Happy 4th, Henry

Henry just celebrated his 4th birthday!  My second baby is getting so big!  The day before his birthday he had his first friend birthday party at Biron's where he takes weekly gymnastics class.  He had a lot of fun at his party.  They set up a little obstacle course for the kiddos.  I think they probably loved the trampoline the most.  He had a construction cake.  I think he was most excited about the two plastic trucks from the top of the cake.







 
Oh his actual birthday we went out to breakfast at our favorite breakfast place, Pecan Creek Grill.  He scarfed down all of his eggs, bacon, and pancakes!  After breakfast we went to church while Nolan was in CCE.  The rest of the day we pretty much just hung out around the house because it was a rainy, yucky day.  Nanna and Poppie and Pegby also stopped by to bring him some presents.  From mom and dad he got the Dyson vacuum that he wanted (it really picks up!) and a backpack with his name on it for when he heads off to Pre-k next year.

Below are the 20 questions I asked him:

1. What is your favorite color? yellow and red

2. What is your favorite toy? Legos

3. What is your favorite fruit? blueberries and grapes

4. What is your favorite tv show? Mighty Machines

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Pizza

6. What is your favorite outfit? jacket

7. What is your favorite game? Sorry and Uno

8. What is your favorite snack? Pirate Booty

9. What is your favorite animal? Tiger

10. What is your favorite song? Happy

11. What is your favorite book? Star Wars

12. Who is your best friend? Carolina and Claire

13. What is your favorite cereal? Fruit Loops

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? ride bikes

15. What is your favorite drink? apple juice

16. What is your favorite holiday? Halloween

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Baa Baa

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? waffles, pancakes, sausage biscuit, french toast sticks

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? pizza

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? garbage man, referee, police man

Two weeks after his birthday he had his 4 year check up.  He is doing well.  He is 37lbs and I think it was 3'4 3/4".  I didn't get the measurements written down.  He had to get 2 shots so was pretty sad about that.

Long time no blog

I have been really bad about blogging lately!  I think about it and even have pockets of time that would be good to write but then I never do.  I will likely write this today and then forget to post it for 6 weeks like I did the last two!

We had a nice Christmas.  Nolan was off from school for 2 weeks.  Kevin and I both took a little extra time off so we had a lot of time off with the boys.  There were a few days that they did have to go to the daycare though.  Christmas was all things Lego and Star Wars for Nolan.  Henry was excited for his new cookie set.  Grant really didn't know that he wanted anything but got a fun little ball popper truck.  The boys got Connect 4, a Star Wars Face Off game and Sorry.  We have enjoyed playing these at night before bed.  Nolan has already gotten pretty good at Connect 4.
 


I feel like Christmas was so long ago now I can't think of much more of an update than that.

For NYE we went to my coworkers house for a little party.  They had several NYE parties back before everyone had children so this was the first one since I was pregnant with Nolan.  The group sure has grown.  There were 18 children and 11 adults!  We had fun.  We were home at a reasonable hour and Kevin and I were even asleep before it turned 2015.

Kevin's dad gave us a HMNS membership for Christmas so we have made 2 trips to the museum already.  First we went to the smaller one in Sugar Land and then once to the main location.  The boys enjoy seeing the dinosaur bones.  Once the weather is warmer we plan on doing picnics at the park and doing the museum.  Our zoo membership has lapsed right now but we will probably renew that as well.  They are good little activities for a Saturday morning.

 

Nolan still loves all things Star Wars.  He got 2 large Lego ships for Christmas so he plays pretty independently with those in his room.  He is enjoying school and is becoming a pretty good reader.  He has a list of site words that we practice nightly.  He now has it down and doesn't make any mistakes.  He also makes little books at school where you can see that he is attempting how to sound out words and spell them.  Last week he started attending Ikids.  This is the onsite after school care at NHE.  Since pre-k he has been picked up by our daycare but this whole year he has been asking if he could stay at school.  We had to wait for the next semester to start because you pay based on that.  He is already loving it though.  He has several friends that are in it with him and he is even doing karate on Mondays.  I just got him signed up for t-ball.  In kinder they actually do a hybrid between coach pitch and a t.
 

 
Henry is still Mr. Happy to anyone he sees.  He has been a little stubborn and Mr. Grumpy to us though.  I think it is just normal 3 almost 4 year old attitude.  He is still going to speech and loves it.  He is doing really well too.  We will probably stop going pretty soon.  He has finally learned to make the K and G sounds.  He still is having some difficulty with it but I am pretty sure it will all click soon.  He got into NHE for pre-k. He is also signed up for t-ball in the Spring.  He just barely is eligible based on his age but several boys that he should be in school with next year are playing. He cracks us up with the faces he makes.  It all started when he got a laugh out of us when he would try to mimic a face that Grant makes and it has morphed into many different faces.  We are also planning his 4th birthday party at Biron's.



