tunnel fun

One of the ways that Nathan and Caroline play together is with a tunnel that Nana and Granddaddy gave Nathan when he was little. They both seem to enjoy it. Here are a few picture of them from the other day.

Here are the two of them peering through one of the mesh windows.


Nathan watches as Caroline (full of drool) crawls through.


She made it and stops to smile for the camera.


What could be better than a gigantic tag?


Nathan is so silly! Here he is rolling over and over in the tunnel.

bowling

Last Friday we had another family outing to the bowling alley. I think everyone had a good time...even Caroline. She enjoyed watching everyone. Here are a few pictures:





You may ask "What is Nathan doing?" Well, I can't really tell you. :) I think he was just enjoying letting the air blow his hair.

going to the park

Last week the kids and I headed out to the park that is just around the corner from our house. It has cooled off around here, so I hope to be able to do more outside. Here are a few pictures from our outing. This first one is a just a random shot of Nathan.



Nathan has gotten much bolder about his climbing lately. He's not nearly as cautious as he used to be. This day, two other kids came over to play on the same thing. One of them was a little boy a bit older than Nathan. He zipped right on up to the top and encouraged Nathan to do the same. Part of me wanted to tell Nathan not to do it while another part wants to be careful about stopping him from adventuring beyond what he knows he can do. Luckily, he decided not to try it. I was relieved.



Nathan's favorite part of just about any park trip is the sand. He loves to play with sand. His favorite part, though, is putting the sand on the playground equipment. I have never figured out why this is so thrilling but I figure if it works for him, he might as well have fun!



Caroline took her first trip in a swing. Nathan, of course, wanted to help. He pushed her for just a little while. He preferred, however, to make her swivel side to side and back and forth. Caroline thought that was pretty fun, too. She wasn't overly thrilled about the swing, but she was content to just hang out in it for awhile.

bookshelf comparisons

Here are side-by-side pictures of Nathan and Caroline about the same age standing at the wire bookshelves. I think it's interesting to see how they compare.

one like mom

Nathan is very much like Matt. He looks like Matt. He's smart like Matt. He has a similar personality to Matt. He has now "decided", however, to take after his mother in one area...sleep oddities. That's right. Nathan is a sleep walker and talker. As a child, I (apparently) did lots of walking and talking in my sleep. Now, Nathan is taking up the "skill". About a week ago, around 4:30 in the morning, we heard a little Nathan knock on our bedroom door. When he didn't come in after a few tries of telling him to, Matt went to check on him. He was found in his bed...sound asleep. Last night, after I went to bed, I heard him making talk-like sounds. I went in to find him sound asleep. I tried to talk to him but did not get a intelligible response. After going back to bed, I heard him say a sentence similar to what I would hear him saying to William during his down time. He made just a couple more sounds so I went back to ask him if he needed to go to the bathroom (when I would sleep walk, my mom would take me to the bathroom and put me back to bed). When I asked, he gave me a clear "no". So, I let him be. I might should have taken him ,though, since he didn't make it through the night dry. We'll see if he gets to be as good at sleep walking as I once was. One of my last adventures (and probably the most memorable) was out the garage door at home, around through the back gate, past the pool, and up to the back door where I banged until my poor frightened parents let me in...all while asleep.

what is Nathan up to

Although things with Nathan don't change as often as they do with Caroline, there are definitely some new things to tell. He is growing up. I looked at a picture of him a couple weeks ago and thought "He's starting to really look like a big boy." It's kinda sad.

