Aedan: 49 Months, Week 1
Owen: 7 Months, Week 3 (Week 33)
On Sunday, April 29th, our little man turned 4 years old! We had his party with his friends on Saturday evening, but we had more plans to celebrate his birthday that day. One of our plans was to give him his present of a new "big boy" bed. For the last month or so, he had been complaining about being too long for this little toddler bed, which was definitely true. He had gotten taller and could touch the bottom of the bed when he lays down. When Samantha turned 4 we gave her a twin size bed, so we figured we would follow suit with Aedan. We bought his mattress a couple weeks ago, had an old bed frame from Ben's parents, and we bought him a new bed set for his new bed. Here is Aedan that morning when he woke up, sitting in his little bed for the last time. :)
Even though we got back from church after noon and had to have lunch and needed to get kids down for naps, Aedan was just too excited to wait to open his presents from us. We decided we didn't want to give him our presents at his party with his friends because he was going to get enough then. The first present he opened was a game called "I Can Do That!" where you can do actions like a super hero. I figured this was his kind of game where he could get up and move. He was excited to get it out and play it sometime.
The next present he opened was from the Clemons family. They got him an extra sheet set for his new bed that has pictures of super heroes all over it. I'm not sure he quite understood what it was then, but later he kept asking when I was going to put his super hero sheets on his bed.
This next present was also from Mommy and Daddy and had his PJ Masks sheet set in it, as well as a small package of the super hero Lego people. He didn't care much about the sheets in comparison to the super hero Legos. He has really enjoyed the super hero Lego show on Netflix, and he liked playing with the Super-Man and Batman that he got last year for his birthday, so I figured he would like a set of a whole bunch of figures to play with.
Then, he opened up his box with the comforter for his PJ Masks bed set. I had everything all washed and ready to go on his bed for nap time that day. He asked for PJ Masks bedding, and we delivered, but he was definitely much more excited about his toys, which makes sense for a 4 year old.
Shortly after that I got his bed all made and then had Aedan come down to the room to see what it looked like. He was really excited to look at the vehicles on his sheets and to try laying under the covers.
For how small he looked in his toddler bed, he now looks so big in this big bed. It will take awhile to get used to seeing him in this bed, but he is definitely ready for it. Isn't he a cute kid?
However, after that I made sure to show Aedan how his monitor worked. I always have his monitor on when he is sleeping at nap time or bed time, in case he needs something or needs to go to the bathroom, but I think sometimes he forgets that he can actually use it to talk to us. I had Aedan sit out in the living room by his monitor, and I went in his room and talked, saying, "I need to go potty!" Aedan thought it was pretty interesting to hear me talking through the monitor, and I think he finally understood what he can do if he needs to go potty while he is in his bed. We put a pull-up on him at nighttime still, and for a long time he kept it dry every night. However, probably for the last couple months now, he has been peeing in his pull-up pretty much every night. We remind him that he can always tell us if he needs to go, but he never does; so that afternoon I decided to put a chart up on the refrigerator for Aedan to earn stickers for keeping his pull-up dry. Then, after four times of staying dry, he can earn a reward like going to Dairy Queen for ice cream. I know it's not too big of a deal for him to still be wearing pull-ups at night, but I just find it strange that he stayed dry for so long, but not anymore. I would like for him to be able to sleep in underwear, but we have to help him get better at staying dry or telling us when he has to go. Maybe doing an incentive chart like that will help give him some motivation to do that. In fact, I also made a chart for Samantha, because we have been trying to encourage her to only get up once to go to the bathroom at night. Sometimes she will get up two or three times a night, which is definitely not necessary and probably is a big factor as to why she is often tired, because her sleep is so disrupted. So we will see if a reward chart will work for her as well.
Ben had a dinner on campus that evening, so the kids and I were on our own for the evening. We had tons of pizza leftover from Aedan's party that I was just going to heat up for dinner, so since I didn't have to make dinner, we had some time before dinner to play. It was finally getting nice outside, so we decided to go out for a bike ride. Aedan wasn't in the mood to ride all the way to campus and back, so we decided to just go around the corner to the parking lot by the Lutheran church. It was a nice, open, safe area for them to ride, and they have a pretty big hill that was a lot of fun to ride down. It was fun to see the kids active and having fun, getting used to riding bikes again, and enjoying the warm sunshine.
