Lex lost another tooth this morning! The front right tooth. One of those wiggly, sticky-outy ones :-) He refuses to flash a toothless smile for the camera though.
A tooth!
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Tag Archives: Milestones
A little milestone
There are lots of big developments going on around here. Both kids are rocking at their swimming lessons, growing stronger and more confident each time they get in the water. Lex has three wiggly teeth, one of them is super wiggly! Eve can write and spell “I love you mommy” all by herself :) But one little milestone occurred to me this week that made me a little sad. I can’t remember the last time one of them came into our bed at night for cuddles. They used to come in every night, at least one of them, sometimes both. Usually I’d pull them in to bed to snuggle. When I heard shuffling by my bedside I’d reach out my hand and rub their head first. A sweet touch secretly designed to clue my groggy self in as to who’s standing by my bed. A trick that lost it’s effectiveness towards the end as Eve’s hair grew in. Then I’d pull them in for snuggles or sigh and get up and put them back to bed (what was I thinking!) But now I can’t even remember the last time one of them showed up for midnight cuddles. Sigh. A sweet, sad little milestone.
Lex’s first blog post
Lex makes great “creations” with blocks and Legos and paper and all sorts of things. Often he’ll take pictures of his creations. Even more often I’ll take pictures of them! Sometimes I remind him about the blog and offer to let him post his pictures. Tonight he took me up on the offer! What you see below is Lex’s first blog post. Exciting, huh?! He wrote the title and picked the photos to use and together we uploaded them. By that point it was getting late and we had a game of Life to play before bedtime, so he narrated captions to me and I typed and navigated the WordPress interface. I’m an old pro at that! He was pretty excited about the whole thing. Someday you may see more from him! :)
I had him write down the number of each photo he wanted to add, instead of flipping between programs as I normally do. He worked so hard at it. He's so cute!
French braid!! (kind of!)
I braided Eve’s hair tonight! It’s pretty messy and not very sharp, but it’s a braid! Wheee… girls are great! She likes the curl at the end the best. :)
Muscle development
I am super proud of Lex today. He’s had a serious burst in muscle development lately. Development and interest. I’m sure one is driving the other.
Within the past few weeks he’s learned how to do cartwheels (not sure who taught him), how to go across the monkey bars, hand over hand, how to hang upside down on the bar with no hands, and just today he started riding his bike without training wheels! I’m sure there is more in there, but those are the big things that come to mind right now. It’s so amazing to watch.
At the beach yesterday he was playing on the playground and kept yelling for me to watch him. When I finally did (sorry Lex, I was busy) he zipped right across the monkey bars. There were eight of them I think. Hand over hand and across he went. I’ve seen him kind of do the short ones on our playset, but I’ve never seen the long ones! He did it over and over yesterday. Today he was on the swingset and I saw him hanging upside down, no hands, just hanging out.
Just hanging out
A couple weeks ago he started doing cartwheels in the living room. They aren’t perfect, but he has the general hang of them. We were practicing at the 4th of July party and I think his cartwheel is better than mine.
No, there is no video of me doing cartwheels ;)
This afternoon we were riding bikes and then sat on the porch to take a break. I told him that Grandpa Tom is coming over in the morning and that he taught four kids how to ride without training wheels! (Right? My memory isn’t great so forgive me if that’s wrong.) I suggested maybe Grandpa Tom could help him learn too. Lex thought for a moment and then decided that today would be a better day. Sweet! We went out to the street, I held the back of his bike for a few strides, then his shirt, then he was off on his own. Full of confidence and smiles! We practiced a few times with me holding him briefly, but then he decided he no longer needed my help. With just a few minutes today and a small handful of other brief attempts, Lex is now officially training wheels free!
Sorry for the bouncy video, I was running along beside him.
He practiced his starts, stops, and turns for awhile this afternoon before we had to call it quits. I’m hoping he’ll show off his new skills tomorrow :) He is so proud of himself and I am too! My little baby is riding with the big boys now!
My neighbor down the street said “You realize tomorrow it will be the car keys, right?” Slow down!
This makes me so happy I decided to link up to this week’s Happiness Is… blog hop :)
Lex’s six year check up
We had an awesome visit to the doctor’s office today. Seriously. Lex had an appointment at 9:15 and he chose to go to school for an hour first instead of just going in late. The surprised me a bit, but it worked out well. He happily left with me when I came to pick him up. He did an awesome job at the appointment. He behaved well, he cooperated with the doctor and did everything she asked him to. It was just awesome. Then, to top it all off, he happily went back to school! He was chatting with everyone along the way, on the way out telling people where he was going and on the way back telling people that he was growing well and very healthy. It was adorable and by far the smoothest part of my day! How often can you say that about a doctor’s appointment.
His stats are all good: 50lbs (73rd percentile and up 8lbs from last year!) and 44 1/2″ (31st percentile). I, and the doctor, think there was a measurement error last year. His record said 44″ at his 5yr checkup, but we all agreed he’s grown more than 1/2″ this year. My oh-so-formal pencil on the wall measurement system had him at 42″ last year and 44 1/2″ this year. I think that’s more likely. She agreed.
Somewhat unrelated to the doctor visit, but very related to his turning six, Lex had a new milestone yesterday. He actually spoke on the phone!!! I had Alan on speaker phone and Eve was talking to him. Lex ran over to see what was going and then he started talking too! Right at the phone! :) I doubt Alan could understand what either of them were saying because they were both talking excitedly and over one another, but nonetheless Alan was excited to hear Lex’s voice over the phone! He is growing up.
