Sleeping and other news

For those of you who have asked we are having decent success with Mia and her sleeping. Thanks for asking. She's doing well and I am happy to report has recieved several TV dots in the last few days. We still have some issues every once in awhile but overall things are going smoother and we continue to pray for insight as parents and ways to help her. She is so adorable. She's barely two and her vocabulary and understanding amaze me (of course i'm also her mom). She has some of the funniest little saying...

"Mia, I love you." "I love you too baby."
"Mia do you want to .... (go potty, read a book, whatever)." "No, not to today thank you."
"Dear Jesus, thank you for the car wash. Amen." (this is usually her prayer at mealtime)
"Ring around the rosie, pocket full o "osie. Asher, Asher all fall down. Fall down silly." (usually sung to Asher while he is in his high chair eating...and which he thinks is hilarious.)

We have entire conversations at this point. Maybe this is normal for someone who turned two a month ago but either way I love it. She sings her songs from her reading program, from her swim class and from her music CDs. There are flags at our church that can be used during worship and she will often ask to use the pink one which she then dances with. We were at home listening to her Veggie Tales worship CD she looks at me, "Mama, where's my flag. I need a flag." Needless to say we now have several flags (American at the moment) available for her to use when she's dancing. Usually she will hand one to someone else too so they can run and dance with her. She's amazing with Asher.

Asher is now up on all fours and rocking back and forth. He's gone forward a few times but I'm not sure he's quite sure how he did it....yet! He's a master at going backward and rolling around but he's sooooo ready to crawl. He loves to stand. He pushes himself into sitting all the time. He says "Mama" and "Dada". Sometimes as babbling sometimes with more intention (i was gone one night and he kept saying "Mama" to Pete...made me not want to miss bedtime again. when i leave the room he will often yell "Mama!" until i come back in.) He is done with baby food. He was sooo fussy yesterday and today until we gave him finger food to eat. Immediately calm....immediately eating. Oh my! So far he likes yogurt, oatmeal, chicken, cheese, blueberries, black beans, onion (that was daddy), cherrios, jello, bread and ice cream. He is constantly moving....constantly! He's also teething. Any day now it would be great for those teeth to come on in. Nothing yet but he's sure working on it....especially the last few days.

thoughts on 30

so my 30th birthday was yesterday. weird. i remember when 30 seemed so far away ... like a real grown-up (not that getting married and having two kids hasn't given me the title of real grown-up but you know what i mean). it got here so fast. makes me wonder how fast the rest of it's going to go. it's been great and i wouldn't trade any of it. i'm not sure what i expected my life to be like when i was 30. maybe that's why i'm not freaking out or really worrying about it. it seems like it should be a big deal. so many people have a hard time with it. it doesn't bother me it just seems weird. i still feel like i'm about 25 ... out of college, an adult but still figuring everything out, comfortable with who i am but still working on that too. i think that last part's probably a continual journey. you know who you are at the core but it's all those layers that get ya. it seems kind of like a transition somehow...although a transition to what i'm not sure. i have alot of friends who are still in their twenties. maybe that's it. the transition from the twentysomething group to the thirtysomething group. though what does that matter really? who knows. maybe it'll be 31 that gets me and makes me feel "old". does any of this make any sense? probably not. :) anyways it was a great weekend. my parents took the kids saturday night so pete and i could be alone for the evening. it was so nice. we had a generous gift certificate to a local restaurant and we blew the whole thing on a long dinner (drinks, appetizers, dessert, the whole thing). it was so wonderful to sit and talk and take our time. then a quiet night with a movie at home (no interruptions...wow!). it's amazing how things change when you have kids. we talked about going into the city, staying for the night, seeing a show. but with the craziness at bedtime (and everywhere else) it seemed way more fabulous to relax and actually get to enjoy each other's company. we had a simple open house, come hang out for awhile thing sunday after church. it's a hard time for alot of our friends due to kids nap times but it was great to see those that could make it. the weekend was just what i needed...relaxing! once we're all sleeping a little better i'm all over planning a little getaway but until then relaxation seems like the most wonderful thing in the world.

Swimming

So here are the kids in the pool. We got to swim on Friday again and the kids loved it! Mia wore the lifejacket again and was all over the pool. She loved swimming by herself. Asher had a blast in the water. He loved to slap the water and splash. He wasn't too sure he liked it when other people splashed him but within seconds he was laughing and smiling again. It was a fun day at the pool and we look forward to many more. Mia was even really brave at our swim lesson the next day and let go of me to try to swim on her own. She went underwater and though she sputtered a little looked right at me and said "I swim myself Mama!" Going underwater must not have been too terrible because she did it again later in the lesson. Oh my! Such a brave girl.

