A whole hand!

Wow, my Spencer turned 5 last week!  Some days it seems like it’s totally been five years and most days, I can’t believe he’s 5 already.  He’s getting SO big and has so much going.  We haven’t done our “official” 5 year old photos, but here are some good ones we took on our fall leaf drive.

Some big things that have happened to Spencer in the last year:

• Started Speech therapy and Occupational Therapy
• Enrolled in Pre-K at the “big” elementary school
• Had a blast at family reunion
• Started Pre-K at the “big” elementary school
• Earned a trip to LegoLand Discovery Center
• Went to see several movies in the Theater
• tried lots of scary things
• Made lots of new friends

I’ve started a tradition (last year) where I interview Spencer every year.  Here is his interview from this year:

What is your name: Spencer
How old are you? (holds up his hand and says) 5
What is your favorite color? Red, and white and pink and purple.  Those are the only colors I like.
Who is your best friend? Branden (a friend he played with today at school)
Favorite animal? Insect
What do you want to be when you’re all grown up? a police man
What is your favorite movie? Curious George
What is your favorite book? Curious George Books
What makes you happy? having Lucy (our dog)
What makes you sad? When you [Mom] take candy from me
What is your favorite food? Nothing
What is your favorite song? None
What games do you like? Lego City, Nintendo Land, Twilight Princess and Nintendo Land.  Those are all the games.

Spencer is the best big brother for Matt.  And Matt ABSOLUTELY adores his big brother and tries do do anything that his big brother does.  Spencer is very curious about things he loves, and he asks all kinds of questions about them.  He has a fantastic imagination, and we often find ourselves telling him he has to turn back into himself before he can go into school, church or some where.  He loves watching his dad play Nintendo, and he often has good ideas about how to solve some of the puzzles we encounter in the video games.  He is very clever and comes up with some pretty amazing things.

We love having Spencer as part of our family and are so grateful for the all the joy and challenges he brings to our family.  We would not be the same without him.  Happy Birthday Spencer!

May was…

busy. May was so busy with birthdays, school stuff, evaluations, work outs and weather. The calendar doesn’t look that busy, but we seemed to always have something happening.

Here are some of the highlights in pictures: I’ll talk about them as the post goes, but here they are to start.

At the beginning of the month, we celebrated Matthew’s first birthday. I can’t believe he is a year old already. He’s grown so much and we are so blessed to have him in our family. He’s such a good little guy to have around in our house. As a matter of stats, Matthew is growing well. He’s in the 77% for his weight, 89% for his height and 76% for this head size.  He’s quite the mover as well.  He’s practically running around the house now chasing after Spencer.  He definitely keep us on our toes.

At Spencer’s school, they had a Mother’s Day “tea” (meaning punch and cookies). He escorted me to my chair and my place mat. Got me my drink and my cookies. Then all the other kids sang a song, and Spencer promptly ran away not waiting to be around for the loud music. Other than the running away and fit throwing, he did pretty well.

Spencer’s school ended on the 16th of May. It was very bittersweet. We loved his teachers so much, and they have been SO good for him. I’ve seen lots of growth and change in him from the beginning of the school year to the end. So, to help us maintain that change, we have started Occupational Therapy as well as speech and pragmatic skills therapy (in prep for social groups). He’s doing very well thus far, and as a result, Spencer was able to feel confident enough to learn to buckle his own seat belt! (HUGE at our house).

Just like we did with Spencer, a couple weeks after Matt’s first birthday, we did some really cute cake smashing pictures. (Thank you Shana!) They turned out absolutely darling. You can seem them HERE

We’ve also started the process of expanding our patio in the backyard. We have a lot of space that is unusable. It doesn’t get any sun and is usually pretty muddy. So, we’re going to expand our patio so we can use more of our backyard. It’ll be great if it every gets done now. The wet weather we’ve been having has prevented things from moving forward as quickly as we planned.

On Memorial day, we enjoyed hanging out together as a family. We even made a trip out to Pop’s. It’s a soda shop that sells all kinds of bottled sodas. It has a restaurant in it (we’ve never gone for the food), and is definitely a cool thing to do in Oklahoma.

