.

Originally we'd planned to go to the zoo. The kids and I... Eric was going to cut wood. Then Glenn and Sandi stopped by to ask about parking in our driveway to walk to the parade. And they wondered if Katelyn could come to. In the time it took to get Katelyn around and the wagon ready to go, I got the other two kids and a snack around and off we all went. I was rather proud of Katelyn and Conner. Katelyn walked almost the entire way and Conner walked a good majority. They're getting ready for our trip to the Smokies!

The kids enjoyed grabbing candy that was thrown to them. They hadn't been expecting it so it was a nice surprise for them.

I also taught them to clap for all the soldiers, retired or current, and all the soldier vehicles. They don't know about why we celebrate Memorial Day but this seemed like a really good start to understanding.

After that we were tired, but on the way back my neighbor was thinning out her Hostas and offered us some. These are cute varigated ones that have little leaves. I've been admiring them over the years so I was excited to be able to get some. We planted them and did a little weeding while we were at it.

Then... Eric called and wondered if we wanted to meet him for hot dogs and marshmallows cooked over the fire. Of could we wanted to! So off we went for that. We ended up spending most of the afternoon over there and then came back home, ate dinner and the kids collapsed into bed. We'd neglected a nap with all the activity so they slept very well.

However, we took Tuesday off. We needed it.

We are still planning to get to the zoo though! We renewed our membership to it so I'd like to get there at least 3 times this summer. Our zoo is on the small side but it's very well done. And the size makes it perfect for toddlers to walk around.

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Tue, May 29, 2007 2:03 PM
I was reading another blog yesterday and Sloppy Joe Potatoes were mentioned as a favorite meal. This sounded interesting so I made it for lunch today. It was *really* good. Basically it was baked potatoes with sloppy joe mix put on top. We added cheese to ours. The kids loved it and agreed that we should have it again in the future.

Even Caleb loved it. I let some cool and then put it on his tray and he just ate away.

Speaking of Caleb and eating, last Sunday was the Pig Roast at church. After seeing how much Caleb at at his Aunt Laura's house on Mother's Day, I filled up a plate for him and then transferred it to his plate. He attacked it. If you don't believe that the word attack would be the best description, just ask anyone who was at the table with us. It was definitely an attack. He ate all of it, more then the other two kids. And then just sat there with a glassy stare as all the blood rushed down to his tummy.

He came home that afternoon and nursed (yes, more food!) and fell asleep.

All of us fell asleep that afternoon except Eric. Eric went out and cut and stacked wood all afternoon.

Stacking/cutting wood has been excellent for Eric. He is active but he's not around random noise from the kids (and he wears ear protection) so it's like he's in his own world. He can also take breaks as needed. It's working out really well for him and I think it's helping his brain heal even further.

Katelyn and I are working through FlyLady (flylady.net if you haven't heard of her) to help us organize the house and chores. Conner just sort of goes along with what I tell him to do but Katelyn is taking an active role in it. I could tell today that she understands it when we finished our "morning list" and as she crossed the last item off, she exclaimed, "It's all crossed off! We can go to the library now!" I hadn't planned on the library today but perhaps we'll do that after the kids take their "rest"

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Tue, May 22, 2007 10:06 AM
Yay!!!

Late last night Caleb finally got his 3rd tooth to break through the last layer of skin. You can't see it yet but you can feel it if you feel around and push on the right spot.

Now I can stop being his favorite chew toy and maybe the congestion that's been coming from all his drool will finally go away.

Last night when I found the tooth he just stood there grinning at me with a super proud smile. It must have been a relief to finally have the tooth break skin.

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Sun, May 20, 2007 5:06 PM
Wow. I hadn't realized how long it'd been since I updated.

Katelyn is out biking with her dad right now. Last time she went out biking she saw Conner fall while going down a hill and now she's decided that she needs to walk down every hill that she comes to. This makes a bike ride take a very, very long time. Eric is trying to help her get past this mental block.

