Nate and the Trash Can

There it is, that beautiful white cylinder, tall as me with that awesome flipping top lid.  I wonder what amazing surprises it has to offer me today.  Will it be something squishy or smelly, something I can eat or play with?  The possibilities are endless.  The Momma has blocked it with a chair, but that is no problem with my amazing baby abilities of climbing and grabbing.  I just have to wait till she is busy with stuff on those super high counters... She is looking away, now is my chance.  I reach my tiny little hand in. I'm not quite tall enough to actually see what I'm grabbing, but it feels like a winner.  Ooooo, an empty salsa cup with the lid on.  Wow, I am SO lucky.  This looks like it will offer minutes of endless fun and messiness.  Now, I just have to casually walk out of the kitchen... NO, the Momma has seen me.  She say, "No, yucky!".  I know it is yucky Momma, because yucky means awesome fun.  Like when you tell me yucky when I am chewing on all the delicious shoes in the shoe basket.  I make a break for it, but she is faster... and takes the salsa cup AWAY only to put it back where I got it from in the first place.  My heart is breaking.  How could she?  It was MINE! I throw myself on the floor and wail my protest, life is so unfair!!!   But I will not give up, this was only as small set back.  The salsa cup WILL be mine!  (Taken from actual events of this morning.  He tried to get in the trash about three more times while I was making breakfast.  He was successful in getting something out one more time.  Arrrggg!!)

School Starts

It has been almost 5 weeks since we started school.  Everything was going great until this week when both Jovi and Corbin got strep throat AND a virus.  They are doing much better today, but schoolwork has been pretty bare minimum this week.  Anyway, we had a great first day of school.  It was Corbin's first day of kindergarten and Jovi's first day of 2nd/3rd grade.  To make our first day of homeschool special, they got to pick out a new pair of pajamas and wear them all day long.  Here they are during reading time on their first day of school.

That Friday was the first day of our homeschool co-op, Denton Classical Co-op.  It was an eagerly anticipated day.  The kids love co-op and I am teaching two classes I created, The History of Textiles and Fiber Arts Class.  You can read more about the classes on the blog I am keeping for them, www.fiberartsforkids.blogspot.com .  Here we are right before we left for co-op.

I want to write more about our school day, but it will have to be in another post. I just wanted to make sure I got the beginning of school posted before 2 big birthdays happen next week (exciting).

Summer Time Pary

Once again, this is a bit late coming, but we had a great time at Delores's summer party this year.  We took Elijah and little Ruben with us, because the rest of Ruben's family couldn't make it.  DJ and his wife Alyssa were there.  There was, of course, lots of food and a water slide and Paloma brought her horse over.








DJ brought foam swords to teach a new game he invented.  Here is a video of a group fight with them.


Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Nate The Great

I admit that when we named Nate, I planned on rhyming his name with "great" a lot, perhaps excessively, but what else am I supposed to do when he deserves it so much?  Nate started taking steps on his own when he was about 9 1/2 months old.  Here is a video of him walking with assistance about a week or two before his first real steps.




Just last week, at 10 1/2 months he started really walking on his own.



As stated in the video he talks ALL the time and amazingly enough a lot of it is intelligible.  He's said mama and dada for month and months, but just this past three weeks he has had a language explosion.  He can say hi, thank you, welcome, oh yeah (this one IS as cute as it sounds), Elijah, Ganna, ball, wow and whoa (kinda the same as wow) all of these words he has said on more than one occasion and I am sure he know what they mean, he can also wave and sign more and finished.  He has also said "here you go" (as he was handing people things), and I love you, but while he said them several times one night, he hasn't repeated them more than that day so I'm not counting them as official words he knows.  Here is a video taken this week of him walking and waving.



Yep, Nate is pretty darn great!

Corbin Graduated Preschool

Ok, I know this is two months late, but better late than never right?  Corbin went to Apple Creek Preschool last year two mornings a week.  He had a great time, made lots of friends and learned lots of new things.  Here is his end of school preschool program.

 

His teachers were wonderful and really made his preschool year special.  We love Apple Creek!

A Little Catch Up

It has been a while since I blogged, but now that I can post from my phone, hopefully that will change.  

