The latest

Isaac is officially on the move! He started crawling last week and is now pulling up to standing every chance he gets. He has no interest in sitting anymore. His physical therapy evaluation is scheduled for September 30. He's still itchy and rashy, but seems to be improving. The latest food issue is apples and pears. He seemed to do fine with the baby food, but eating the fruits raw caused a major breakout and puffy eyes. Will this ever end? Probably not, but we're dealing with it.

Thankfully, he's not that fast yet.

The kids love giving him a bottle. Xavier will sit and feed him an entire bottle!


Xavier took this picture. Isaac currently has six teeth.

This is a glimpse into the next few months. He's just starting to get into things. Here, found the marker box. Isn't that a lovely blue stripe on his face? Of course, he chose one of the very few non-washable markers.

First Grade

It's that time of year! Brooklyn started her first day of first grade yesterday. The day went very smoothly. I was proud that I was able to get all three kids out the door by 8:30, dressed, fed, and ready for the day. She has a new teacher and seemed to enjoy the class. Her only complaint? There are 5 girls and 11 boys in her class!

A Visit With Grandma Bertie

Andy's grandma lives in South Bend. We don't get to see each other very often. In fact, Xavier was around a year old the last time we were together! She stayed with us for a day before she headed to Andy's parents' house. She was able to meet Isaac and catch up with Brooklyn and Xavier. We all went out to dinner to celebrate her birthday. It was a lovely visit!

Gymnastics

We made the switch from Integrity to the local YMCA for gymnastics. The drive and cost were huge factors in our decision. I can't say the Y's program even remotely compares to Integrity's awesome facility and instruction, but for our needs it will be just fine. Flexible girl(aka Brooklyn)continues to wow us with her development, but the surprise has been Xavier. He is extremely strong and seems to have a good sense of balance. He hopped across the beam on one foot(without falling!) mastered the bridge, and can almost do a cartwheel!

As promised, here is the best picture I have of Xavier's bridge.


Brooklyn was "walking" in her bridge.

The Last Hurrah

Andy's parents come to visit every week. It is a lifesaver! I'm able to do some housework, plan appointments, and get a break from the chaos. Last week, we took a road trip to their house before school started again. Their house has all sorts of fun things to do. We tried to go for a ride on the tractor, but the tire on the trailer was flat. We went for a swim instead. Xavier tried out his new watercraft. It is motorized and shoots water! Brooklyn was happy puttering around the pool. When Isaac got up from his nap, she took him for a few laps around the pool in his Cozy Coupe floatie.

Jump, Dive, and Wail

The swimming lessons finally paid off! Brooklyn took a jump off the diving board for the first time last week. It only took 45 minutes to convince her. She was afraid...
1. She'd get chlorine in her eyes.
This coming from the girl that dives for rings sans goggles.
2. It was too high.
But not as high as jumping off the monkey bars-which she does regularly!
3. It was too deep.
It was no more over her head than the deep water she was jumping in off the side of the pool.
She was just plain scared and there was NO convincing her. She'd go to the edge of the board and freak out. Finally, the lifeguard offered to catch her. She couldn't get off the board fast enough! She jumped into the arms of the waiting lifeguard then swam to the side with a huge grin on her face. She jumped one more time to him, then asked him to "Go away, please." After that, I couldn't tear her away from the diving board. One more fear, conquered!





Xavier watched with envy as Brooklyn and her friends went off the board. He wanted to go off too! I told him that he had to swim without a floatie in order to be in the deep end. He insisted he could. Finally, I handed Isaac off to a friend and said, "prove it!" I am eating my words. He jumped off the side of the pool and swam about 30 feet without help. I took him over to to lifeguard so he could prove he could swim. He did it again! He marched up to the diving board, walked out to the edge, and chickened out. Next year, I'm sure he'll be joining his sister. What a great way to end summer vacation!

Perfecting the Chin-up

I'm amazed at how much strength Brooklyn has gained through less than one year of gymnastics. This time last year she was nowhere close to being able to pull herself up. Gymnastics has been a great thing for both Brooklyn and Xavier. Xavier can now do a bridge! I'll have to get a photo of him because I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it!

Hangin' around.

Almost there!

Ah, the sweet smile of success!

An Afternoon at the Park

We biked to the park yesterday afternoon. It was such a nice day I thought I'd take a few photos. Why couldn't the tea party look like these?

Tea For Two!

We tried a destination birthday party for the first time this year. After finding out Andy would be out of town for the four days preceding Brooklyn's party, I put in a call to The Glass Slipper in Powell. It was great! Brooklyn invited 7 other girls to a "My Doll and Me" tea party. It was adorable! The girls all dressed up and found their best manners to participate in the tea. I almost hired a professional photographer to capture the day, but decided since I had NOTHING else to do, I would take the photos. Now I'm kicking myself! My pictures are almost all blurry and the flash didn't act the way I wanted it to. Oh well, at least we have great memories!

