Lydia - 16 Months

Lydia is over 16 months old already! We love our sweet girl and she has brought such joy to our lives. I have compiled a list of things about Lydia right now that I thought I'd share:)

Lydia signs a lot. Here are the signs she knows....

More

Please

Thank You

Milk

All Done

Diaper

Help

Bath

Her vocabulary is growing each day but here are her current words...

Uh-oh

Ball

Hi

Bye

Nigh-Nigh

Drink - says this for both water and milk

Bonk - when she hits her head on something

Thank You

Dog

Kitty

Cheese

Done

Sock

Baby

Up

Other Random things about Lydia right now...

-Lydia prefers to crawl. She loves to stand and push things. She'll let go and get excited that she's standing on her own and then fall over from giggling. She can hold on to your finger and walk and has taken 5 steps on her own.

-She loves to eat! The girl will eat just about anything you put before her.

-Loves to copy Evan

-Sleeps 11-12 hours each night and generally naps 1 1/2 to 2 hours during the day.

-Hugs and Kisses her baby dolls and bears (and us)

-Recently learned how to climb on the footstool and the couch

-Likes to look at books

-Capable of throwing a nice big fit when she doesn't get her way

-can stack blocks up to 3 high

-learning to use her silverware

-loves to take her socks off, but still gets excited about putting socks & shoes back on to go "bye"

-likes the idea of drawing with crayons or chalk but usually gets them taken away because she just wants to eat them

-loves to ride in the stroller

Recent Pictures....

Interviews with Evan

Two years ago, I did an interview with Evan. Today I asked him the same questions. Here are his answers at 2 years and then below that are his answer at 4 years old. I'm not sure if it was just his mood or what but apparently he answered in sentences better at 2 years old than at 4!

Interview with Evan, 2 years old.....

What is your name? Evan Jacob Searby

How old are you? I'm 2

When is your birthday? August 20 August I like chocolate cake on my birthday

Do you have a brother or sister? no

What do you like to play with? fireman, firetruck with a farmer in it

What is your favorite color? red

Who are some of your friends? I don't have friends, they went bye-bye

What is your favorite movie? Alabama Movie (????)

What is your favorite book? Carousel Book (???)

What do you want to be when you grow up? um, I don't know

What do you like to do at church? I like to play at the church

Which train is your favorite? This one (as he points to his wooden melissa & doug train)

Do you take naps? uh-huh I do Why? I don't know

What do you want for Christmas? I want some playdough

What is mommy getting for Christmas? I don't know what you're getting for Christmas, What are you getting? I think you're getting a present!

Do you know how much I love you? I don't know

Interview with Evan, 4 years old....

What is your name? Evan

How old are you? 4

When is your birthday? August 24

Do you have a brother? no

What do you like to play with? my steam shovel

What is your favorite color? red

Who are some of your friends? Megan & Josiah

What is your favorite movie? Boz

What is your favorite book? Mike Mulligan

What do you want to be when you grow up? a policeman

What do you like to do at church? play

Do you take naps? yes Why? Because I'm tired.

What do you want for Christmas? Toy Story 4 (Maybe he knows something I don't?)

What is mommy getting for Christmas? What ARE you getting for Christmas? A new blanket?

Do you know how much I love you? You love me up to the moon and back. And I love you up to the farthest star and back.

Lydia - 9 Months

Lydia was 9 months old last week. She is 28 1/4 inches tall (75th percentile) and only weighs 16lbs 13 oz (20th percentile). I actually asked the nurse to re-weigh her because I was certain she weighed more than that!

Lydia is still such a super-sweet baby. She tends to be a mama's girl but loves to snuggle with her daddy and giggle at her brother. She is definitely more laid back than Evan and therefore figuring things out a lot later than he did. Here are some random notes from the past month...

*She became a great roller. She can roll to get whatever she has her eye on. According to Evan..."Me & Lydia are good rollers. We should have a rolling class. People who don't know how to roll could come and we would teach 'em."

*She's finally sitting up by herself. She still tends to tip backwards when she's wearing cloth diapers.

*Lydia got her bottom two teeth....3 months earlier than Evan got teeth! She's now working on popping the top two through.

*She loves the pool! Kicking is her favorite thing to do in the water. When she's not kicking, I can hold her in the snuggli and she'll fall asleep while we're still in the pool.

*She is easily entertained. She sat on my lap for a VBS meeting, playing with one toy for over an hour. Just today she sat in the stroller at the museum for over two hours.

*Lydia has finally decided that food is not so bad after all. After 2 months of force-feeding her, I think there are a few things she's decided she likes: bananas, oatmeal, and green beans. I continue to try new things with her and she continues to close her mouth and look away...or just slap the spoon out of my hand.

*She is learning to take milk from her sippy cup and is doing much better than she was a month ago. She never took a bottle so we went straight to the sippy cup.

*Peek-a-boo is one of her favorite games, especially if its with Evan

*She started clapping.

*If you take something away from her, she now gets mad and you have to re-direct her. She's also started taking toys away from Evan which he doesn't appreciate.

*Evan really loves her and wants to give her hugs and kisses quite often. He also likes to help feed her and is fascinated by her poop. He usually asks what color it is.