Owen enjoyed sitting in the stroller watching his siblings ride up and down the hill, while chewing on his ring toy, of course. I love these pictures. He's so cute, and I even got him to look right at the camera for me. Do you see his blue eyes? It looks like we have one kid that has the same eye color as Ben. :)
After giving Owen his baby food, we usually give him toys to play with while the rest of us finish eating. Well, this evening he discovered that it's a lot of fun to throw his toys off the side of his tray on to the floor. He was loving the attention he was getting from Samantha and Aedan, as you can tell by how much he is looking at them and smiling. Owen definitely thought this was a fun game and loved the laughs he was getting. I love my three kiddos, and I love how much fun they have together.
Since we ordered our new couches on Saturday morning, I decided to take pictures of our old couches to post on the Facebook sales group in our area, listing them for $40. We would have had to pay $25 for the furniture place to take them and dispose of them, so we figured if someone else could use them, that would save something being thrown in the landfill. It was amazing how many people were interested in the couches. I was getting messages for days of people that were interested. However, I was definitely glad to finally say good-bye to these forty year old couches.
Aedan fell asleep quickly that afternoon, maybe because of the immunizations he got that morning, I don't know. I went back into his room to check on him, and this is what I saw. He fell asleep all curled up at the top of his bed with feet up on the wall, and Happy Bear tucked up against his face. I couldn't help but smile when I saw him. He has this whole big bed to stretch out in now, but he still slept all scrunched up at the top. It will probably take awhile for him to get used to sleeping in such a big bed and having so much more space. I love this sweet little boy so much.
We are enjoying much more outside time now that the snow is finally almost all gone. Our back yard is pretty muddy still, but wearing rain boots solves that problem. On Monday after Samantha got home from school, we went outside in the back yard for awhile, and we even brought Owen out with us to let him try out the baby swing. He wasn't exactly sure what to think about it, but I think it was mostly because of the sun shining in his eyes. Samantha always does such a good job playing and interacting with Owen. He loves her silly voice and faces.
Tuesday, May 1 was Ben's birthday, so the boys and I had to run a few errands around town to get ready. Luckily, Owen took a pretty good nap in his car seat while we were out. One thing we had to do was get Daddy presents for his birthday. Aedan wanted to buy him a coffee mug and coffee, and Samantha wanted me to pick out some new socks for him. Both boys did a great job for me that morning, as we were out and about quite a bit together. Here they are riding on Sandy together after we picked out presents. Aedan has been enjoying having Owen around a lot more lately. He doesn't mind sharing his seat with him and holding on to him from behind. He's coming into his responsibility of being a big brother.
That afternoon after getting the boys down for their naps, I finished icing and decorating Ben's birthday cake. He always wants ice cream cake, so I made him a chocolate cake with mint chocolate chip ice cream in the middle as well as homemade buttercream icing that I dyed blue and decorated.
Even though no one had eaten dinner yet, we sang Happy Birthday to Daddy and each had a small piece of cake to celebrate. I love how enthusiastic the kids are to sing to their daddy.
For dinner that night we went over to Canada to the Mill restaurant. I had heard good things about it, and I know Ben enjoys a good steak. Getting over there was a breeze, and the restaurant was really nice. We got a lot of food, and it was served slowly, giving Ben and I lots of time to talk together, thinking back on the past year and looking forward to the year to come. We left so that we wouldn't get back too much after 7:30, but for some reason the U.S. side only had one lane open through customs, and then we were stuck not moving for more than fifteen minutes. I think it took us 45 minutes to cross back over that evening, and we felt really bad because it was well past bedtime for the kids, and I knew that Owen would really start to get grumpy if he wasn't fed and put to bed. We were glad to get out for a couple hours though, and to have the opportunity to have good conversation and a nice meal.
This was finals week for Ben, and we were so glad to see the semester coming to an end. It has been a busy one for him with teaching three new classes and all the prep work that entails. On Wednesday morning he had a final at 7:30 in the morning, so I was on my own for getting the kids up, dressed, fed, and Samantha off to school. Samantha had a rough morning that day. Her hair was super tangly and she freaked out and hyperventilated as I was brushing it. I tried to get her to calm down and breathe, but nothing seemed to work. Then, she started talking about how she was stupid and hated her hair. She has been doing this a lot lately, where she gets upset and knows she is doing something wrong, so she starts calling herself stupid, saying she's bad, and sometimes even saying she doesn't like herself. This kind of talk just breaks my heart. I have never had the greatest self-esteem either, but I don't want that for Samantha. I never want her to think she is stupid or bad. I want her to feel loved and special, even if she is making wrong decisions, and know that that doesn't change what we think about her. However, she must have just been really tired that morning after being up late the night before while we were out to dinner, because no matter what I did to try to cheer her off, she just could not stop crying. I felt so bad sending her off to school having her be upset, and I thought about trying to go to school to eat lunch with her that day, but it just didn't work with Ben's schedule for me to get away.
