Last week, part 2

Annie has recently cut back to one nap. Yeah, she turns two next month and she's just barely going to one nap. Two naps sure have been nice while it lasted. And I can't complain now, either; her one nap is often 3+ hours long. One day last week she insisted on sleeping on Rachel's bed. The one other time she requested to sleep in a bed and not a crib she was up playing in one minute, so I told her I'd give her one chance, and when I came in to check on her, there she was, sound asleep after just a few minutes.

She has stuck to her crib pretty well since then, though. I'm not particularly looking forward to the bedtime battles when she does graduate to a big girl bed, so we'll happily stick to the crib for another 2 or 3 years if she lets us. ;)

Last week during preschool Ryan was napping, and Annie and I went outside to clean out the car a little and after I had carried a load of junk inside I came back outside to find Annie talking to this pretty little bird.

It was obviously someone's pet parakeet and let Annie get real close before it noticed the stroller basket had cracker crumbs in it and flew over to the stroller for a snack. While I was trying to figure out if we should put it in a box or a laundry basket or something while I tried to figure out who it belonged to, it flew away saving me from the hassle. :) It was a cute little visitor. For the next few days when we would go get the stroller for a walk around the block Annie would always say "Birdie went bye-bye." I guess she misses her little friend. 

Ryan turned 6-months-old last week. We took him in for his 6 month appointment and were happy to find that he had gained 10 more ounces in just under 2 weeks. He didn't grow in height at all since his 4 month appointment, but hopefully now that he's gaining weight, he'll start gaining height again soon. He's still not on the chart for weight, but he's getting closer, and hopefully in about a month he'll be back on the charts and we'll be able to stop doing all the extra calorie stuff. Right now we're adding this powdered carb/fat stuff to all his solids and supplementing his breastfeeding with formula that is slightly more concentrated than normal (2 1/2 scoops per 4 ounces instead of just 2 scoops). So for now he's at 13 lbs. 10 oz. (< 3 percentile)and 26.3 inches (40th percentile).

Ryan got shots at his appointment, so I kept waiting for him to pull off one of his bandaids and try to eat it like both Rachel and Annie did, but he apparently is more hygienically-minded than the girls and left the bandaids in place. He was, however, rather grumpy because of the shots, so I let him play in the tub to cheer him up. It always works. :)

 

The girls have been really in to coloring lately. Our table is always covered with crayons and paper and coloring books. And usually not markers. Annie is at that age. You know the one where if there is a way to make a mess she will find it. (Unfortunately that also couples with Ryan's new found mobility and ability to pick up small objects and put them in his mouth, which is a dangerous combination that has me sweeping and vacuuming way more often than usual.) Anyway, markers + Annie = mess. She colors on walls, desk drawers, chairs, cabinets, and herself. It had been several weeks since we'd had any markers out, however, and Rachel really wanted some markers, so I gave them a chance. And Annie actually did pretty well.

They were out almost a full 24 hours before I found her drawing on a chair. Her face, however got accidental marks pretty fast. 

She has been coloring really pretty well for an almost-2-year-old lately. She chooses specific things to color (noses, ears, etc.) and colors them in completely, only going out of the lines a bit.

Rachel is getting to be quite an artist. She illustrated an entire story a few weeks ago about a princess and a penguin. Maybe she'll be an author when she grows up.

And since I got pictures of what the girls spend most of their time doing during the day, I figured I'd get a picture of what Ryan and I spend most of the time doing during the day (when he's not asleep).

Yes, I spend most of my day holding Ryan, or at least that's what it feels like some days. And let me tell you, when a kid is 12 pounds for about 2 months, hitting 13 lbs. feels heavy. :) But lately he's actually spending a bit more time scooting around, wiping up the drool that drips on the floor with his shirt--his own version of mopping. His shirt is dirty by the end of the day, let me tell you! But he's starting to work on his real crawling, instead of just army crawling, so soon his shirts may stay clean a little longer than they do now. :)

Last week in pictures

We've been up to our regular stuff, keeping busy and such, and taking random photos at random times. And not blogging until we have a good 2 or 3 posts worth of pictures. Here are some from last week. 

Sunday, happy to be home from church:

 

We had Sunday dinner at our place to give my mom a break from cooking. Ryan was so happy that Grandma was letting him pound on and drool all over her plate while she helped McKenzie eat.

After dinner we braved the mosquitoes in the back yard (with bug spray generously applied) to swing a little.

 

Love this happy face on McKenzie (even though the chain is blocking part of it).

Sunday night we had our usual Sunday night scoops (3 each, unless someone is not behaving in sacrament meeting, then they lose one that night for each time they're being disruptive).

Annie checking to see if she can steal some from Rachel:

 

Mischievous eyes:

 

More pics to come...

Random Photos

Here are some random shots of the kiddos from recent days.

Ryan is displaying his musical aptitude in these shots.

 

He loves when you are singing to him or he thinks that you are singing to him.  Today at church, he had such a happy face during some of the hymns and Colette said he was ecstatic during the closing song of Relief Society today.  He "sang" right along with the sisters and kept on singing during the closing prayer.