Asher is working on crawling and is having great success scooting himself backward. It does tend to frustrate him a bit though since he is trying so hard to go forward. He got himself under the footrest and he was just too cute not to take a picture. He's so close to crawling. He even got himself up on his knees a few times. Look out world. And look out Mia...your stuff is only safe for a little while longer.

A long update

So already I'm not able to write as much as I would like. Oh well. I guess that's real life huh? We've had a fun and somewhat busy time lately. We rounded up the grandparents, cousin Liam and Uncle Kevin and headed for a Railcats baseball game. The kids loved it. There's a playground in the stadium so they had fun alternating between the game, the nachos, and the playground. It's hard to tell which was more fun. Grandpa Wilson even caught a foul ball. Asher was completely in love with it and was very happy to hold (and chew) on it for him! The next night we headed off to see a rodeo with Nana and Papa (aka the DeWitts). We had never been and it was really pretty amazing to watch. Mia loved all the animals and how fast the horses ran. She was not to sure about the bucking broncos or some of the roping but after she was assured the animals were okay she was fine with it. Asher loved playing with Papa's watch. He was even kind enough to reset it. A helpful little thing that took Papa quite a few buttons and quite a little time to fix. Following all of this Mia decided that staying in her bed was no longer fun. She does her bedtime routine fine and then once we leave the room so does she. It has been taking us over an hour at naptime and at bedtime to get her to sleep. We have had all kinds of advice. Just put her back to bed (um...two hours later we were stilling trying this approach and decided it does not work for her). Lock her door (she can unlock it). Hold the door shut (she simply gets quite, waits until she hears you walk away and comes out). We think this may be due to the fact that Asher has been spending more time with Pete lately so we're trying to be sure Daddy and his little girl get some prime time together everyday. We've also instituted a TV dot. Anytime she wants to watch TV she has to have a dot (little magnet) and she earns those by staying in her bed. Needless to say we have not watched all that much TV lately. We just started putting a baby gate across her door and telling her that she doesn't have to go to sleep but she does have to be quiet. Naptime today went really well. Cross your fingers for us. Since we last updated Asher also got to go swimming for the first time. He loved it! It looks like we now have two water bugs on our hands. Friends of ours have a pool and have generously told us we can use it whenever we would like. We decided to take them up on the offer last weekend. Mia wore one of their life jackets which let her swim "by herself". Look out world. I have no idea how I'm going to convince her to let me hold her when we go for our next swim lesson. Asher just had a blast kicking his feet and wiggling all over. Needless to say with two active kids in the pool we weren't able to take any pictures but as soon as we do we'll share them. We spent a relaxing Father's Day at home. Pete's ideal day involved sleep, TV, sleep, laying around and ordering pizza ... so that's exactly what we did. It's so nice sometimes to just relax. We love both of our dads so much and we really appreciate them understanding that we just needed some down time as a family. We also went to Coffee Creek a little while ago and got some nice pictures. Here are a few of them.

Our first posting!

Hooray we've joined the technology age and have gotten things posted on the internet to keep everyone updated and aware of what's going on in our little world. Mia is now two! Oh my how do we have a two-year old already?? She just got here. She is talking a mile a minute and repeating everything. She's amazing to watch and keeps us happily running all day long! She decided about two weeks ago that she was too big for her paci and for diapers. She's been doing great with both decisions and we are so proud of her! She loves to be outside and has such a sweet heart. We were at the beach the other night and saw two deer drinking from a stream. She kept waving and talking to them and then as we were leaving waved and called over her shoulder "Good-bye deers. Have a good day!" Then as we left the beach she waved again and called out "Good night beach. Have good dreams!" She is a wonderful big sister and her little brother adores her. Every time he sees her he lights up! Asher is already 7 months old. Good grief the time goes fast! He sits up on his own and is starting to pull his knees up underneath him. No crawling yet though (which is kind of okay since we're running after Mia so much). He is a great eater and thinks it is hilarious when his sister tries to feed him. Very little gets in his mouth but they both laugh hysterically. He is such a happy guy. Always smiling and laughing. He's a great cuddler and at this point in his life I admit he is a bit of a Mama's boy (a fact Pete loves to point out...to which a quiet comment about Daddy's girl usually gets him on a new subject). He's also a great sleeper which is wonderful. Asher has been sleeping through the night for a few months now. It's amazing (and a little odd for us since Mia was not the greatest sleeper as a baby). We are so blessed with our two kiddos! We're so excited to get this up and running so we can share all the fun with you.