After dropping Samantha off at school, I got a few more things done around the house, finished getting ready, and the boys and I went off to the library. Even though there was no story time (which I didn't realize until we got there), Aedan still had fun playing, doing puzzles, and picking out a movie to check out. I got Owen to take a little nap in the Ergo, so that made our morning better as well.
And here's a little clip of Owen crawling around after lunch that day. This is how Owen gets around now. No more army crawling, for he can full out craw``l now. He loves to crawl toward you making this "monster" noise, like he is coming to get you. It's so fun to watch him grow, change, and learn. This boy is on the move!
That afternoon both boys took really good naps for me, which I am always grateful for. And you know something else amazing? As of that Wednesday, Owen had gone four days in a row with taking at least a two hour nap in the afternoon and not requiring me to go down and get him back to sleep. Sometimes he will make a little noise in the middle of his nap, but he will go back to sleep on his own. It has been SO nice to have my afternoon time back again to get stuff done around the house, to work on my blog, or even to just put my feet up and relax with a cup of coffee. I was so hopeful that we were finally turning a page with his sleeping, and that maybe he will start to be more consistent for me.
Ever since Aedan got his new Lego Batman boat for his birthday, he could not wait for us to help him put it together. However, we didn't really have time to put it together until Wednesday night. Since we don't have AWANA anymore, our Wednesday evenings are more free now. Ben hurt his foot somehow a couple days ago, and it was pretty painful for him to walk around on it. In fact, he actually went to the doctor on Tuesday morning to get an x-ray done of it. They didn't see anything in the x-ray, saying that it must just be a bad sprain and told him to ice it and keep it elevated. So since he had to keep his foot up, it was a good a time as any to help Aedan build his Batman boat.
Izzy has always enjoyed playing outside, even in the snow, but she was very excited about the snow being gone and the weather warming up so she could get even more play time in. That evening I saw her running around the yard like a maniac, throwing a ball around that she found. She loves to play, and I'm so glad we have this back yard for her to play in.
Thursday was a big day in our house because we were selling our old couches and having our new couches delivered. Here is Aedan posing with our old couches as the new couches were delivered.
Now that Owen is crawling, nothing is safe anymore, and he's exploring everywhere he can get to. Do you see how he's pushing up on this arms and legs, almost like he's trying to stand? This kid needs to slow down! He has moved so quickly from rolling, to army crawling, to full crawling, to now going up on all fours. This boy is much more advanced in his large motor, physical skills than either of his brother and sister were at 7 1/2 months.
Friday morning Izzy had a grooming appointment at 9:00, and it was kind of a rainy day, so we just spent most of the day playing at home and getting things done around the house. I had some cleaning I wanted to do before my parents arrived that evening. Aedan was enjoying his new big bed, and here is sitting in it looking at a book. I think we have a similar picture of Samantha sitting in her bed reading after she got her new bed.
We also took some time to rearrange Aedan's room on Friday morning so we could fit the table in there for him to play Legos on. He is always bringing his Legos in the living room and then dropping them on the floor or losing pieces; so I thought maybe if he had a table in his room to play on, he would be more likely to play in his room with them. Especially with Owen starting to move around, we are now trying to establish a "no toys with little pieces in the living room" rule. So here's what his room looked like after we rearranged it. We got rid of the glider chair and lamp, pushed the cube shelf back against the wall, and put the little table by the window, still giving him plenty of room to play on the floor as well. Now if we can only get him to use the cubes and shelves to store his toys and actually remember where he keeps them.
After having so many good days in a row of napping for Owen, Thursday and Friday were back to his old ways of waking up screaming after 45 minutes. I was just feeling done with his unpredictable nature and how hard it is to get him to sleep sometimes. I was trying to get things done around the house before my parents arrived, but instead I was spending the majority of the afternoon trying to get Owen to sleep and then back to sleep. I tried to put Owen down for his nap in a sleep sack where his hands were out, just to see if it would work, but it did not work. He just wiggled and pulled on my clothes and hair while I tried to nurse him, just like he does other times during the day, like he didn't think it was time to go to sleep yet. I ended up putting him back in the Zipadee-zip and he calmed right back down, ate a little more, and then fell right asleep; so apparently he isn't ready to give them up yet. I was hoping to transition him to the sleep sacks, but it seems to still be hard for him to calm down when his hands are out.