Grant is doing well.  He is finally only using his paci for sleeping.  If he throws a major fit we might let him have it for a few minutes but overall he is doing really well with that!  He still loves watching videos of Elmo on the computer.  He demands you show him some.  If he is grumpy at all they really improve his mood.  Within the past few weeks his speech has really started to take off.  He recently moved up to the 18-24 month class so I think being around kids that are talking more has helped.  He loves to dance and he makes the funniest mouth and arm movements.  His favorite song for a while was "Shake it Off" but lately it is "Turn Down for What".


 
We are looking forward to our Spring Break trip to FL in just a few weeks.  The weather is already starting to warm up a bit and put us in an outdoorsy kind of mood. 

18 Months

**Another post that I wrote and never hit publish!**
I know it is always said, but wow time is flying.  Hard to believe that Grant is 18 months!  He is doing well.  He had been a little whiny and clingy lately but we are blaming it on his last two teeth that are breaking through.  We should now be finished with teething until those awful 2 year molars come in.

He had his 18 month appointment yesterday and all looks good.  I did mention the fact that he still doesn't have a ton of recognizable words, but she said not to worry because it is quite typical for 18 month old boys.  He has started to try saying a little more over the past few weeks.  He knows the word hot and will say it whenever I am cooking dinner.  He also makes the cookie monster noise.  Yesterday he saw Santa on the TV so we started to say Ho Ho Ho and he was trying to repeat it back to us.  The more important thing is that he understands language.  He definitely does.  He follows commands like "go get your shoes" etc.  He acts out songs and books that have hand motions to them.

His eating is decent.  With the teething going on I don't feel like he really wanted to eat all that much lately...mainly yogurt, but his appetite does seem to be improving.  Last night he gobbled up a ton of chicken tortellini.  He still does not care for pieces of cheese and he doesn't drink nearly as much milk as his brothers.  I don't think it is a case of not liking it, he just doesn't drink a ton of anything.

Like his brothers at this age he loves Elmo and Cookie Monster.  Since the only place he really ever sees them is on the computer he will point to the computer room until we turn it on for him.  A few little videos really perk up his mood!

His hair is still his most talked about feature.  It is crazy.  I am beginning to wonder if it will ever settle down. He is a happy guy though.  He loves to wave hello and goodbye to anything and everything, he gives high fives and fist bumps (complete with the blow it up sound), he sporadically blows kisses, he will now give you a kiss if you ask for it, he loves to give hugs, he plays peek a boo (Nolan often plays with him in the car), will bring you book after book to read to him, loves to climb on the furniture, gives good belly laughs while watching America's Funniest Videos and much more!
 






Grant is the biggest guy at this stage but has the smallest head.  I don't really think of him as being tall for his age.  Maybe his hair added to his height!

Grant @ 18 Months:
Weight:  26lbs (75%)
Height:  33 3/4" (90%)
Head:  49 cm (89%)

Henry @ 18 months:
Weight: 25lb 11oz (71%)
Height:  32 3/4" (62%)
Head: 49.5 cm (94%)

Nolan @ 18 months:
Weight: 23lb 8oz (20%)
Height:  33" (75%)
Head:  50cm (90%)

This and That

12-12-14 Just realized that I had this post from about 6 weeks ago that I never posted!  

I am very behind on updating the blog.  I have started writing a post several times only to get side tracked when I come back to it the information is all out dated so I don't finish!

Things have been good, but busy.  Nolan is playing soccer again so we have practice on Tuesday nights and then a game on Saturday.  This year they play with goalies.  The first game of the season Nolan was put in as goalie.  He had barely even practiced the position before.  He did great though!  Everyone was so impressed with his skills.  While he did let a goal or two be scored against them he had many more stops.  The coach said that he would just rotate all of the kids through the position but Nolan has played it a few more times because of the fact that he does well at it and genuinely likes it.  When he isn't goalie he is doing pretty well too.  He hasn't seemed to get in the mix quite as well as he did last year but this last week he seemed to be improving.
 


We have also had quite a few birthday parties to go to this fall.  They are fun and the kids enjoy them but it just reminds me that things will be a lot busier once all of the boys are involved in sports and parties!

Nolan is doing well in school.  He enjoys going and I think is doing well overall.  We had our teacher conference last week and his teacher said that he is doing great.  He is reading really well too!  He asks to read to us at night.  It is crazy how much he has improved in such a short period of time.

Henry is still a happy guy.  He is enjoying gymnastics.  He is learning to draw pictures of people and learning to identify letters.  He is a pro at finding H's!  We had an evaluation with the school district for some speech therapy due to articulation issues he has (G sounds like D and K sounds like T) but he will not qualify for district services because it isn't bad enough.  We are going to go the private therapy route just to knock out the issue.  As his mom a feel like I understand most of what he says but with him hopefully going to pre-k at NHE next year we didn't want him to face any issues.



Grant (aka Pigpen) is also doing well.  He is basically running now.  He is so fast running down the street trying to keep up with his brothers and the neighbors.  He is into everything and such a mess.  He could literally take multiple baths a day because he is constantly dirty.  He is really good at dancing now too.  He loves to turn on his musical toys and dance.  He still isn't saying all that much but he does understand what we say to him and is learning to identify more objects in his "First Words" books.  He is super social and loves to wave to people and cars going by.

