Tea

I suggested to the kids today that we surprise my Mom and stop by for a visit after lunch.  Kayla loved the idea, and suggested that we bring 'something' to surprise Grandma with (ie. Starbucks).  I told her that we should save that idea for another time because we had already had Tim Horton's on Saturday, and that maybe we could make a cup of tea instead.  She loved the idea!  Matthew, however, stated that, "Remember that I don't like tea, Mom?"  I'm really quite quirky and like to sing children's songs and say rhymes, so I started saying, "I like coffee, I like tea.  I like the boys and the boys like me!"  Nathan, who had been listening to the whole conversation, quickly piped up and said, "But I don't like you, Mom!"  And then he laughed.  What a quick kid.  He's going to be witty, I think. :)

Nathan is 28 Months Old!

At 28 months old, Nathan weighs 34.6 lb.  He is wearing all of his size 3T clothes and we've started in his size 4T stuff.  He wears size 9 shoes and I'm still squishing him into a size 4 diaper :).  He's still my 'little' boy, but he is also quickly turning into a 'big' boy.  

Nathan is still quite the character.  I can easily be so pleased by his maturity on the days where he is in a great mood.  On his great mood days he is giggly and happy and easy to get along with.  Those are the days where he plays with Matthew and Kayla, following their lead, without a single complaint.  And then there are the days where he is in "a" mood.  On those days, all he does is push his siblings' buttons.  Those are the days when he tries to wrestle Matthew all day long.  Those are the days where he stands right in front of the television so that Matthew and Kayla cannot see their show.  Those are the days that he tries to refuse to eat at meal time.  Those are the days when he hits kids when he doesn't get his way.  Those are long days.  Luckily, the great mood days outnumber the other days.  And he is a two-year-old, so I guess he's allowed to be a pain.

{He was in a great mood this day - Matthew and him were best buds!}

Nathan is pretty smart for his age, I think, at least :).  You can tell that he has older siblings because he is being introduced to things quicker.  He knows his birthday is October 18 and that Matthew and Kayla's is March 18.  He likes to say, "Happy Birthday!" to me every day.  When I reply with, "Happy Birthday, Nathan!" he says back, "It's not my birthday.  My birthday March 18."  All in fun, because he knows he's giving you the wrong birthday.  He can count up to twelve, but won't do it if you ask him to.  If you ask him what "his letter" is (what his name starts with), he says, "A-Y-L-A" (spelling Kayla's name).  If you say, "No, that's Kayla's name, what's your letter?" he says, "A".  Goof.

He LOVES puzzles.  Nathan could do puzzles all day long.  He can pretty much figure out any puzzle up to 24 pieces.  Unbelievable, considering when he turned two he just learned how to do 4-piece puzzles.  He loves doing our Thomas and Disney Fairies floor puzzles, as well as his Discovery Toys learner puzzles he received from Jon and I for his birthday, and he loves doing the Winnie-the-Pooh puzzle at my parents' house.

Nathan will eat anything.  He isn't phased by spicy foods, and so he easily eats Butter Chicken which is nice for us as we love it.  He loves helping me prepare dinner, especially if I'm chopping raw vegetables, because then he always sweetly asks me if he can have, "just one?" and holds up his pointer finger pointing at me while squinting his eyes.  If I let him, I have to carefully watch him because he won't stop at one; he will keep eating the veggies until there are none left.  A few weeks ago he even ate all of my diced (raw) onion, without even flinching.

Nathan loves eating bananas and drinking apple juice.  Multiple times a day he asks me for a banana and/or apple juice.

He has no desire to potty train.  Matthew, Kayla, and I tried for one evening last month and ended up with three accidents without him even realizing what had happened.  The goal is to try over Spring Break.  Sigh.  So not looking forward to that!

Nathan does quite well at watching television shows or movies.  His favourite cartoon is Paw Patrol (and Marshall is his favourite!), but he also enjoys Wild Kratts.

{Building a 'train' with Matthew and Kayla.  He requests to do this weekly.}

He loves being outside.  Of the three oldest kids, he spends the most time outside, and is the only one to ever request to go outside.  He doesn't need anyone out there to keep him busy, he'll just head over to the sandbox or play with any water that's accumulated in a bucket left outside.

Considering he only gets to ride his balance bike once or twice a month during the winter, he still does really well on it.  I've started to introduce the tricycle to him to help teach him pedaling so that it won't be a new concept for him when he learns to ride a big kid bike (without training wheels).  My goal is to teach him at the end of summer/in the fall.  We'll see how the summer goes on both the balance bike and tricycles.

Olivia is 6 Months Old!

My little girl has grown up so much this past month, I can hardly believe it.  I can't believe how much she has learned and grown these past six months.

{Jon is always on 'Olivia-duty' while I bathe the others at night}

At six months old, Olivia weighs 17 lb 12 oz.  She wears all of her 6-9 month clothes (while still wearing a few of her 3-6 month and a few 9-12 month items that I love).

