Easter 2015

We had such a wonderful Easter weekend.  Friday night I attended the Good Friday service at Hope and then we headed to dinner with my family to celebrate Jess’s birthday and my parents anniversary.  Saturday morning we headed over to Keith and Jan’s for breakfast and they boys had a blast playing outside that morning and enjoying the nice weather.  Then we headed to Easter service at 3.  We lucked out and picked the least crowded service and the boys actually did really well considering how long it was.  I think getting to play games and go on an easter egg hunt beforehand helped because then they had lots of special treats to snack on during church.  We also let them play in the bounce houses for a little bit after church which was of course their favorite part.

Sunday the boys woke up and got to check out all the goodies that the Easter bunny brought.  They were very excited about their new Ninjago books, chalk and bubbles.  They also both got new puzzles which they promptly put together all by themselves. 

Gavin’s 200 piece puzzle:

Wyatt’s 100 piece puzzle:

Brotherly love and Lincoln being silly 

Then we headed to my parents for a yummy dinner, and Easter egg hunt outside.  We really lucked out and had gorgeous weather all weekend.  Especially since it’s been rainy and cold so far this week. 

The other fun event that happened on Sunday is that Gavin lost his second tooth!  It’s been really loose and basically just hanging on by one root in the front but he was a little more sensitive about pulling this one even though we kept trying.  He finally made up his mind that he would lose his tooth on Easter and would let Grandma Kim pull it since she’s known as the tooth pulling expert J.  Well we got through dinner and the easter egg hunt without much mention of his tooth and were all just hanging outside with all of the sudden I look over and it looks like she’s trying to pull his tooth.  I took 2 tries and she got it out.  Gavin didn’t even realize it was out already and was getting ready for her to try again when he noticed it was in her hand so no crying this round either.  It’s funny because as long as it’s his idea to do something he’ll usually follow through and get it done without fussing.  So he got a fun visit from the tooth fairy that night as well.  

Everyone taking a turn earlier in the week:

Tooth #2 officially gone

Baby #4 - 31 weeks

Thought i should finally post a belly pictures on here even though it's not the most flattering picture :).  It's hard to believe that I was 31 weeks on Wednesday.  This pregnancy is flying by and its crazy to think that this baby is going to be here before we know it.  As you can see my belly has grown quite a bit and the baby has been super active lately.  Overall i've been feeling pretty good just have the usually aches and pains that get worse when trying to sleep but being able to get out and walk and doing yoga seems to help so i've been trying to be more active lately.  I'll be seeing the doctor every two weeks now and we will plan to have another ultrasound probably around 38 weeks to check the size of the baby.  It seems like i'm carrying this one more like Gavin and Wyatt so i'm a little nervous that this one is going to be another big baby.

Enjoying the warmer weather

We have all been loving this warmer weather that we are finally having (minus today which is cold and windy)!  It has been so nice to get the boys out of the house.  They love being able to play in the backyard and go on walks to nearby parks and it has been so nice for me to finally be able to get out and get some exercise as well.  We also took our first trip to the zoo for the year.  I didn't take many pictures but Lincoln loved it and we are looking forward to going again soon.  Here's to hoping that this warm weather is finally here to stay!

Gavin Parent Teacher Conferences

We just had Gavin’s second parent teacher conference last week and it went really well.  The first one we had back in the fall was a bit of a shock to Ryan and I and didn’t quite go as well as we were expecting.  We discovered a few behavioral issues that Gavin was having in class and that he was rushing through his work and sometimes not even finishing it so he could get to the next activity which was free-choice/play time.  He was also behind on his reading (at a level Pre-A when they need to be at a D at the end of the year) and really behind on his site words.  I think Ryan and I were a little naïve and just assumed that since he’s always been a quick learner and did well in preschool that he would just pick up everything he needed to know at school and didn’t realize how much we also needed to work with him at home.  I think part of it was that in the past when we had tried to work on site words with him he would get frustrated really easily if he didn’t know and just quit trying so we kind of gave up and the other part was that he wasn’t putting in full effort at school to actually show his teacher what he knew since a lot of the words she had marked as not knowing he knew when we quizzed him.  So we got to have a little chat with Gavin about his behavior at school and started to really work with him on his site words.  It wasn’t a fun task for him so we just worked it into our routine that when we were waiting a few minutes for his bell to ring before school we would practice a new set of words in the car until he had them memorized.  I had to add some incentives to get him to really try and I think it helped that it was just part of our routine and we did it the same time every day because we found that it was pretty hard to get him to sit down at night and work on them when he knew his brother was off playing somewhere.