Nathan loves to learn. Like Matt, he absorbs everything. His latest phase is spelling. He wants to know how to spell everything. He also seems to be experimenting with how letters go together to form words. He'll often ask something like this "Mommy, what does p-d-r-a spell?" Sometimes the combinations are words but often they are not. He is retaining some spelling, though. Just over the last couple weeks, I think he's gone from being able to spell a few words in addition to some names to being about to spell or at least recognize a bunch. I really don't even know what kind of number to put on it. Every time I turn around he knows another one that I didn't know he knew. For example, we were writing words earlier before his nap and I wrote "house". I asked him what it said and after looking for a second, he said "house". I didn't know he knew that word! Along with this new-found interest, we are working on teaching phonetics. When he asks me how to spell things, we often go through the sounds in order to gather up the letters to spell whatever it is. Fortunately for us, PBS has good timing. They have just started two new shows for the fall that are teaching spelling. One of them, "Word World", comes on just before his nap. For a while, he has been allowed to watch a cartoon at that time just to settle him down. It's extremely convenient for this show to be in this time slot at this time in Nathan's learning!

A couple weeks ago, Nathan's class at church promoted. Along with the promotion, he was able to start children's choir and AWANA Cubbies. He seems to be enjoying them both. Last Wednesday, we bought Nathan his supplies for Cubbies. Below, you can find a picture of him wearing his Cubbie vest. (Side note...I really felt like a "mom" when we bought him his stuff. We've never had to buy supplies for one of his activities before...but that's what moms do...buy stuff that kids need. It's the beginning of many many money-needing activities.)

One of Nathan's favorite activities is playing games at pbskids.org. They have games related to all of the cartoons that they show. Many of the games are educational, so it makes me feel better about letting him play. Of course, we still limit how long he can play and rarely let him play without at least being in the room to "help" him and continue to interact with him. He loves it! They have recently introduced some new games and activities, so he's figuring them out. His favorite game (it seems anyway) is called "Banana 411." It's a Curious George game where The Man with the Yellow Hat tells you a number to "dial" and after you have done it, it shows a clip from one of the cartoons. Nathan is very good at it. That's probably because it involves numbers and memory...two things that he is very good at.

As I mentioned on Caroline's post, Nathan is enjoying playing with Caroline these days. Several weeks back, I asked him what his favorite thing about Caroline was. His response was "her smile when I laugh at her". I think he really loves his little sister. He is quickly developing his older sibling role. He tells her what to do and lets me know when she's doing something she shouldn't be. Sometimes, it's just tattling, but other times (maybe even the majority of the time) he is trying to keep her from doing something that isn't good or safe for her. He wants to take care of her. I think, though, that he's still dealing with some of the jealousy of having to share his parents time.

He's a sweet boy! He's a smart boy! We love him lots and lots!

what is Caroline up to

I haven't actually written much lately about what Caroline is doing these days. I'm going to see how much I can think of over the next day or two so that by the time this is posted it should be fairly complete.

Caroline has been eating solid food for a while now. She seems to enjoy it just fine. She has had several kinds of cereals - rice, oatmeal, barley, and rice with bananas. She has also had carrots, green beans, spinach, pears, peaches, bananas, cabbage, butternut squash, peas, sweet potatoes, and apples. She doesn't reject any of them but actually seems to like the green beans and cabbage the best. She also enjoys the spinach. It's a little too thick, though, so we make it with rice cereal. As I did with Nathan, I have made most of Caroline's food. Of course, I'm not making the cereals. :) We did have to buy some packaged food after we moved because I just couldn't find enough time...imagine that. Oh yeah, we have also given Caroline a few Cheerios.

Caroline is certainly on the move. There is pretty much no stopping her. She is a very fast crawler when she wants to be. She loves to explore. There are a couple things that are off limits that she loves to try to get to...Nathan's room, and the little cover for the bolt holding the toilet to the floor. Why that is so facinating, I just don't understand. She is also getting pretty steady on her feet. She pulls up and cruises around things pretty well. She's getting steady enough to stand with only one hand holding on just a little bit. Sniff...sniff...our baby is growing up.

On the growing up note, several weeks ago we took Caroline's bumper completely out of the bed. It really makes her feel much bigger. These days, we rarely go in her room to find her doing anything but standing...waiting for somebody to come get her. They sure do grow up fast. It has seemed much faster with Caroline because we have been so busy since she's been born. Oh yeah, Caroline went through a phase (I think we're through it anyway) where she would pull up to stand in her crib and get "stuck". She didn't know how to sit or lay back down. After I found her quite upset standing a couple times, I figured it out. Poor girl...she was practicing her new-found skill and couldn't figure out how to un-practice it.

