New Beginnings

I'm a bit overwhelmed that it's been almost 3 months since I've written. 3 months with kids so young means SO many changes...instead of trying to catch up on everything that's happened, I will give a quick update on where we are now and hope to get more consistent in writing again.....only time will tell...

Micah is active. He is sensitive. He talks great (for his age, I've heard, but all I know is he talks great!). He is learning to be more social. He loves to run around the house. His favorite movie is Cars. He is smart, but sometimes acts younger, probably to get attention. He sleeps in a twin bed. He is fairly well potty trained. He is not cuddly, so it is very sweet and special when he does want to.

Judah is hilarious. He is learning to talk so fast and so good. He is doing everything he can to keep up with Micah. He bites in self-defense. He will be tougher than Micah. He is messy. And sometimes gross. He is slowly learning to use the potty. He is hard to discipline because he is too cute sometimes. He is very social when he wants to be. He is mischievous and a leader. He is snugly and I love this time with him.

Isaiah Joseph! Born September 7, 2011. He was my biggest @ 7 lbs 3 oz. He sleeps on his stomach. He is my most expressive so far. He smiles and has laughed. He still gets up during the night to eat, but falls back asleep quickly and sleeps well between feedings. He does great with his brothers touching/prodding/poking/loving on him all the time. He does well with chaos and noise. He has the lightest eyes and I hope they will stay blue. I cherish my time with him and love that God blessed us with him!

Judah Spring 2011

Judah is 15 months!

His personality is blossoming and so obvious so much of the time. He loves to say Hi to people, even if they are so far away they have no idea what is going on. He is outgoing and full of himself.
He is also my snuggler of the two boys. So cuddly!
He also has a buzzed head as noted in the picture.  After buzzing the boys, we realized we like it better on both of them and it is good for the hot weather too, so it will probably be like this for a while. Thankful Matt does it and we don't pay to have it done!
Judah has not gotten any more teeth in recently. Still two on bottom and four on top. I think Micah may have had a mouth-full at this point, but the good thing is that Judah is a very good eater with the 6 teeth that he does have, so there is nothing we would be feeding him if he had more teeth than what we are already feeding him now (pretty much anything). He is also pretty adamant about feeding himself now, which makes things a little easier during mealtimes, but a little messier too.

It is so easy to make Judah smile and laugh. He finds many things to be humorous. He is very ticklish. He is just a pretty happy, easy-going kid (most of the time).
Judah is walking and even running so good. I know he learned earlier on how to withstand little pushes because of his brother, but this has helped him greatly. We can even tell the difference in the baby pool of how well he can catch himself from falling when he gets a little off balance.
He spends time chasing micah everywhere, but when Micah is napping, he also plays quite well on his own. We are pretty sure that Judah may be bigger/tougher/stronger than Micah one day, so it's a good thing they love each other!

Judah has just recently started talking, and he is trying to say everything we tell him to. His biggest, cutest word right now is umbrella. He is also learning some signs so he can talk to us, but it seems they don't always mean what they should mean. "More" often just means food/eat or more of something or get me something. But he is trying and learning.
He loves being outside. He is always going to the front door and getting his shoes and bringing them to us so that we will know he wants them on and wants to go outside. And he gets upset if we don't oblige. He is pretty adventurous inside and outside, and he is pretty comfortable in his abilities to try new things, i.e. going down slides and playing in the water at the pool.

He loves his pacifier and I think it is going to be harder to "break" him of this than it was for Micah. For Micah, we just started when he was 1 leaving it up in his bed and only using it for sleeping...and he was totally fine with that. Hasn't been as easy with Judah...
He sleeps well in the car, but I may change this after we take a trip to the beach and see how he does on a longer trip since we don't try them often.

Micah Spring 2011

 (Micah got stuck trying to reach through and get the new toy.)

