Preschool next year just won't be the same...

When I picked J up from preschool yesterday, I was chatting with his current teacher about his options next year. Fall enrollment is in two weeks, so we already have to figure out how many days and which days we want him to go. He can either go three or four days a week (he only goes two days right now), and I am leaning towards three days for many reasons. One was because I knew his current teacher also taught the MWF 4/5 year old class and I know I've mentioned on here how much we love her (plus J's cousin will be there those days, in another class, so that would neat too!)

As we are chatting, she tells me the MWF class is a great class, and so & so will be teaching it next year and what a great teacher she is. What? "Wait. Isn't that your class?" I asked, not wanting to hear her answer. To which Miss Tish replied, "Yes, but this is my last year here." Nooooooooooo! I'm sure she saw the disappointment on my face. I really don't think there are words to explain how amazing this lady is. She entertains them, laughs with them, acts silly with them and LOVES them. She has helped my little bug (his class is the bug class) come out of his shell and really gain confidence away from mommy & daddy, which I think is SO important. And her discipline method is so impressive. I am not just sad that J will not have her as a choice next year, but sad for the preschool. WCP just won't be the same without her.

Sniff, sniff. :(

Our First Pet

Now that J is four, he thinks he is such a big boy and should be allowed to do so many things he was not able to do when he was only three (and just a baby, in his words). This includes having a pet. And eating green beans, which he said this past week he would do now because he's four. I'm anxious to see if that will really happen, but I digress. Back to the pet. He's been talking about pets and animals a lot lately. Of course, the first kind of pet he asked for was a dog. Not gonna happen. His daddy and I explained to him the reasons why, and he said he understood. About a week ago, he and daddy were talking again about pets. The topic turned to fish, and daddy said he thought J might be old enough to take care of a goldfish. I was unaware this conversation happened until the next morning. After eating breakfast, J informed me that daddy had given him the o.k. to get a goldfish. Really? I wasn't sure, so I called the hubby and sure enough, somehow, J had softened up ol' dad and gotten him to agree.

After a trip to the pet store (and almost coming home without a goldfish...that's another story) J became the proud owner of a small goldfish that he named Leo. (His daddy says it's short for Leonidas, but really, it's just Leo.) J is so cute - after we feed Leo, he will cheer him on and say, "Swim this way to your food Leo. Go up Leo. You almost got it. You can do it!"

So proud of his goldfish.

Six Month Photo Shoot & Well-Check

My littlest dude has has a busy couple of days. Yesterday, we visited Ms. Robin for his 6 month pictures. I cannot WAIT to see all of what she took based on the first picture she let me peek at - aren't those peepers to die for?

She also took a picture of a very sweet and momentous event between L and his big brother. As soon as I get the proofs and get a picture to share, I'll fill you in on this sweet story of brotherly love.

Today, L has his well-check and my suspicions were confirmed. My chunky monkey now weighs 20 lbs. Actually, 20 lbs 2 ozs to be exact! He is 27 1/4 inches long and is topping the growth charts in every area. Except this time around, the fact that he weighs so much does not have me worried or concerned. He is following his big brother's lead ounce for ounce so I know he's not destined for to be ginormous for long!!!! :) J actually went to the doctor with us today as he's been under the weather. Dr. H said it's mostly severe allergies, coupled with a virus. He ended up being a big help and sang to L while he got his shots. Even though L still cried, I do think it helped distract him a little bit more than usual. What J doesn't know is that he has to do the same thing next week at his 4 year well-check! Yikes, that one will not be fun. I'm sure that trip will give me LOTS to blog about...

New Bed, New Boy

So our big four-year-old received a very special surprise the first weekend of January. His Nana & Papa D purchased a new bed for him (THANKS AGAIN NANA & PAPA D!) And this is not just any old bed. It's a big boy BUNK bed. We all love it for different reasons. Of course, J loves it because it's "cool" and it's for "big boys." I love it because of all of the storage! LOL! It has a dresser on one end and stairs on the other end that also double as drawers. WOOHOO!!! Daddy loves it because he can bunk with J on the weekends and not have J actually sleeping with him. Daddy slept on the bottom bed and J slept on the top bunk last Friday night. It is so cute that they can have sleepovers!!