This is the group outside the tea house. Brooklyn is holding her souvenir "glass" slipper.

All birthday honorees put their hand print with name and date in a special room in the house. Of course, Brooklyn chose pink paint for her hand print. They were running out of room on the walls so Brooklyn put her hand on the floor.

Each of the girls had to introduce themselves and their dolls. Then, they had to tell one reason their doll was so special to them.



The girls had an etiquette lesson before the tea began on how to place their napkins, how to wipe their mouths, and what to do with the napkin when they were finished. All went well until one party goer launched into a "Cake, cake, cake..." chant. Soon all the girls were shouting "CAKE!" at the tops of their lungs! So much for manners!

During the gift opening, Brooklyn sat in a special chair. The girl whose gift was being opened sat next to her. It was nice not to have everyone scrambling for a position to see their gift opened and begging to help.

Brooklyn wore an off white dress with lavender flowers that matched her doll's. Within the first 10 minutes of arriving at the party, the hostess offered dress ups to all the girls. Brooklyn chose a lovely burgundy number that looked like a Christmas dress. It was a few sizes too big and looked very lumpy with her other dress underneath. It is in ALL my pictures! I can't decide whether to be annoyed at the dress or at myself for wanting to control the party. Comments?



The last event was the tea party limbo. The girls went wild! They were giggling and cheering each other on. Who knew limbo was such a hit?


The party was a great success. It will be hard to go back to doing all the work. It is so much fun having a little girly girl!

Happy Birthday Brooklyn!

Brooklyn turned six on August 10th. She was awake for all of 15 minutes before she dove into her presents. This year, she's all about American Girl dolls and accessories. After church, we went to Fiesta Grande for lunch, then headed to the bowling alley for a few games with Grandma, Grandpa, Oma, Opa, Uncle Joe, Aunt Catharine, and "Uncle" Seth. After exhausting ourselves with some exciting games of bumper bowling, we headed home for a supper requested by Brooklyn and topped it off with banana splits for dessert. It was quite a challenge to get six candles into a banana! She said it was a great day!

I'm amazed at how bright-eyed she looks at 8:00am!

We love Fiesta Grande!
While we were eating, Brooklyn asked "Why is the TV speaking Spanish?"

Of course her ball had to be pink!

6 month photos

Isaac turned 7 months a couple of days ago, but I finally downloaded his 6 month photos. In one of the photos he's wearing his Opa's(Andy's dad) red onesie that Andy, Joe, and Xavier were are photographed in as babies.

Almost Six!

Brooklyn's birthday is just around the corner. I can't believe she'll be six! We had these pictures taken of her recently. I'm not yet ready to accept school pictures as her only formal photos for the year. I wanted something that captures her "unique" personality.

Progress

Isaac is officially on soy formula. The switch was surprisingly easy for him. It took about 18 hours to convince him to take a bottle. After that he took it like a champ! He looked like a new baby by the end of the week. His eyes were bright and his skin was clear! Unfortunately, it didn't last. By the next weekend he was itchy and rashy again. So, back to the doctor again today. The doctor doesn't seem to think it is the soy formula so no switching to Alimentum formula! Yay! His weight today was 18 lb, 13oz. He's gained two pounds in less than a month. He went from the 25th percentile to the 75th in two weeks! He's also started rocking on his hands and knees and lurching himself forward to get where he wants to go. I think he'll be crawling in the near future. Still no word from physical therapy. But, things are looking brighter!

Kings Island

We spent last Saturday at Kings Island courtesy of the Bautsch family and Honda. It was Honda R & D's day at the park. The Bautsch's grabbed us some spare tickets so we could tag along. We had a day of free food, drinks, amusement park and water park. What more fun could be had? We left Isaac in the care of my mom and spent some quality time with the older kids. Xavier had a blast! He was finally tall enough to ride more than the baby rides. His favorite was the Fairly Odd Coaster(formerly known as the Beastie). Brooklyn will be happy if she never again sets foot in line for any roller coaster. By the end of the Beastie ride I had two crying children. Brooklyn was screaming "This is the worst ride EVER! I hate the Beastie! I never want to ride this again!" Xavier was in tears because he didn't understand why he couldn't ride again without getting back in line. Brooklyn was also mad because her good buddy Avery was tall enough to ride anything she wanted, while Brooklyn was too short for anything outside of kiddy-land. I tried to explain that Brooklyn was afraid of everything IN kiddy-land so it really didn't matter. No luck. Maybe next year. She did try out her fisrt water slide and wave pool and decided both of those were quite fun! All in all, it was a good trip and a nice break from toting the baby. Thanks, Mom! Thanks Bautsch family!