She has definitely learned to communicate with those around her. Here are two of my favorite examples. We were sitting at my parents one day and Caroline was playing with some toys in the floor. Nathan took whatever she was playing with and she let him know that she WAS NOT happy. She "yelled" in a very upset tone until the very moment that he handed it back...and then she was just fine. There was nothing out of control about her being upset. It was very funny to those of us in the room. Unfortunately, I think it was only a tiny example of the temper to come. The second story that I really enjoy happened last week. Caroline (probably with the help of Nathan) had hit her head on something and reacted in her very dramatic cry which is typical of this type of situation. Nathan squatted down in front of her and in a high-pitch voice typical of baby speech said "It's not a big deal...It's not not a big deal." while shaking his head. Caroline stopped crying and responded in like tone and exact number of syllables "ba da da da da" while shaking her head. It was a very cute imitation!

As I suspected even before Caroline was born, I think she is going to be an extrovert. We picked her up from the nursery at church one night and they told us that she had been sitting just about the whole time playing with toys with another little girl of similar age and jabbering away. It doesn't surprise me one bit. I just wish I could have seen it.

Caroline loves her brother! She likes when he plays with her. She often follows him around the house. Of course, he doesn't stay in one place long, so she's constantly changing directions. I think they have the best time playing in Nathan's tunnel. Maybe that's because Nathan really enjoys it too. At times, though, Nathan can get a bit rough with her. We are starting to have to remind him that she's still a baby and he needs to be gentle. Daily, she starts crying for me to find out that he has hit her with something or pulled something out from under her and made her fall or is manhandling her to get her where he wants her to be and in just the position he wants her in. Fortunately, she doesn't mind too much. I think before long she'll be able to take care of herself just fine!

She's a sweet little girl and we're very glad that she is a part of our family!

Well, I couldn't post about her without including some pictures. So, here are just a few. The last picture is a good example of Nathan playing with her. I came around the corner the other day to this sight. Fortunately, I was carrying my camera at the time. Caroline seemed to be very entertained.




Late Addition: I forgot to mention that Caroline is taking after her brother in one very important area...blankets and tags. She has started sleeping with a blanket at night. It seems to provide her some comfort. Her favorite part of it, though, is the tag. She loves them as much as her brother does. Of course, it's not only the tags on blankets. She loves them on everything!

Granddad and Grandma

Nathan and Caroline enjoy hanging out with Granddad and Grandma. However, we rarely remember to get pictures with them. Last week, though, we remembered to take the camera. Here is a picture of Granddad and Nathan eating muscadines. Below that is Grandma and Caroline while we were wondering around outside.

togetherness

I am always trying to get a good picture of my two kids together. It's virtually impossible, though, to get them both to look at the same time...much less both smile. Here are a couple pictures that I have caught recently.

Uncle Sean's visit

Uncle Sean came to visit last weekend. We were very glad to see him (and very sad to miss Aunt Lisa). Somehow, we managed to miss getting a picture of Sean and Caroline together. Oh well...here are some pictures anyway. Just for some context, in the first picture, Nathan and Sean are playing "hide and seek". Nathan is supposedly hiding and Sean is doing a good job of finding despite the faulty hiding spot.

helper nathan

Nathan is a very good helper. Here are just a few pictures of him helping out around the house.

missed pictures

There are a couple pictures that I meant to put up previously but forgot. The first is a picture of the three firepeople in our home. Don't they look ready for action?


This is Caroline's first time pulling up. Matt was there to witness this milestone met. Yay! This was on August 27th.

Two Videos

Here are a couple recent videos of Caroline. I think you get a lot more out of seeing the action and hearing the sounds than you do a still picture (though I'm not knocking still pictures). Enjoy! Don't forget the new pictures in the post below.

This is a video of Caroline crawling.





My favorite part of this video is Caroline jabbering away. I think it's very cute!

around the house and swimming