I was just reading some posts from when he was three and four years old… I get lost in my own blog sometimes. I can spend hours, seriously, reading about what happened in my own life, in my own house, years ago. I mention this only to say that Lex really, truly, has come a long way. There are so many posts about struggles with him. Fighting. Yelling. Pure exhaustion. He is such a sweet, nice boy now. He was then too, but it’s different now. Minor issues still, but nothing, nothing!, like it was before. I feel like I’ve weathered (or conquered?) a storm and now have a beautiful, nearly calm sea to explore. I truly am fortunate.
Mr. Independent
Lex has entered a new phase of independence the past few days. Will it last? We shall see. He has been protesting bath a lot lately (gently, not forcefully, luckily for me) so a few days ago I told him he was dirty and needed to get clean and I gave him a few choices on how that could happen. When I mentioned a shower he jumped at the idea. Since then he has been taking showers on his own. He can do the whole thing without help. It’s pretty amazing. I wondered when the time would come to switch from bath to showers and it seems, like many things child-related, you just know when it’s time. Or they just tell you :) Yesterday was a super busy and exhausting day and Lex started to meltdown around 5pm when we were cleaning up outside and heading in. I gave him the option of helping us clean up, or heading in for a shower. He ran right in. By the time I got in (after more cleanup and chit-chatting with my friend who was visiting) he was done and stepping out of the shower.
He also has taken to making his own breakfast and dinner. As long as dinner means sandwiches, bagels, oatmeal, and/or yogurt. He still needs a bit of help in the kitchen and makes a bit of a mess, but he is motivated and learning! As part of our summer activities I’m going to have cooking or “kitchen” sessions and I think (hope!) he’ll enjoy them. I’m getting excited!
Happy 6th Birthday Lex!
I’m filled with emotions today, but I’m going to keep this short and sweet because my thoughts don’t often come out well through my fingers. Instead I’ll just say Happy Birthday (quietly) to the sweetest little boy I know. The boy who made us a family. The boy who changed my world forever. The boy who can make me laugh, cry, yell, and hug, all within the span of six minutes. I love you Lex. Thank you for being you. A strong, confident, silly, smart, loving little boy.
Happy Birthday!
I like to leave a little something for them to find on birthday mornings. I was also going to make a special breakfast, that didn't happen, so instead he had oatmeal with leftover chocolate "dirt" sprinkled on top. He was happy.
It's 6:00am and this is his "put down the camera and let me open presents" face.
A Rubiks cube. It's good to challenge your brain at 6am, right?
Lex had show and tell today and he had to bring in something that starts with the letter X. He chose to draw a xylophone with his fancy new markers. I love this boy!
I uploaded all of the birthday party pictures to Picasa. Check ’em out! (just click on the little picture below)
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| Lex's 6th birthday party |
Tonight we are going out to dinner to celebrate. When I ask about their dinner choices they always choose “out” instead of me cooking for them. I try not to take that personally! Lex threw us a curve ball today by requesting Friendly’s instead of Panera Bread. Assuming he doesn’t change his mind, that’s where we’ll be headed tonight. I can’t wait for him to come home from school!
A birthday party sneak peek
I’m super tired and about ready to pass out, but I wanted to post a few pics for those who couldn’t be there for Lex’s party this weekend. I’ll post more during quiet time tomorrow. For now…
The birthday monkey testing out the monkey bars. He's good at them!
Eager swingers, patiently waiting (kind of) for the swingbar to be ready.
Ahh... this is what I've been waiting for all these weeks. Swing set up. Children playing happily. Life is good.
Reach for the trees!
Cake time! Can you believe he's almost six?! It makes me want to cry!
In a happy way. Usually.
Bagels for dinner. His choice, of course. Sandwich fixings as well. We did cake first, then presents, then dinner.
Lego love
Hope that will tide you over for now. I promise more pictures soon to come. Thanks to all who attended. We had a fantastic weekend! Those who couldn’t make it were missed. Hopefully we can see you all again soon!
It was hard choosing just a few pictures to post! Also, I have to say, one of my favorite parts of this weekend is that Lex happily smiled for the camera. Many times! He’s so good to me.
Happy 4th Birthday to Eve
Happy, happy birthday to my big girl today! Just four short years ago today we welcomed her into this world, forever changing our little family. Lucky, lucky us!
Today she woke to find a little birthday something waiting for her.
Happy Birthday Eve!!
A tiny pink Samuri eraser makes her say "awww"
Ribbon on packages is kind of like torture to small children.
Lex picked out a flashing "Birthday Girl" tiara for her. She loved it :)
Big birthday hugs
The chocolate cupcakes I made for her party this weekend didn’t turn out well (literally, they did not turn out of the wrappers well and made a huge mess) so last night I whipped up a batch of yellow cupcakes (thanks Betty Crocker!) and this morning we put Cool Whip, red sprinkles, and raspberries on top. They were a big success with her friends at school.
Decorating cupcakes
Like my snazzy cupcake transport system? They all made it to school, safe and sound.
After school we decorated a princess mirror, put together her new puzzle, ate lunch, and spent an hour watching videos of her first year. That was fun.
Eve's friend got her a Decorate Your Own princess mirror. Eve loves it.
This was a gift from me, but it ended up being much harder than I had antipcated. We did it though!
This is Eve’s favorite…
This is one of my favorites (it’s hard to choose just one!)…
Now she is napping (which took some effort on my part!) and this afternoon we are off to swimming lessons again and then out to dinner at a restaurant of her choice, which is still undecided. It is a lovely day.