Ben had another event on campus that evening that he had to be dressed in his regalia for, and my parents arrived just before dinner time. It was a bit of a hectic evening with getting ready myself and getting the kids fed before Ben got back home. We had plans to go out to dinner with some friends before the Married Person event at our church, but Ben ended up getting back too late for us to meet up with them. We still grabbed something quick to eat before heading to the church. The event had a Star Wars theme to it since it was May 4th, and we talked about technology in marriage. It was a fun event, and it was nice to be able to go out with Ben while our kids were watched and put to bed by my parents. I was pretty tired and felt kind of old not being able to be out later like that without feeling sleepy. I was also a little worried about how it would go with my mom putting Owen to bed, simply because he is so finicky about sleeping sometimes. However, she texted me after getting him to bed so that I knew not to worry about her having a hard time with him. He did end up waking up wanting to eat shortly after we went to go to bed, but then he stayed asleep until close to 5:00, nursed and then went back to sleep until 7:00, so I was glad to have some good sleep that night.
Saturday, May 5th was LSSU's graduation. Ben had to go to it, of course, but Samantha and Aedan were glad to have Grandpa and Grandma there to visit. Here is Ben all ready for graduation, year two. He wasn't too excited about going, but it is just part of his job.
Our plan was to go to a Super Hero Activity Day at the local high school that morning once Owen woke up from his morning nap. I figured it would be a fun, free activity for the kids to participate in. However, Owen ended up taking a really long morning nap. He had already been asleep for an hour and a half when I decided to wake him up about 10:40 so that we would still have time to go do the activities.
There were people dressed up as various super heroes that Aedan wanted to get his picture taken with, like Batman and Super Woman.
Since we got there later, we stayed until 1:00 when it was over. We stopped at Wendy's for a quick lunch before heading back home to get the boys down for naps. However, before we washed off Aedan's face paint, he wanted to dress up and pretend to be Gecko, so I let him do that for a few minutes. Isn't he cute?!
After nap time that day, we decided to let the kids open their birthday presents that Grandpa and Grandma brought along from themselves, Uncle Matt, and even Aunt Christy and family. The first present Aedan opened was from Uncle Matt, and it was Bumblebee the Transformer. He had been asking for this for a long time and was excited to get it out and play with it and his other Transformers.
Then from Grandpa and Grandma, Aedan got Catboy and the Catcar.
Then Samantha opened up her new bed set from Aunt Christy and family. She was really excited about this for her bed because she has said that she doesn't really like princesses anymore, so she didn't need a Frozen bed set anymore. Samantha said she wanted purple and butterflies, so Aunt Christy picked out something that matched just that.
Aedan also got the Owlette and with Owl Glider.
To round out the trio, Aedan also got the Gecko-mobile and Gecko.
Don't you love how he sticks his tongue out as he opens the present?
The next present Samantha got from Grandpa and Grandma was a Smart Circuit board where she could learn how to program and make things using circuits. She didn't quite understand what it was, but she was interested, and this present is another thing to help her with her dream of becoming an engineer for NASA some day. It will be fun to get this stuff out and explore and create with her this summer when she's not in school anymore. I love that we can give her presents that are also learning and teaching tools.
Aedan's final present was all the little figurines from PJ Masks. He is friends with a little boy who had these at McDonald's one day, and Aedan talked about wanting them for quite some time after that. So when people asked for present ideas for Aedan, this came to my mind right away. He couldn't wait to get them out and play with them. There were plenty of figurines for Aedan and Samantha to play with them together, too.
It has been really nice for Christy and I to be having kids close to the same time because we are able to swap clothes and baby items back and forth. One thing she sent for me to use is this little baby bath seat. Owen was getting much too big for his baby bath, but he isn't a strong enough sitter to just be in the bath tub unsupported. We never used a seat like this for Samantha or Aedan, but since Christy had one and was willing to let me borrow it, I figured it would be really nice for bath time. And now, since Owen's bath tub doesn't take up so much room, Aedan and Owen can take baths together and play together, just like Samantha and Aedan did when he was a baby. Here is a picture of the boys in the bath tub together, followed by a video of Owen enjoying his new bath seat for the first time. He loved sitting in deeper water, getting his hands in the water, and splashing around. He didn't seem to mind getting water and bubbles splashed up into his face. These boys are cute together. :)
(Blog about April 29-May 5, 2018)
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