Adam and I have been busy with our training and both are making good progress toward our goals.

That’s been our month of May.

Smashing some cake

I know I already post pictures of Matthew getting crazy messy with his birthday cake, but with the help of my awesome friend, Shanna, we took some “studio” cake smashing pictures that are SOOOO cute. How could they not be? What’s not cute about 1) my son and 2) a kid eating messily.

I did some scrapbook pages using the pictures too. The kits I used won’t be for sale until June 1, but I didn’t want to wait that long to post the wonderful pictures. If you are interested in digi scrapping, let me know I’ll tell you where to go get the kits.

Aren’t they SO cute? I think the red cloth diaper just makes them so much more cute. Even if I don’t use the cloth diapers anymore, I keep them for just such occasions. Cloth diapers are SO much cuter in pictures than paper ones.

Matthew’s birthday party!

Wow, it’s happened.  My baby turned one.  This year has been SO fast and so crazy, but wonderfully blessed since we have this little guy in our family.

I will do his “official” one year post when I get his portraits done.  They are in the works for the weekend, I can’t wait to share those with you too.  But for now, here are some great ones from his birthday.  I didn’t take too many of the present opening.  I like to participate too.  🙂  He loved his “cell phone” and his “remote control.”

The best part of our evening though was probably the cake.  Matthew LOVED his cake.  He probably ate about a 3rd of the cake.  It is a mini cake, but it was layered.  Who knows how he found room for all of it I’ll never know, but it was sure fun to watch.

Did I mention Matthew loves to share and was rather insistent that Daddy try his cake?  Such a fun day.

First Steps

Just as a side note for remembering, today (4/10/13) Matthew took his first two unsupported steps. He was hanging on to the coffee table when I came into the living room from the office. He looked at me and smiled that precious baby smile of his, I held out my hands to him, and he stepped away from the coffee table toward his momma.

Spencer and I had a great time celebrating with him after that, but we couldn’t really get him to repeat his steps. He had turned it into a falling into momma’s arms game that was much more entertaining at that point than walking.

Matthew, a 10(and a half) month chowhound

So, I kinda skipped Matthew’s nine month and ten month mark.  We’ve been CRAZY busy for while and I don’t think we are going to be slowing down, ever again…  Now that I have sort of a minute to talk about him, he’s almost 11 months old!  It has good so quickly.  He’s growing like crazy.  I’ve still neglected to do his portraits recently, so here is a picture of him at the end of January.

At 10.5 months, Matthew:

-LOVES to eat.
–is giving up totally gave up baby food in favor of table food.
-would rather eat what is on Mom or Dad’s plate than his own
-was not quite crawling at the beginning of 10, but he sure is now. WOW.
-is a great belly wormer/army crawler, but has totally giving it up for crawling
-preferred mode of transportation is walking while holding onto fingers
-prefers Spencer’s toys over his own
-has a strange fetish for remote controls and cell phones
-sleeps like a PRO, about 12 hours a night
-still takes 2 naps of at least 1 hour each.
-loves it when his brother comes home from school
-is Spencer’s biggest fan
-laughs the very best and most for Spencer
-seems to be the happiest, most chill guy ever (until it’s time to eat)
-makes the most hilarious sounds when he wants to eat more
-when he gets frustrated, he says, “mamamamama” (we’re not sure if it’s because he wants me or he’s chastising me. Maybe a little of bother)

And some pictures of him over the last months

Choose the Right

Tonight, we were talking about choosing the right, since Spencer got his first CTR ring at church today. This is how his conversation with Dad went:

Dad: Spencer, how do you choose the right
Spencer: Like this ::points to his right with a rather matter of factly::

It was hilarious!

4 years old and 6 months old for nearly a month!

So, I’ve been a little bit of a slacker about getting these things posted and getting pictures taken of my darling boys, but with the help of my mom and my husband.  I was able to get some good pictures of both boys over a couple weeks.

Let’s start with the big ole birthday boy Spencer.  He turned 4 this month!!  It’s seems to crazy that I have a 4 year old, but I do.  He is crazy funny, and sometimes a little frustrating.  He is the best big brother and most of the time his a great helper for his mommy.

