Updates without pictures :( *long*

I wasn't going to update at all because I wanted to add pictures to what I was saying. But I better do it now before I FORGET what I want to update on! Forgetting is becoming the norm lately. I can't remember right from left most days. Two kids deplete the brain power pretty fast!

On to our kidlets -

Christian - Oh, what a joy a 2-year-old brings. Joys of tantrums, hitting, throwing, kicking, screaming, and downright bawl fests! He is trying to perfect the art.

His entire life he has always been pretty easy to get to bed. During the occasional bout of teething, growth spurt, or sickness he is otherwise very nice about going to bed. We have a routine, ever since Sarah came home:
1. Eats dinner and has some milk
2. Watches some cartoons or plays quietly then reads a few books and cuddles with either Matt of me
3. Then we change his diaper
4. Put on pj's
5. Brush teeth
6. Grab a few cars and his blankies
7. Blows kisses on his way up the stairs
8. And to bed he goes

But what have the last two weeks brought? All systems Go until #8. He gets in there and is fine but then all of a sudden throws everything out of bed and cries. Not sure what he thinks he will accomplish. It has gotten so unreal that we now go in there, swat him on the butt, sternly tell him he has to go to sleep, and then leave.

He even throws a fit when we get onto the roads leading back to the house!!! No joke. I was out with the kids one morning for almost FOUR hours. To me that is a long time for all of us to be away from the house to be running errands. But sure enough, we pull onto a street that we go home on and Christian starts to cry from his carseat. It's seriously the strangest thing to witness.

Coming home from the park or outside. Lord knows we will be met with more cries and shaking his head No. He tries to run the place. He got in trouble for throwing something one day and I told him to come to me so I could spank him...and he did!!! He literally came right in front of me and leaned on my legs so I could spank him. Then he went to the wall for timeout all by himself. This, too, shall pass. I'm not worried about him. But he sure tries to see what he can get away with.

Now don't get me wrong. He isn't all bad!!! We love him to death. He is just so sweet. He loves to give hugs, kisses, and high fives. It's adorable to look at him play with his cars - so cautious with how he 'drives' them. He will even take them and drive on our arms or legs. He loves to look at his flashcards with animals and scream out the name (although we have no idea what he is saying with about 95% of them - but he can pick out every single animal if we ask for it!!). He will hold our hands when we are walking in the store and swing the other one as hard as he can. I'll have to get a video of that some time. He laughs when people on TV laugh. He waves and friendly faces when we are out of the house - even waves at characters on TV! Christian is our first baby and he will ALWAYS be our baby. Nothing he does will ever change that.

And Sarah Bear - our Princess. She has gotten so much better at night. This last week she has only gotten up once during the night to nurse. Only a few time has she gotten up at 5:30am and had to come into bed with us to get some more sleep before Christian wakes up. I am feeling more refreshed when I only have to get up once a night!! Now naps on the other hand? - she still needs a little work on those. Christian doesn't help with all the screaming around the house he does. One of these days I'm going to have to get her to fall asleep on her own. I don't remember for the life of me what we did with Christian.

She went SWIMMING for the first time this past Sunday!! One day before her 6-month birthday. I got a picture but of course it isn't on this computer....but wait! I might have added it to Facebook...let me go see....

I found it!!! Click Here!! And here is another. She did well. I dipped her toes in and she made a small cry but didn't make a single sound for the 30 minutes we were in the water. So I have NO clue if she liked it or hated it. She just...took it. I got her to smile a few times while dipping her in and out and talking to her but she just let me do whatever I wanted with her. She splashed her arms a few times and kicked in the water when I had her more on her tummy. So we'll have to go again next week and see what she does. We'll be trying the beach next month when we go to Bellows for a family day with Matt's work.

Sarah is also attempting to try and roll over..or maybe not. I really don't know if she wants to or not. She just gets to her side, kicks up a leg, and reaches. She doesn't really try much more than that. HERE is a picture of that. Hooray for facebook! I didn't think I would have pictures to share with this update!!

Sarah's solid foods have now consisted of avocado, bananas, applesauce, and peaches. But I think the peaches made her bum a little red...and the avocado made her #2 smell HORRID. haha. Not looking forward to when she starts to have more solids added to her diet. Ick! But she has liked everything I have let her try. She might be a good eater unlike Christian. So far they seem VERY opposite in everything they do.

Oh, about speech therapy: He is saying more words than we thought. The list of words he says on his own grows each day. It's amazing to be honest. I really hope that he gets all that he can out of these speech sessions. :) His next one is tomorrow (Wed) morning. I'm going to ask her what the coming weeks will be like as far as what she does with Christian. I also want to ask her why types of toys/activities would be better to promote more speech. I bought a few place mats at Kmart the other day. They are laminated so you can draw on them and find the shapes, count objects, name colors, trace letters, etc. I think that might help him more than the big tote or toys we have at the moment. :)

Well, that is all I can think of at the moment for the kids. I'm sure there are more things I could write down but this has gotten quite long and I am getting the munchies!

Nothing new with Matt or myself. Just counting the days until we MOVE! :)

Love you!