A few weeks ago I had a message from daycare. When I checked the message it was the director saying that Grant had fallen and hit his lip.  They said that they weren’t sure if it was bad enough for the doctor to look at but that I might want to check it out.  Henry and I headed straight there with the groceries still in the car.  Grant was in perfect spirits when I arrived.  It was a decent cut but I wasn’t sure if it would need stitches either.  I tried calling the doctor but just left a message for the nurse.  I took a picture and then left him to eat lunch and take his nap.  I texted my sisters the picture and they both thought it probably was bad enough to need stitches.  In the meantime the nurse had called back and said that he would just need to go to an urgent care or ER for the stitches.  I let Grant nap and then picked him up.  We were seen immediately at the stand alone ER.  He needed 4 stitches.  I am a pretty tough parent.  I don’t get worked up when they need shots etc., but being there during the stitches was pretty hard.  He was velcroed down to a little board and he screamed the entire time.  Once it was finished he was back to normal as if nothing had happened.  

  

A few weeks ago Kevin and I went on our first kid free trip.  Kevin's friend Scott was getting married in Austin.  The boys stayed with Kevin's dad.  Everyone did well. The build up to leaving the boys was harder for me than actually leaving them.  We got frequent text updates with pictures so we knew they were in good hands.  Kevin and I had fun.  We went to San Marcos on Saturday to do some shopping and went to lunch at the Gristmill.  The wedding was a lot of fun too!  I only wish I would have been able to sleep in those 2 mornings in the hotel.  Old habits die hard though.

 

We made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch.  Not the best pictures in the world but they were ok. We also went to a Touch a Truck event with Kevin's dad and Lisa.  Finally I also went with the moms club to Dewberry Farms with Henry and then Kevin went two days later with Nolan's class field trip.

Gymnastics

A few weeks ago Henry started taking gymnastics.  He was on the waiting list at first but he only missed one class before there was an opening.  There is only one other boy in the class with him.  He seems to love it though and goes right on in without a moments hesitation. 

Each week they do different activities.  They dance and do somersaults.  The also do a lot of obstacle course type activities involving the trampolines.  I really don't have any good pictures because the parents sit kind of far away from them.  I will have to bring the good camera one day to get some shots though.  He will be in this class until the end of May so hopefully he will continue to enjoy going.

Back to School

Nolan has been back to school for a month now.  He seems pretty happy to be back.  The transition to kindergarten has been easy for him.  His day isn’t that much different than it was when he was in Pre-K.  They do get to go to the big playground now though!  

There are a few kids in his class that were with him last year.  All three kinder classes get together on the playground and in the gym so he gets to see his friends in the other classes during those times.  

He really enjoys Tuesday and Thursday afternoons when I pick him up.  He tells me that he wants to be a “walker” every day.  

Kevin likes to comment on how young his teacher is.  She is pretty young...I think it is her second year of teaching.  She seems to be good though and I have heard that she really knows how to keep her class in line. 

 

Hopefully Henry will get into Pre-K next year because he asks every time we drop Nolan off “when do I get to go to Nolan’s school.”  

 

The Rest of our Summer

Even though Florida was our only “big” adventure this summer we still had some fun during the rest of it.

We went to the Laird’s beach house for the 4^th of July.  Galveston has been hit with a ton of seaweed this summer.  It was really funny because when we first got to the beach Nolan did not want to put his feet down.  He finally loosened up and had a good time.  The kids found a bunch of hermit crabs, built sand castles, and had fun riding on the golf cart.  We thought about sticking around for fireworks but headed home before that.  One of these days we will actually take the kids to see some!

 

Mid-July we (my sisters and parents) hosted the Neville family reunion.  We had a really good turn out and it was great to see most of the cousins and aunts and uncles.  The next generation has sure grown since the last time we all got together!  There was a welcome party, a BBQ night, swim party, Mexican night, parent’s night out to the bar, and finally a farewell brunch.

 

At the beginning of August Kevin was going to be out of town for most of the week.  First for work to Denver, and then for a bachelor party close to where we had been in FL back in June.  During the weekend that Kevin was going to be gone my office was having a day at the beach in Galveston.  I decided to brave taking all three boys by myself.  The trip actually went pretty well.  Nolan loved playing in the water.  Grant loved eating the sand.  Henry didn’t really want to do much else than sit under the tent but he seemed happy too.  The only part that wasn’t the best was I decided to take them to the Strand for ice cream before heading home.  They were pretty good but it was hard to find parking and Henry and Grant were falling asleep.  It just wasn’t really worth the hassle!

 

 

The week before Nolan was to go back to school we decided to take the older boys to Crystal Beach at Moody Gardens.  The boys had fun going down the slides and around the lazy river.  I think their favorite thing was the wave pool though. 

During the week we did a few fun things too.  Nolan and Henry were home with me every Tuesday and Thursday so we tried to do some different things on those days.  We did a movie, Noah’s Ark, the Children’s Museum with Nanna, lots of swimming, and lots of trips to the mall/Target where the boys loved to look at Lego sets.