But hands-down, one of the BEST things about this bed is that it's gotten J a little higher off the ground. You see, our sweet boy has a fear of heights. We noticed it early on. When I would stand him up on his changing table while I was dressing him, he would clutch my arms with a look of fear in his eyes. When we would sit him on the edge of a counter (while holding him tight) he would grip us back even tighter. And I think a lot of you know about his infamous "falling off the playscape at daycare" incident when he was barely a year old. I thought it scarred (& scared) me more than him, but after that, the fear of heights and being up high got worse. He would FREAK out if the hubby tried to put him up on his shoulders, or if we tried to get him to slide down a playscape that was any higher than 3 feet, he would start crying. Really. I'm not exaggerating. And it seemed as if it wasn't getting any better. I've even talked to his pediatrician recently about it and he advised waiting until J was 5 to see what kind of progress he makes before we try anything. At preschool, his teacher says he will climb the playscape but she has yet to see him slide down. And forget those playthings at McDonald's or Chic-Fil-A - he won't even attempt to go more than two landings up...then he comes right back down.

But now, we have the new bed. And NOW, look at my acrophobic little boy. :)

O.k., so the ceilings are only 8 feet tall in his room, but it's a GREAT start. He climbs up and down those stairs with ease, and even fell asleep during rest time today up there. Doesn't he look comfortable?

Here he is on the bottom bed. It's a full bed which we love, so we can still snuggle up with him for bedtime stories and prayers.
Here's the side view of the bed - see all those great drawers? Mommy loves it!

The stairs leading up to the bunk are all drawers. And the bedding is just what J wanted - it has footballs, basketballs, soccer balls and baseballs. What more could a little boy want?

My Jumper

One of L's most favorite Christmas presents is one that allows him to get exercise and play at the same time. They didn't have these when J was little - well, not like this. They had to be attached to doorways and we didn't have a good spot for one in our first home. Now, they're portable and free standing.

Here is L in his Jumparoo!
This is during one of his happy moments this past week. The teething has not been easy for him. I don't remember it ever being this bad for J. It seems like J would just start to teeth, be fusy for a day or two, then the tooth popped through and all was well. Poor L - these teeth have just taken their time coming through. That darn bottom right tooth - I think all of the top part of it is through now, but it's been working it's way out for over a week now! I feel so bad for him. All I can do is hug and kiss him when he cries. I wish I could take the pain away. Here is a picture of him from last week when they were just starting to pop through. The left one is easier to see here in this picture. That's about how the right one looks now.

Sweet Lil' Aggie

J was so excited to get back to school on Tuesday. He missed his friends, his teacher and all the fun they have together. He was also very excited that it was cold enough to wear his new Aggie jacket that his Aunt J and Uncle T gave him for Christmas. It's reversible, which he thinks is so amazing.

It was awesome that he wore it the morning after the Longhorns won their bowl game. It's always good to remind those teasips around us that we are still Aggies. Especially his teacher. She is always asking him, "Don't you want to be a longhorn?" To which he ALWAYS replies, "But I'm an Aggie. Gig 'em Ms. Tish!" Well, when I picked him up from school on Tuesday afternoon, Tish told me the very first thing he said to her was something like this - "Ms. Tish, look at my new jacket. You know, I'm an Aggie, but I am so happy that Colt McCoy won last night." She thought it was incredibly sweet and we did too. Even my aggie-to-the-corp (get it? lol) hubby couldn't help but smile.

We have Teeth!

Not just A tooth, but TEETH! So last night, L woke up around 2 a.m. He cried off and on for the rest of the night. I let him lay down with us and he still was crying. It was totally out of character for him. I figured it had to be either teething or tummy issues. I didn't have a chance to try to pry his mouth open this morning though, as we were rushed to get out the door so J could get back to preschool and then get L to his shot appointment downtown.

I have been checking L's mouth every morning for teeth since seeing the swollen gums last week. This morning, I decided to let the nurse check when we got to the doc's office...maybe I was just seeing things and his gums really weren't puffy. She pulled down his lip and stuck a gloved finger in and said, "Oh yeah, there are teeth there." Sure enough, I got L to give me a big grin, and as plain as day I could see them. Guess this is another thing he'll do just like his big brother - cut teeth two at a time. I just hope we have a little break before he cuts the next two.

The other thing he does just like his big brother? Grow. He weighed in at 19 lbs 3 ozs today. This was just a shot visit - his official 6 month check is in two weeks - so we didn't get his height. I just wanted to make sure he could still ride in his infant car seat. Sigh. Not for much longer!

Happy Six Months Sweet L!

I cannot believe Friday marked L's six month "birthday". Where did the time go? I am feeling the pressure to really savor and enjoy this time with him. We feel like our family is complete now, and I want to treasure every little baby moment while I can. Even the poopy diapers - which by the way are much easier to change now that he is eating a bit of baby food!