Nate has been growing and growing.  He started crawling at around 5 months and now that he is 9 months, he is a superb speed crawler.  He pulls up and cruises while holding onto furniture.  He can stand by himself for a few seconds at a time and can walk while holding onto someone's hands.  I'm sure his first steps aren't far away.  Nate hates baby food because he wants to feed himself.  He likes veggies and meat more than fruit  and his most favorite food is grilled zucchini.  He can say mama and dada and actually mean me and Juan, he can also sign finished.  He loves to talk and babble and put EVERYTHING in his mouth.  He is a sweet baby who likes to give hugs and kisses and is my first baby who likes being read to.  Jovi and Corbin adore their little brother and he thinks they are pretty great too.  

Corbin graduated from preschool at Applecreek at the end of May.  I always got glowing reports from his teachers, he was a great student and had lots of friends in class.   Corbin is currently taking swim lessons and loving them.  His most favorite thing to do right now is to play with Alec who lives next door to us and is Jovi's age.  He also likes to build Hot Wheels racetracks and race his cars, play with play dough, build with Legos and ride his bike.  I'm not sure what he would say his favorite food is, but he really likes spaghetti with meatballs.  He loves reading books about Tornados and volcanoes.  He can currently read Bob books with very little help from me and is very good at simple addition.  He struggles with writing, but is working on it.  Corbin is a funny boy with quirky sense of humor.  He loves his brother and sister and is often very thoughtful about their wants and needs.

Jovi is happy it is summer because she loves to swim and our neighborhood pool is open, but misses our homeschool co-op.  She is taking swimming lessons too and is a very enthusiastic student.  Jovi loves to craft and draw and is getting very good at it.  She is working very hard at reading more and harder books.  She is doing very well in math and her favorite subject is history.  She loves the show My Little Ponies and can draw them quite well.  Jovi's favorite food is cheese pizza or maybe a cheeseburger. We talk a lot about healthy foods and healthy choices, but you wouldn't be able to tell what she eats by how she looks.  She is a tall, skinny girl.  Jovi is a wonderful big sister to her little brothers.  She is sweet and caring and a wonderful helper for her parents.

A Family Update

Nate can sit up and sort of crawl now.  He kind of rocks back and forth on his hands and knees and then lunges forward.  He still hasn't got a rhythm with his hands and knees moving together, but it is only a matter of time.  He gets around surprisingly well with his lunging and scooting.  He loves putting everything he can get his hands on in his mouth so now that he is mobile, we are very careful about what is left on the floor.  Nate got his first tooth yesterday, one of the bottom center ones finally broke through.  I have been giving him food most evenings now, he has had avocado and sweet potatoes so far.  He is less than thrilled with food, he will eat about a teaspoon full unenthusiastically and then he refuses any more.  On the other hand, he loves water.  He has a sippy cup that he just thinks is the best.  He usually ends up all wet, but very happy about it. 

Jovi and Corbin had fun picking out presents for Juan's birthday.  Jovi got him a box of chocolates and a Hotwheels car and Corbin got him a bunch of Hotwheels cars.  Juan took the day off and so we had a fun time as a family, lunch out and dinner at home.  Juan is such a great dad and husband, I hope he had a wonderful birthday and knows how much he is appreciated by his family.

Yesterday we went to the park.  There were two girls there who looked like they were about 5 or 6 year old and they asked Jovi to play with them.  Corbin went over and started swinging on the swings.  Jovi played for a while and then asked Corbin if he wanted to play.  The girls didn't seem happy about that, but Jovi just told him, "He's my brother, he's cool.".  So then the other girls wanted to make him a bad guy, and ran away from him, but Jovi told them no, that he didn't like being a bad guy and went over and gave him a hug, she reminded them about how cool he was and suggested they be lost girls and he could be their hero.  I'm not sure if that is what they ended up playing, but they seemed to all have fun together after that.  It was SO sweet how Jovi took care of her brother.  I love that they are such good friends and play so well together.  They are both so sweet with Nate.  I love watching their sibling relationships grow and develop. 

Nate Laughs

Nate has been laughing for a while, but we just got it on video a few days ago.

The Wedding

Emma and Evan's wedding in St. George was beautiful.  Here it is in pictures and movies.

 

 

 

Sledding

Being a Texas native, I've never actually been sledding.  That was remedied the day after Christmas when we went sledding with Emma and Evan in Provo.  They took us to this awsome sledding park that was like a big huge bowl.  It had been snowing since Christmas Eve so there was lots of snow, in fact it was still snowing while we were sledding.  Everyone had so much fun. My mom stayed home with the baby and even though Juan was feeling bad with the beginings of a very bad cold, he went down the hill a few times too.