Micah will be 2 1/2 in just a couple of weeks.
He talks great. He really tries to say things correctly if we are helping him, and I can understand almost anything he tries to say. He is also getting much better at putting his own thoughts together, as opposed to simply repeating things that we say.
He is very quick to learn things. Whether it is going to Putt Putt, learning a new word, learning a new sign, learning how to do puzzles, learning the words to a song...he is good. For this reason, I have spent a good bit of time recently trying to learn for myself how to be more intentional about the things I am teaching him. There is a lot of information out there about "tot school" and it is all very interesting. I think he is willing and ready to learn lots of new things, and I definitely think it would help him a bit to have some more structure in his day...I am hoping to start a "program" for him around mid-June.
Micah is doing fairly well with potty training. He does wear diapers at night, but otherwise stays in underwear. He has good days and bad, good weeks and bad, but overall, we are pleased to have 1 kid mostly out of diapers. We are doing our best to encourage him when he does good and when he has accidents, all the while trying to figure out what triggers the accidents. Stubborn? Control? Focus? Over-tired?

Micah has had his head shaved for a while now and we really like it. It is great for the summer, great for the shape of his head, and great to hide the cowlicks a bit.
Micah's personality still seems a bit tentative and cautious, but Judah is helping him to be more adventurous. He likes to have choices so that he feels he is in control of decisions. He is pretty independent, and can often be found playing by himself even when in a group of kids his age.
He kicks balls with his right foot, but in everything else that he does he favors his left, including writing, eating, throwing, batting, golfing, etc.
Some of Micah's favorite things right now:
He has two green pacifiers (that he sleeps with) but particularly favors one of them.
He has a favorite blanket, his monkey blanket.
His favorite snacks that he asks for are either fruit snacks or animal crackers with cranberries.
He likes to say "That would be great." I think this is his new phrase when he realized we didn't think it was cute for him to answer "oh yeah" to every question we asked.

He loves Judah!
He loves to help with anything around the house that he can.
Micah is a sweet boy and I am excited to see how he responds to having another younger brother around now that he is a bit older.

Oh time, where have you gone??

A picture our friend, Tim, took.

It seems to be getting harder to update things around here. I usually update as I take pictures and I know I have a picture to go along with a story, but the camera hasn't been out much and the updates haven't been happening.
Micah is a sweet kid and loves his little brother so much! Sometimes a little too much as it comes across a little aggressively...They are interacting so much more these days as Judah is now almost a year and is much more mobile and much more able to tag along and play with the things Micah is playing with. This creates lots of opportunities for us to talk about sharing and being nice and gentle, etc. Opportunities I am thankful for since we don't have a ton of other "play times" with kids to learn these things.
Micah is very much in a "pretend" stage of playing right now. He seems to do this mostly with his spider man figure, taking him for naps, putting him on the toilet when he needs to poop (though he is against doing this himself, at least he knows what to do when he decides he wants to start...), feeding him, etc. It's pretty cute. He does this in other ways to as he get on his little "bike" and tells us "goodbye, I'm going to work."
Micah still very much loves to sleep! 12 hours a night is typical, but is often 13 or 14! And he usually goes down for at least one long nap in a day, if not two. He just loves it. And even when he wakes, he can easily occupy himself in his room for another hour just reading and pretending (and who knows what else really since we don't have a video monitor).
Judah is almost a year old and it is hard to believe! He crawls very fast, pulls himself up, stands, walks if he is holding on to something or someone, and has taken a few steps on his own. He is much more daring than Micah was and we see this in his desire to want to walk now.
Judah is an amazing eater. I don't know that I did anything different (I think it is just like that, the whole nature vs. nurture thing) but he will eat anything we have given him to try! It's so easy and so nice. Micah is not a bad eater, but I think it is a part of his whole "cautious and skeptical" personality and if it doesn't look familiar or good, he might not even try it. And if we make him, he barely gets it in his mouth and acts like it is making him gag!! He might be a good actor one day.
Judah loves people, loves to be held, loves to cuddle and snuggle, and loves any attention he can get. And it's easy for him to get it with his big smile and chunky legs! He also has 4 teeth that make his big smile even cuter!!
For now, a few updates. In the near future, I hope to be writing about Judah walking fully on his own and Micah using the toilet!!