Both his daddy and I are truly enjoying this happy little guy. We commented last night how lucky Big Brother is because he doesn't have to hear L cry very much. He is just such a content little guy and lights up when he is talked to and smiled at by all of us, but mostly when his brother is trying to entertain him. J can really get L's little giggle box going. Those are the moments I am trying to etch in my memory. :)

L has started a couple of new things now that he is six months old. One that didn't surprise me was him waking up Friday morning with swollen gums. J cut his first FOUR teeth in the 48 hour time period surrounding his 6 month bday. Looks like L wants to keep a similar timeline, but I don't see any pearly whites just yet. Here is a short list of some other accomplishments:

• sitting up with minimal support (again, he seemed to realize he is 1/2 year old and needs to be doing this!)


• eating both breakfast (first fruits) and dinner now (first veggies and cereal)


• trying to jump out of our arms...especially Daddy's lol!


• still rolling but tries to keep from rolling onto his tummy if he can help it
  
• we swear he is saying "hi" - he makes this exact sound when someone says hi to him

Enough of that. Enjoy this pictures!

With his smooshy bear in his crib -

Laughing at his big brother -
Ready to take off -

Christmas 2008 & Happy 2009!

What a whirlwind the last 2 weeks have been! First, J's 4th birthday, followed by five Christmas celebrations, L's very 1st Christmas, and finally New Year's! I finally downloaded my pictures from Christmas, and only am posting a small, small sample, but still, this is a going to be a long post... (and yes, my three boys all have matching plaid shirts on in the above picture - isn't it cute?)

The most important thing is that we had a lovely Christmas week. We began with my family in that big city down south. We had our big family tree at my Grandma's house on the 23rd, followed by an early visit from Santa at Ghee and Papa's house on the morning of the 24th.

Here are the boys at Grandma M's house before dinner - One of the "smash" hits of the night - he actually rode all the way to Dallas the day after Christmas wearing these!
Christmas morning at Grammy & Papa's house. Cousin S is getting to be quite good with Baby L. If only she lived down the street. :)
I had to put one picture of L opening a gift in here. I have dozens, but this one is special. This is a "vintage" toy. I was given one of these toy apples - which I lovingly called my "Bapple" - for my 1st Christmas. My mom realized it was a timeless toy after seeing both her granddaughters play with my bapple anytime they visited. So she made it a mission to get one for each of her grandchildren (which she did thanks to the invention of Ebay) and L was given his bapple for Christmas this year. It makes the softest, sweetest chiming sound when you move it around and he LOVES it!
We were on the road back to our house early on the 24th. After eating the traditional McD Christmas Eve spaghetti cooked by the hubby, it was off to bed with the boys. This year, it took a bit longer for J to unwind and fall asleep as he kept "hearing" the reindeer outside. After watching Santa on the NORAD radar online and showing J that Santa was just making it into the Eastern part of the U.S., he finally declared he needed to go to bed or else Santa wouldn't bring him any presents. Apparently, all of that wore him out as he was still asleep at 8:30 a.m. on Christmas morning. In fact, Mommy & L were still asleep then too. Daddy woke us all up. So much for the kids being more excited than parents about Santa's visit!

Once we were all awake, both boys had fun opening gifts from Santa. Before tearing in, we actually got a really good picture of us using our tripod. We think the boys thought it was funny that the light on the camera was flashing (the timer) and Mommy & Daddy were counting down with the flash in silly voices. Regardless, we couldn't have asked for a better Christmas morning picture.
And here is L in his Santa Baby outfit. It was too warm on Christmas Day for him to wear it for long, but dang he looked cute in it!
That evening, we continued a Christmas tradition with our best buddies, the Bird's. We had "Christmas in Germany" which CB blogged here. It was SO much fun - good fun, good friends and good drinks. What more can you ask for? We are super excited about Christmas 2009 - our theme is more local in flavor and will be a blast to plan for! (Ummm, and for some reason, we have no pictures from that evening...CB, we must have been tired of the camera at this point huh?)

Finally, for our fifth Christmas celebration, we headed to Big D to Nana & Papa D's house. Despite a long trip up the day after Christmas due to traffic, both J & L did fantastic in the car and were real troopers. It was such a treat because JMcD's sister, her hubby and their 10 month old twins were all able to be there. And quite a difference as we went from one boy to FOUR boys on the McD side of the family since last Christmas. Aren't they all just too cute for words?
On to 2009 - here's wishing you all a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous New Year filled with many blessings and love!