Jason's Birthday

Jason is another year older, and a little wiser too, with all the studying he's been doing! This is the last year he'll have a birthday while in school-- hooray! We did typical birthday activities: nice breakfast, pizza and cake for dinner (way yummy new recipe for a carrot cake I got off my friend Rachelle's blog that is from her sister-in-law's blog), opening presents, and of course dancing to the Beatles's birthday song. Other than that, Jason studied, did some weed whacking, and studied some more.

Check out this card Victoria made for him. This is of the two of them golfing. I still can't get over her artistic abilities!

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers! We had a great day here. Victoria was excited to bring me breakfast in bed. She wanted to bring me toast or bread or a sandwich, but Jason suggested maybe a breakfast sandwich. So he made a delicious poached-egg-with-cheese grilled sandwich and strawberries on the side. It was perfect-- he's such a good cook! When I came downstairs they had my mother's day presents out for me: a Nantucket wind chime with a little birdhouse on the top (which was what Victoria and Karissa picked out on their own accord) and my violin with brand new strings on it! It was perfect-- again! (Since we got our piano in the fall I started playing around with my violin again, until the strings broke. They're pretty expensive, so I hadn't gotten any yet.)

My Mother's Day gift to myself was completing P90X yesterday! Now I get to start training for the marathon I'm going to run in the fall. After some test runs last week I found that whatever pain I had when I ran before, after I had Austin, is finally gone now. Hopefully I won't have another baby that big again!

Jason made a lovely dinner on the grill: drumsticks, rice pilaf, and green beans with strawberry shortcake for dessert. My family spoiled me today!

Here's the hanging basket of flowers Victoria and Jason brought home last night. We'll hang it right next to my wind chimes tomorrow when this cold front passes!

11 Months

It's hard to believe, but Austin is 11 months now. He has hit many milestones this last month.

A month ago, he was barely crawling, now he's crawling all over the place, including trying the stairs, climbing into the firewood holder, climbing on the play stove, and his favorite place is to just climb on the brick mantle of the fireplace. He also enjoys pushing his walker or walking with Mom, only holding one hand. He is drinking water from a sippy cup, which is good since he doesn't nurse as much anymore and eats about 2 or 3 baby food jars a day, including crackers and any table food he ingests (which isn't much; most of that ends up on the floor). Typical of our kids, he likes to "talk" and make lots of noise. Currently, his favorite toy is a pair of maracas that Gramms bought for Karissa for her 2nd birthday. One of them just shakes, but the other one counts and says the colors of the rainbow with lights flashing and music playing. He prefers the Spanish over the English version. He slept with that toy last night, and now today it doesn't make noise anymore, just lights up, so its talking days may be over. It probably has nothing to do with being slept with and more from being dropped many times.

Austin has no interest, whatsoever, in any soft cuddly stuffed animal, like his sisters. He likes toys that make noise, balls, and anything with wheels. The best are the real things with wheels! He weighs about 20.5 pounds, so as soon as school is out and we are done with the carpool, he's going front facing in the car!

We love our boy!

Favorite spot with favorite toy.

His sisters have had no interest in this b-ball hoop, but it involves a ball, so Austin likes it!

Another favorite spot (which has been removed) with the favorite toy.

Sharing and Shyness (or lack thereof)

Sharing

The other day I took Austin and Karissa to story time at the library and then we stayed for ABC Activity Time, which is just a time for young children and babies to play with educational toys and puzzles. During the ABC time a baby about 13-14 months old crawled over to play with Karissa and Austin. His mom started telling me how he needs more time with other kids so he could learn to share, since he is the first. Sure enough, he went to grab a ball that Austin was holding, but Austin, already used to having things taken from him, held on real tight, and with a loud grunt, pulled the ball back. Then, he picked up another toy and gave it to the other boy. Later, the two boys joined up again and the same exact thing happened! I've always admired other parents' third or fourth child who is good at sharing just because of their placement in the family. Now I've got one too!

Shyness (or lack thereof)

Later that day while we waited for Victoria to get out of school, Karissa was running around with some other little chicas her age. One of them was with her grandpa and ran back to him for a moment before continuing to play with the others. Karissa, not even hesitating once or even looking to see what he looked like, ran right up to the grandpa too, hugging his leg like he was her own grandpa. She clung to his leg for about a minute, while the man looked at me laughing. He happened to have a huge white beard, so he asked her if he looked like Santa. She just glanced up at him to see if he did, then went back to playing with the others. My mom says I always liked sitting with the older men at church when I was younger, so I guess she gets her likeness for old grandpas from me, but she also goes up to any kid at the park and plays with them, so I don't think she has a shy bone in her body!

Homework

Though Victoria is only in pre-K, her homework is like what my second graders did at the beginning of the year. Of course that was about 9 years ago, but still, her homework is getting very challenging! Check out what her homework was last week:

Monday: 35 addition problems (not just 1+1, but all combinations of two numbers equaling 10)
Tuesday: a front and back page of sounding out 3 and four-letter words; and ten groups of three words to put into alphabetical order (some of these words were ones they couldn't even sound out yet)
Wednesday: putting triangles around 5's and squares around 10's to 100 on the front page and fact families on the back

Their homework is due Thursday, so they don't have homework that night, but every night they also do their sight words (there are 41 of them now) and read a small phonics book. Up to this point the homework took about 15-20 min, which I think is about right for young 5-year-olds who aren't in K yet. Some nights last week it took her over an hour to complete the work! I'm just hoping it's not like this for the rest of the school year. The funny part is, she likes to make it even harder by wanting to put each sight word into a complete sentence and counting in Spanish for her math homework. At least she's ready for kindergarten!

Lights

A couple of weeks ago we got overhead lighting put in our home with some of our tax return (thanks Austin for the extra money we received b/c of your birth!). We got a ceiling fan put into our family room, which also helps light our table so we can see our food better. Another light put into our living room, which makes reading easier in there.

A light in Austin's room Victoria's and Karissa's room (we made the flowers yesterday and they wanted to hang them from their new light)

And the guest room. No more lamps-- woohoo!

Spring Break

This week was spring break, so Victoria was home all week. Even though we had lots of things planned, she was still going crazy being with us all week long! It makes me worry about what we're going to do about this summer when she's off! Some of the highlights of the week were:

-playing outside

-playdates with friends

-roller skating at the rink

-making crafts

-writing and drawing in a journal

-going to the zoo

In the "duck pond" of the insect room

Getting cozy with the goat!

We met Ben and Abby there

Also, Victoria has a loose tooth in front, Austin is crawling every where, Karissa proved what a "different" eater she is (she didn't like the cotton candy she got at the zoo!)

Austin likes to pretend he's Count Dracula

Here's a video of Austin crawling