Kid update

Ryan has hit that stage: The climbing on tables stage. I lose track of how many times I have to get him off the table every day. 

 

The little stinker.

He had his 15 month visit yesterday and has gained almost a pound in the last 3 months. He's up to 19 lbs. 4 oz. At least he's growing some. But he's still well under the curve for weight, slowly slipping downward in his height percentiles, too, down to 19th percentile this time. But as long as he keeps growing and doesn't lose weight, we're good. He's generally a very happy kid and is learning lots of words. He loves repeating whatever Rachel says and she is very proud to be teaching him new words. His FAVORITE thing to do is vacuum. "Gackoo!" When he's throwing a tantrum sometimes the only thing that can get him to calm down is to go get the vacuum out. He absolutely loves that thing. When you switch it on he runs around from one end of the room to the other, as if the vacuum is chasing him, then he'll sometimes come lay down right next to it and is happy as can be as you vacuum all around him. He also loves when people go bye bye. I think mostly because he loves the garage and going out the front door. But when I bring him back inside we often have to pull out the vacuum because he has a total meltdown. He loves to run away from me. Especially if he's naked or in a store. So pretty much, he's your typical 15-month-old. And we love the little guy.

Now for some happy news on the sleep front: Annie falls asleep on her own most nights, and even at naptime most of the time. Hallelujah! Up until about last week she would get out of bed over and over and over. Some days the only way to get her to stay in bed long enough to fall asleep was to sit next to her for 20 minutes or so. Her new trick for falling asleep? Covering her head with her favorite blanky:

Whatever works. :)

I caught the girls loving each other yesterday while watching a movie.

 

They've been getting along a lot more often lately, playing together very well for the most part. I love it. They still fight and bug each other like siblings do, but it's not constant, like it seems like it had been for weeks on end. I was getting a bit tired of the screaming and hitting and breaking up fights. Now most of the time I hear music blasting from the girls room while they're having a dance party, or listen to their squeals (with Ryan joining in) as they run the "track" downstairs, chasing each other in a circle through the living room, family room and kitchen.

For Father's Day Rachel's primary teacher had the kids fill in the blanks. Here are Rachel's responses:

My daddy's name is Jacob. He is 55 years old, 30 tall and weighs 37 pounds. His favorite food is spaghetti. My daddy is really good at playing games with me. He loves to sing. My favorite thing to do with my dad is playing games. I'm just like my dad because I get up at the same time in the morning. What I love most about my daddy is when he lays next to me when I go to sleep. It makes Dad happy when I give him presents. 

According to Rachel I married a guy almost as old as my parents, who weighs less than Rachel does. :) I think she interposed her favorites on him: spaghetti and singing. But he is really good at playing games with the girls and they love it when he does. Especially monster chasing. He's a good dad. We're lucky to have him around! 

Grandma and Grandpa's visit

Jacob's cousin got married last Friday up in Mesa, so Jacob's parents came down for the wedding. Since they were going to be in Arizona anyway, they came a little early to come spend a couple days at our house. It was fun to have them visit. 

I was expecting them Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, so Tuesday around lunchtime I got a call saying they were getting off the freeway and needed directions to our new house. Unfortunately I wasn't even home. Oops. Grandma Knight had taken Rachel and Annie to a movie that morning, so I went to pick them up and Annie was super cranky so I put her down for a nap right then. When G&G Campbell called Annie was just waking up, but Ryan had only been asleep for a half hour. Talk about bad timing. Luckily they were willing to go hang out at the air conditioned store down the street until Ryan woke up. 

Once we finally got home and let them in, the kids had fun hanging out and showing off for Grandma and Grandpa.

 

 

They thought Grandpa's phone was pretty cool, since it played music and movies. (Our family is apparently stuck in the dark ages where we just use cell phones for calling people, so my kids don't know that phones can even do that.)

 

 

Bedtime story reading with Grandma:

 

On Thursday we went on an outing to the great outdoors. In June on a 100+ degree day. We went to Colossal Caves out in Vail. Caving happens to be the perfect Tucson activity in the summer since it's 70 degrees in the cave year-round. Besides swimming there's not much else you'd want to do outside in June.

 

Waiting for our tour:

 

 

 

This is just about the only picture I got on the inside. I took our baby backpack, which Ryan tolerates really well. But only when we're in constant motion. At our first stop for the tour guide to talk a little Ryan started getting a bit impatient. At our second stop I snapped a picture, then ended up switching Ryan for the camera, putting the camera in the backpack and carrying Ryan the rest of the way.

Though technically I didn't carry him much. I chased him with my big, bulky backpack (that I apparently should have left in the car) through the narrow passageways as he had a blast going up and down the stairs.  We dropped to the back of our little tour so whenever the tour guide stopped to talk about some formation or bit of history, Ryan would turn around and go back to the last stairs we'd been on and go up and down them until the group moved on to the next stopping point. The rest of the gang enjoyed themselves. Coming back out to the oven surface was less refreshing.

We're glad you got to come down! We're looking forward to a fun week up in Provo soon! 

I am not, however, looking forward to the drive. We're actually going up to Salmon, Idaho first, driving all the way without Jacob, who will join us towards the end of our week there (pesky work) before heading down to Provo for the following week. Thankfully my mom has agreed to drive up with me, even knowing that my kids are not great travellers. Yesterday while driving both to and from Grandma and Grandpa Knight's house, which is only 20 minutes away, Annie spent about 5 minutes on each trip yelling "Get me out of here!" ("Here" being her carseat.) We're planning on doing part of the drive while they sleep, which will hopefully go better than our attempt at night driving when Rachel was 1 where she spent half the time screaming because she couldn't fall asleep. We'll see how it goes… The fun we have when we get there had better be worth the drive. ;)

Fun with friends

A week ago Saturday I got a call from a friend of mine asking if I had plans that day. We didn't. She replied, "Oh, so you're just hoping to have 4 kids come over all day?" Sure. She went to the hospital and had a baby. And we had fun with friends all day until their aunt got off work and came to pick them up. 

The kids got into the dress ups first thing, then had some fun in the huge box amazon had sent just the day before with some of our subscribe and save products.

 

We filled up the water table several times and had some fun out in the hot hot sun (mostly in the shade).
 

 

 

By mid-day Rachel was feeling a little overwhelmed with her house being taken over (in her view) by her friends. So we threw a DVD in for some mind-numbing entertainment. After that break from interacting with each other everyone was happy again. And since there were just a couple hours left before their aunt got off work I pulled out the crafts to make paper bag puppets and clothespin dolls to keep the older girls occupied the rest of the time. The boys kept themselves entertained with a remote control car most of the time, and another visit out to the water table. 

It was a fun day and a new baby was born to top it off. :)