Some important things that have happened to Spencer this last year:

• He learned how to use the potty. Yeah!
• He was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome
• He became a big brother
• He rode a roller coaster for the first time
• He started school (Pre-Pre-K)

His 4 year old well child check up results:

• Height: 3’8″ (44 inches) – 99%
• Weight: 40.6 lbs – 82%

We recently did a little interview.  Here are his answers:

What is your name: Spencer
How old are you? (holds up 4 fingers and after some prodding) 4
What is your favorite color? slimy things (our most recent batch of slime is green, but I’m pretty sure his favorite color is orange).
Who is your best friend? Nehemiah (a new friend from school)
Favorite animal? sheep
What do you want to be when you’re all grown up? a dragon
What is your favorite movie? [Curious] George, the show not the movie. The George movie is scary.
What is your favorite book? the dragon book (not sure what book this is, but I’m pretty sure his favorites are Curious George books).
What makes you happy? Curious George
What makes you sad? the spinning thing at Crest (a Christmas inflatable that has a spinning bar type thing)
What is your favorite food? sandwich (plain peanut butter with not jelly or crust, cut into 2 rectangles or triangles)
What is your favorite song? a pretend song (he’s not really a fan of singing or other singing. But has been making up nonsense songs that entertain Matthew)
What games do you like? the teleporter one (It’s called Jetpacks. He also is rather good at Bad Piggies and Where’s my Water)

Here’s some pictures from his birthday:

He got a marble track which is LOVES and some Imaginets (shaped magnets that you build pictures out of).  He also got plenty of clothes, but we were trying to only get him a couple toys that we knew he’d like and actually play with.  It seems to have worked this time.

Now on to my little cutie, Matthew.  He’s six months only now.  It’s  a little crazy how he just fits and it seems like he’s always been here.  When I think about the time before we had Matthew, it almost feels like something is missing, ALMOST.  It wasn’t at that point, but anyway.

At six months, Matthew is a really happy kid. Some important things that have happened to him recently:

• He’s learned how to roll over
• He prefers to sleep on his tummy
• He loves to jump in his jumper or play in his exersaucer
• He LOVES to eat. We like to call him a Chow Hound
• His favorite foods include: Pears, Bananas, Sweet Potato, Oatmeal and Momma Milk
• Started November with no teeth, but finished it with 4!

Matthew’s Six Month Statics
Height: 28 inches – 92%
Weight: 19lbs 1/2oz – 75%
Head size: 43.5 cm – 50%

And for the best part. More pictures of the little cutie.

I thought this would be interesting to see side by side. Brothers. Aren’t they cute?

Spencer’s Recent Funnies

These happened on September 7th, 2012

After getting to the restaurant, he gives his grandma the knife from his seat and says “I can’t handle this.”

We’re playing catch and he takes a football to the crotch. “That hurt my junk!”

4 months

Matthew is 4 months old!  Wow, the summer went by so fast, and it feels like Matthew has always been here with us.  It’s amazing how fast we really seemed to adapt to having him here, and get things into our new normal.  Here are some favorite photos of our cutie over the last few months:

I LOVE the expression on his face. It’s so thoughtful and ponderous.

This is our favorite Sunday out fit for Matthew. Thanks Aunt Rachelle and Uncle Nate

We  had his 4 month well baby check a few days ago and here’s how he’s shaping up compared to where his brother was at this point:

Matthew:                                     Spencer:
Height: 27.25 inches                   Height: 28 inches
Weight: 17 lbs 7.5oz                   Weight: 16 lbs 4 oz
Head: 42 cm                               Head: 42 cm

Matthew doesn’t miss many meals. 🙂

I did Matthew’s 3 month photos the week we came back from Utah (in August), but I just realized I hadn’t put any of them up.  I got some good ones, and some of them I’m SO bummed the background wasn’t right in a couple of them or the camera focus moved at just the wrong time.  Here are some of my favorites of that we got.

Shortly after these pictures we cut his hair. It’s still standing straight up in the back, it’s just a lot shorter. I didn’t want to cut it before I captured the cuteness that is his mad scientist hair.

He is such a different baby than his brother, and he’s such a sweet heart too. We are so bless to have this little guy in our family.