So needless to say we were a little nervous coming into the second round of conferences because we really didn’t know what to expect this time around but were hoping things would be better and thankfully it went really well.  All the work with site words and reading at home has really paid off and Gavin is now at a level C and right on track.  He is also doing much better with his writing and taking more time to do his work at school although there were still a few instances of him rushing and not finishing his work.  We also didn’t have any more behavioral issues and he is really excelling in math.  We never really practice math at home but he has always been interested in doing math and playing with or counting money.  During the conference his teacher had him do several math word problems where he could use blocks or his fingers to get to the answer and he just did them all really fast in his head.  We couldn’t believe it because two of them were pretty tricky.  He loves math and building so maybe we have a future engineer on our hands J.  We were thrilled with his progress, he continues to enjoy school and we were able to celebrate that night with a fun little treat!

Lincoln 18 Months

We had Lincoln’s 18 month check-up last week.  He’s still our little peanut but the doctor wasn’t concerned since he should be evening out right now and not really going up a ton in percentile and he also was just getting over being sick from the last week which didn’t help in the weight department. 

18 month stats: Height – 31.8 inches (33%), Weight – 22lbs (7%), Head – 48.5 (69%).

As mentioned above we’ve had a rough few months with Lincoln where we’ve had a few good days of sleep followed by either a period of teething or cold/sickness.  Two weeks ago was by far the worse and thankfully he is finally on the mend and back to his normal self but it all started on Sunday with him throwing up and then turned into a yucky cold and ear infection.  He was home all week from school and very miserable.  He refused to eat or drink much and only wanted to be held all day.  Ryan and I tried to take turns staying home with him and were both totally exhausted by the end of the week.  Wyatt and I ended up getting his cold and Ryan picked up some nasty stomach bug and was sick for most of the following week so we are very thankful to finally be back on the mend this week and ready for spring and no more colds/sickness.

We’ve also struggled with Lincoln teething and biting at school over the past few months.  It’s much better than it was back in December where we had a serious issue and thought he might get kicked out of daycare.  Then we went through a really good period with hardly any incidents and now he’s not as bad as he was but this week was pretty rough with one incident each day L.  We are definitely looking forward to the days where teething is no longer a problem and he can use his words to communicate vs. his teeth.  We thought it was rough with Gavin back in the day but turns out Lincoln is here to challenge us every step of the way.

I can hardly believe that he is 18 months already and he is really starting to act like such a big boy.  He loves reading books especially books with animals and loves playing with cars, the play food or anything his brothers are playing with.  When we were having a rough time getting him to eat when he was sick we decided to just give him a bowl of yogurt and let him feed himself since he wouldn’t eat from us and found out that he can actually use a spoon really well and does a much better job of eating and throwing less food on the ground if he can try and use a spoon or folk vs. just eating with his fingers.

Lincoln is such a silly boy and is always making me laugh.  If you tell him to smile he will look at you and give you the goofiest smile that will make you laugh each time .  He’s always making silly faces and is starting to really laugh when he sees or hears something funny. 

He seems like such a big boy but at the same time still seems like our little baby so it’s kind of crazy to think that in 3 months we will have another baby on our hands and he will be the big boy.  He loves playing in the babies room at school and always points at my stomach and says baby or points out babies if he sees them in books so hopefully that means he will welcome his new sibling once they finally arrive and be willing to share some of our attention :).