Eric is excited though... he can drive again! He took his driving test on Monday and on Friday got the phone call from his doctor saying that he was approved to drive again. Yesterday was the first time he drove anywhere by himself. He found that he thinks a little slower then he can drive when it comes to figuring out where to go. But he does very well driving when he's either following someone or when he's being told where to turn. He's getting better though and this is good evidence of that.

Yesterday was a picnic with the local celiac group that I'm a part of. That was a lot of fun. It was nice for Katelyn especially because she could eat everything there. Even the chocolate chip cookies. And all the food was sooo good. We're going to pass around the recipes. It's amazing how good eating gluten free is. It sounds like I'm giving a speel when I say that but it's true. This food was amazing. The kids had fun playing with all the other kids too. We even found out that one of the other dad's there works occasionally with Eric! That was fun to discover.

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Tue, May 1, 2007 8:11 PM
Katelyn and Conner are currently at the table eating turkey sandwiches after a long (for them) bike ride.

We went out biking as a family this evening. Eric towed Caleb in the trailer and rode next to Katelyn while I rode next to Conner. Conner is quite a bit slower then Katelyn right now but he does very well. Especially when you consider his age.

The sandwiches were made on some gluten free bread that I made this afternoon for them. I don't make it all that often but I probably should do it more. They were really excited about the idea of having sandwiches like their Dad eats.

Hmmm... what to update on.
Caleb is pulling himself up to standing. He's become quite profficient at it too. He'll go from sitting next to the couch to standing and then back to sitting in no time at all. He's not balancing yet but he sure is good at standing next to things.

He's also had a cold for the last week or so. We got him healthy for about a month and now he's back to being congested and coughing. I asked the chiropractor to check his ears when we were there a week ago and while there was fluid in one ear, there wasn't any infection. That's good. Now to just get rid of the congestion again.

I hadn't mentioned that Katelyn had Kindergarten testing a few weeks ago. The school notified us that she had an appointment so I decided to go even though I knew that she wasn't old enough for kindergarten next year. The cut off is that the child must turn 5 by December 1 of that school year. I wanted to know what sort of things they were looking for though and to see how Katelyn did with those criteria.

She did very well.

She didn't go through all the testing because they stopped when they asked her how old she was and found out that she wasn't old enough. But for the parts that she did do, she was ahead of most of the kids testing that day. For example, they asked her to identify letters of the alphabet in a random order. She thought this was very easy and got all of them correct. The tester told me that Katelyn was the first child that day to get them all correct!

Needless to say (but I'll say it anyways) we are very proud of her.

We're also proud of her for her Cubbies work. She finished her book this year and not only did all the required work, she said the extra verses at the end of the book. And she still remembers most of the verses even from the beginning of the year. We definitely have to work on some passages this summer.

I'm looking for something that she can build off of later. So perhaps a chapter in the middle of a book or something. There are a lot of good individual verses for a child to memorize but I'm hoping to find something that she'll find applicable now that will be good to continue memorizing around as she grows older too.

A side benifit of this is that I'll be memorizing these verses too. That'll be good for me.

Conner is still all boy and then some. He loves to be outside. Especially if his bike is involved. Chairs in our house are meant to be jumped off of (in his opinion) and baby brothers are there to be wrestled with.

Speaking of wresting... I don't think I've mentioned that on here yet. Conner is so gentle with Caleb but he really wants to be able to wrestle with him. Soo he does. Conner will do things like "body slam" his brother but instead of landing on Caleb, he'll land on hands and knees so that Caleb doesn't get hurt. It's so cute to watch.

Conner also enjoys making up games that Caleb can play with him. For example, Conner will play tag with Caleb but Caleb is always "it". The rules (as Conner as defined them) is that Conner will crawl to one part of the room, then wait for Caleb to get there, they'll both giggle and then Conner will crawl to another part of the room to repeat the process. Caleb just loves it.

He got a coat in the mail last week (a warm columbia winter coat) and insisted on wearing it outside. Hood up, zipper zipped, all velcro closed... in 70 degree weather. It was adorable. I let him do that for a while and then managed to convince him that he didn't *really* need a coat when the weather was *that* warm. It took some work to convince him.

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