Olivia is eating three meals a day (usually, unless I've forgotten...whoops!).  Her schedule/routine is as follows:
7:15 am Wake Up
7:45 am Breakfast (1 Tbsp rice cereal + 1 Tbsp fruit)
8:00 am Bath time (in the baby bath in the kitchen sink, so that I can either empty the dishwasher or make the other kids breakfast while she soaks)
8:45 am Bottle (4.5 oz)
9:00 am Nap #1
9:45 am Awake
11:15 am Lunch (1/4 slice of bread)
11:45 am Bottle (4.5 oz)
12:00 pm Nap #2
1:30 pm Awake
2:00 pm Snack (Gerber Graduates or Yogurt)
2:30 pm Bottle (4.5 oz)
3:30 pm Nap #3
4:15 pm Awake
5:00 pm Bottle (4.5 oz)
5:45 pm Dinner (1 Tbsp veggie + 1 Tbsp fruit)
7:15 pm Bottle (4.5 oz)
8:00 pm Bedtime
11:30 pm Bottle (3 oz)
3:30 am Bottle (3 oz)
These of course are all super-flexible, it's just a rough idea of how our day goes.

Olivia didn't start enjoying baby food until I introduced fruit.  It used to be a bit of a struggle to get her to open her mouth for food, but if she knows she's eating fruit she more than willingly opens it.  I now always alternate between bites of fruit and bites of whatever else she is eating to keep her guessing.  Her absolute favourite food is yogurt.

I'm super-thrilled to say that she is NO LONGER A SPITTER!  WAHOO!  You have no idea how nice it is to not have to worry about being puked on!  The combination of Playtex Nurser with Drop-In Liners bottles, Similac formula, and age have been miraculous.  If I change formula for even one bottle, she'll spit some of it up with her burp.  However...we have replaced spitting with drooling.  Wow, is she ever a drooler!  Much better than being a spitter though!

Olivia sits very confidently, and if she happens to fall over she seldom cries about it.  She still does very well with her tummy time, but doesn't know how to roll from her tummy to her back so when she gets tired she cries.  Because she enjoys being on her tummy, she's really starting to get the hang of spinning around to reach toys all around her.  She's even starting to realize she has knees.

She always plays toys with two hands, and really likes to try to grab small objects, like a button on a shirt or a necklace that I'm wearing.

She absolutely loves Matthew and Kayla.  She is constantly watching them, and giggles when they pay even the slightest bit of attention to her.  She is tolerant of Nathan.  He likes to smother her all the time, which she gets tired of.

{First time in a regular bath.  Kayla was quite excited to join her, but was less-so after she saw Olivia pee.}

Olivia is pretty frustrating at night.  She goes to bed amazingly well (most of the time), but as soon as her soother is pulled/knocked out, she cries.  So annoying!  I haven't made her drop any middle-of-the-night bottle yet because she needs those calories.  I have tried increasing her day-time bottle amounts, but she will only ever drink 4.5 oz.  As soon as she can tolerate drinking more at each feed during the day, then I won't mind to drop a night bottle.  She often (twice a week?) ends up in our bed because then I don't have to get out of bed to tend to her.

She has done really well in the church nursery so far, and has successfully fallen asleep in a volunteer's arms each week this past month, which is great!  It keeps our Sundays on schedule which is so nice.

{Is she too young to lick whipping cream off a beater?}

Olivia doesn't mind being in her carseat, but she hates being put in the car if it's not where she wants to be.  She also doesn't quickly fall asleep in the car, which is both nice and not-so-nice.  Nice when I want her to be awake so that I can have her nap in her own crib, but not-so-nice if we're going somewhere over her nap time and I need her to at least get a bit of a nap in.

When Olivia is excited to be held by someone, she gives that person a huge kiss by putting her open mouth on their face somewhere and sucking/licking it.  It's really gross, but really cute.  She also likes to cuddle into you when she's glad she's being held.

It's a little bit sad for me how quickly she's grown up, especially because Jon and I think she'll probably be our last.  I realized over New Years (which we spent on Mount Seymour for their Family First Night), that four kids fills up all of our hands (obviously, right?!?).  If we had another, it would ideally be close in age to Olivia but that would mean Matthew and Kayla are still pretty young...and that's too many kids for our hands to manage.  I like getting out and doing things, and that gets less manageable/convenient the more children we have.  Not to mention the increased financial cost of adding another child and keeping me out of the workforce for even longer.  And not to mention that we already have the kids sharing bedrooms upstairs, and with the way the housing market is right now there is not a chance we'll be moving anytime soon.  I've been testing out my emotions/thoughts by selling off the baby items that we'll definitely never need (duplicates from having twins).  So far, it feels nice to free up storage space.  Anyways, no permanent decisions have been made, nor will they be made for a while.  :)