Last Sunday, Rachel looked so pretty after Colette curled her hair.  She's also wearing one of her new Sunday dresses.

Annie is only allowed to have her binky and blanket during nap time. During preschool last week Annie went and pulled her binky and blanket out of her crib, grabbed a pillow from Rachel's bed, and brought them out to the front room where she had emptied the bottom shelf of our console table. After a little frustration from lack of coordination she got Colette's help to lay her blanket over her and enjoyed a 2 minute "nap."

Cousins

We finally convinced Justin and Marie to move back to Tucson. :) Marie and the girls came out at the beginning of the month and have been staying at my parents house while Justin keeps working out in Georgia the rest of the month. In October he'll drive out here and they'll move into their apartment. We're just excited for the kids to have cousins close by. Now I get to be the favorite aunt, since with kids this age the favorite is the last one they saw. :)

Whenever Peyton sees me, she comes right over and says "up!"

McKenzie likes me most of the time.

We went to Lakeside Park to feed the ducks today, but before heading down to the lake the kids had to take some turns on the slide. 

Annie's fearlessness at the expense of her own safety is tempered by slides, I guess, where she refuses to go down by herself these days.

 

Annie and Kenzie have become friends somewhat (as much as 2-year-olds or almost 2-year-olds can), and they have fun running around together.

Cutie:

Peyton didn't want to leave the slide once she'd tried it. She kept climbing back up again and again.

Finally we decided to go down and find some ducks to feed.

Here's everyone throwing bread into the water. Yes, not to the ducks, just into the water. Apparently the ducks were full or didn't like the wind or something. The few that were out on the lake wouldn't come near us for anything.

So we continued our walk along the path around the little lake. The girls had fun running and chasing each other. And McKenzie rather enjoyed pushing Ryan in the stroller when she wasn't running with the girls. 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a beautiful morning, if a bit windy, but we all enjoyed our little outing to the park. So nice to be out of the 100 degree heat, at least for a while.

Army Crawler!

Ryan can army crawl now. Unfortunately, this means we have to keep a closer watch on him. He seems to enjoy tasting the tile floor whenever he can get to it.

Impromptu Photo Shoot

Rachel is a technically savvy 4 year old. These photos were taken with Apple's Photo Booth application that came installed on our MacBook.  Colette didn't witness this impromptu photo shoot -- she believes she was putting Ryan to bed at the time.  These shots were quite a surprise when we discovered them and we both laughed at their quintessential "Rachelness".  Enjoy!

I especially like this last shot. Rachel is a funny, cute, little girl.

Teeth

There have been some comings and goings of teeth of late. Rachel was eating an apple last week and came running in to tell me excitedly that she has a loose tooth!

 

Apparently that means she's growing up, so the next day she was super helpful and obedient doing everything I asked and more, and being super polite, all because she had a loose tooth and was therefore more mature, I guess. Unfortunately that only lasted that one day and I guess she used up all her politeness for the week because the next day was total meltdown day all day long. 

She's been wiggling the tooth for the last week, and last night when we went to brush her teeth it was so loose she let me pull it out. Quick and easy. 

Now we have a toothless little girl. She was so excited for the tooth fairy to come, of course. She was up at 6am, bright-eyed and excited to find that the tooth fairy had left her some quarters and a whole dollar bill. Looks like she's growing up.

In other teeth news, Ryan got his first tooth a couple of weeks ago, just under a week before he turned 5 months old. His second tooth broke through on Monday. Bye bye gummy grin!

 

As far as Ryan goes, the new news is that it may not be Celiac Disease after all. A week after his weight check where he had gained 6 oz. in that gluten-free week I took him to a pediatric gastrointerologist and it turns out that he had lost 3 ounces in the second week of me being gluten-free. So who knows what's going on. We're trying to add a bunch of extra calories into his diet, so in addition to breastfeeding he's having formula with 25% more powder than normal, so it's more concentrated, and with his solids we're mixing in Duocal, which adds calories by way of extra carbs and fats. I'll be taking him in for a weight check probably this Friday to see if this is doing anything. If not, I may try going GF again, as I'm not completely convinced that's not playing in to this a little bit. Ryan has been more fussy than normal the last few days, and it's made me wonder if trying to shove food in his mouth at every turn is giving him a tummy ache, or if it might be related to gluten that is giving him a tummy ache. Who knows. If only he could talk and tell us why he's crying more. Still, he is a very happy baby most all the time. And a super wiggly baby. I will not be surprised if he does have a higher caloric need than most babies because he is always on the move. He started army crawling a few times yesterday (rather than just scooting like he has been doing). 

And a few random pictures. Grandpa brought this umbrella over a few weeks ago and Rachel loves it, naturally. It's a bit large for our house so most of the time it has to stay outside, but Rachel took advantage of me letting her have it inside by setting up a relaxing afternoon reading her new Friend Magazine that had just come in the mail.

And here's Rachel's monkey face, mostly rubbed off, which she got at preschool on the "J is for Jungle" day. 

She's enjoying herself at preschool and was bummed that she couldn't go yesterday because of a fever she's had off and on the last 3 days. So far so good today. Hopefully she's over it.