When We Did Things

Okay, this post is mostly for me, so I can have a place to keep all the dates of when the kids hit their big milestones because I certainly can’t REMEMBER them! And it might entertain you readers too, especially if you have children who are younger than mine. Some milestones we hit early, some late, and some right on time. This is a post that will be updated as new milestones are hit, so I plan to put a link to it in the sidebar. Enjoy!

Slept all night: R at 2 months, J and Z at 3, and T at almost 6 months

Kicked the pacie habit: R at 4 months, the boys at 16 months

Sat up: R at 6 months, J and Z at 7 months, T at 8 months

Sat up on own: J at 9 months, the rest at 10 months

First tooth: J and R at 6 months, Z at 7, T at 8

Crawled: J and T at 9 months, Z and R at 10

Walked for real: R right after 12 months, Z at 13 months, J at 14 months, T at 15 months

Food: The kids started eating cereal at 4 months, table food at 9 months, sippy cups at 11 months, and had their very last bottles just after 12 months

Words: dada was the first word for each of them, they said the word long before they said it with purposeful meaning. I didn’t start keeping track of words with meaning until they were 16 months old, at which point they all got credit for dada as their first word with meaning. At 16 months their vocabulary was limited to 2-4 words depending on the child. They didn’t reach 50 words until they were 22 months old.

Potty trained: R was day trained by 3 years, 3 months and fully trained by 3 years, 8 months. T was day trained by 3 years, 4 months and fully trained by 3 years, 4 months. J was day trained by 3 years, 7 months.

Should I add any other milestones?

Naughty Nibbling

Apparently someone told Zachary that once Santa leaves the North Pole, your place on the Nice List is secure because he felt safe enough for this little escapade, happily documented by Jim who notices everything!

We put out cookies for Santa, took our picture with the cookies, and headed for bed. At least, some of us headed for bed! Oh, those tempting cookies…

Busted!!

Headed for Christmas at Full Speed

We have been SO BUSY!!! The last few weeks are really a blur of shopping, decorating, baking, and Christmasing in general. It’s been difficult for me to find time to sit down and share with all of you. This morning, however, I MAKING time, and I hope you will enjoy a few pics of the things we’ve been up to.

The festivities are extra fun this year because the kids are so much more aware and have their own expectations. They know Santa is coming. They couldn’t wait to put up the tree! Christmas day can’t get here fast enough!

One thing that is helping them somewhat to have a concept of “how many days until Christmas” is a countdown chain they made at preschool. It’s a chain of numbered constructions paper links hanging from a little Christmas tree, and every day you remove one link so you are that much closer to the big day. Additionally, I stuck a smiley face on the day we leave for Bud and KayKay’s house, so we’re counting down to both. After we remove a link, we count how many days are left. I’ll try to get a pic soon.

One of the first things we did this month to prepare for Christmas was put up my grandmother’s old aluminum tree. This was the first year I put it up for the kids, and they really loved helping out. I loved doing it because it brought back happy memories of all the years Jodie and I put that tree up at my grandmother’s house. She always saved it for us! We got out the old color wheel and everything!

The next day, I helped the kids make ornaments for it since we hadn’t yet gotten down all the boxes of decorations from the attic.

We had planned on trying out a real tree this year but the weather and the kids’ impatience conspired against this idea, and we put up the artificial one instead. Here is Jonathan helping Dad put the star on top.

We’ve even gotten to play in the snow this month, something I feel certain has never happened since I’ve lived here in Knoxville!

We even built a snowman! What a fun morning! We played and played and then went inside and had hot chocolate! Well, except for Jonathan who refuses all things chocolate. Sometimes I think he must have accidentally gotten switched with some other child in the NICU! He certainly didn’t get this from me!

Additionally, we have also written letters to Santa, taken the kids shopping for stockings to finally replace the “Baby’s First Christmas” ones we’ve been using, watched Christmas specials (Rudolph and the Grinch are this year's favs), baked 10 dozen cookies for a cookie swap (that was me, not the kids), visited Santa himself, taken Christmas card pics and ordered the cards, and looked at lots of Christmas lights in neighborhoods and one professional show! Whew! And Christmas isn’t even here yet!

I do have pics of the Santa visit, just not with me at the moment, so you can look forward to those and the story that goes with them. Here are some thoughts to keep in mind…How do you entertain 4 preschoolers while waiting in line to see Santa? Who was the ONE child who refused to sit in Santa’s lap? What happens when JonZReaTom doesn’t get a nap and then goes out in public? To a restaurant even? There’s just so much to tell!

Merry Christmas!

One More VBS Story

Okay, here's what I learned from VBS...breakfast does not have to be eaten at the kitchen table!

I know, I'm a little slow sometimes, and once I'm in the habit of always feeding the kids their meals at the table, it's hard for me to get out of the rut. Pity me.

Anyway, first I discovered that waffles are great for eating in the car. Hardin Valley is way across town and VBS started at 9. That meant we had to leave the house by 8:30 at the LATEST, and preferably before that. That is really early for me to have kids up and ready to walk out the door. A couple of those days we had to take Jim to work first, which meant leaving even earlier, but at least I had his help getting ready!

In addition to feeding the kids in the car, I also discovered I could feed them in their room. I would walk through the door with breakfast, lay it out on the train table, and they would eat while I got diapers and clothes ready. They could alternate getting ready and eating, and by the time everyone was ready to go, they had all finished their breakfasts! Genius!