(I'll try to add some pictures later;)

Packaging Pillow

Today Evan was trying to pop an air-filled packaging pillow (see example photo below). He first tried to use his hands. When that didn't work he tried his knees. Standing on it didn't work either, nor did jumping on it.

What next? He tried his head!

Before I could stop him, he smacked his forehead on the plastic which really meant smacking it square on the floor. He came up crying and asking for his ice pack.

I really had a hard time not laughing.

Some Notes about Evan

Evan is such a fun 3 year old! His favorite thing to do is pretend. You could give the kid a cardboard box and he would soon be a robot, a sea creature, or even a super hero. I wish I could just sit with a pen all day and write down everything that comes out of his mouth. I'd be sure to run out of ink before the end of the day:)

Some of his favorite toys right now include construction trucks, fire trucks, Matchbox/Hot Wheel cars, & of course his dress-up clothes. He's learning to play games like Dominoes, Uno, Crazy 8's, Memory, & Go Fish.

Evan loves to sing....mostly his own made-up songs. He is great with rhymes so his songs end up including a ton of made-up words that rhyme with whatever he's singing about. When you ask him what a word means, he'll make up a definition. One of his favorite songs right now is Wibbly Wobbly Woo. He likes it when we sing the beginning and he gets to fill in the end. When we're riding in the car he generally asks to listen to "Big Rock Candy Mountain" (Lisa Loeb version). Otherwise, if we're in the car, I have to be careful what is on the radio because he'll repeat it!

Evan is still a picky eater. He likes his food separated on his plate and usually throws a fit if things touch each other. The kid won't eat pizza very well but yet he'll eat a handful of mushrooms out of the can! Today I cut up chicken nuggets (that he wouldn't eat yesterday!) & put them on a toothpick and called them chicken-kabobs and he thought they were wonderful. I really think its all about the mood and not necessarily the taste.

Evan is still napping every afternoon. I am thankful for the 1 1/2 - 2 hours of silence each day!

We've been playing outside a TON lately. Its been beautiful. This morning was even cool enough for jeans and long-sleeves. Evan tried golfing....he got a little angry when he couldn't hit the ball very far. He started hitting the ground with his club just like Happy Gilmore. I couldn't help but laugh a little:)

We also got out the sidewalk chalk. This is Evan's jellyfish that he drew...

And here is his "Non-tentacled sea creature that you can pet".....

And here is Evan getting eaten by the shark that he drew...

What a fun kid! We sure love him:)

A Loud Toucan, 2 Worms, and some Squid

After nap yesterday Evan said....

"Mom, I just couldn't sleep. There's a toucan outside making a lot of noise."

While playing outside this morning, Evan found two worms. He named them "Wormy" & "Squirmy." Very appropriate.

During snack time today...

"Hey mom, do you want to try one of my magic pretzels? When you eat them they turn into squid!"

Porch Make-Over

Joel's parents came for a visit a couple weekends ago. Joel and his mom had a great time giving our porch a much-needed make-over! Thank you Linda for your hard work and for donating the treasures that you found:)

Here is what one side of the porch looked like. It always seemed to be over-taken with toys...

Now we have an awesome table to eat on! Joel and Linda found an old sewing machine base at a garage sale then picked up the round, tiled, top at a thrift store.....

I wanted to keep the chairs with the red cushions so Joel painted the metal brown and they look SO much better...

The other side of the porch had a random table and chairs just barely big enough to eat a meal on...

We left the green chair but added a new rug and trunk. The trunk contains all the toys but can be used for a footstool or add a tray and you have a place to set your drink....

Its the perfect time to use the porch! The weather has been beautiful and we've been trying to eat all of our meals out there.

Pets

Evan: I would like to have two pets.

Jen: I think having one cat is probably enough but IF you had another one what would it be?

Evan: I would go to a pet store and pick out a mouse.

Jen: A mouse?! Hmm...I'm not sure I'd like to have a mouse in the house.

Evan: Well then maybe I would pick out a rabbit.

Jen: That might be better, but rabbits can be pretty messy. Any other ideas?

Evan: How about a dog?

Jen: What if he chases Jack around the house and Jack doesn't like him?

Evan: hmmm....what CAN I pick out?

Jen: (really trying hard to not crush his dreams of owning another pet) Maybe a fish?

Evan: Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Let's go pick out a fish....and we need a tank too. Can we go tomorrow?

Jen: Well we need to talk to your daddy first.

Now...How in the world am I getting out of this one!?

Meat Lab

Evan loves going to the University of Florida Meat Lab. He's buddy-buddy with one of the guys that works there and somehow ends up wearing a hard hat or getting a sticker on each visit. Yesterday I took the kids with me to buy some meat and before we could even get out of the car, Tommy came out with a hard hat especially for Evan to take home with him. Evan was very proud of it...

Evan's job is to pick out a basket to put all our meat in...

"Do we need ground beef?"

What a great morning!

Visit with Osorios

Last weekend Joel had a trustee meeting at FCC so the kids and I went down to Kissimmee with him. Evan always gets excited about staying in hotels and Lydia has sure seen her share of them in the past 4 months. This was a great opportunity to see our friends Tori, Ryan, Owen, and their new little guy, Miles. Miles is only 4 days younger than Lydia so this is the first chance we've had to get the new babies together.

Some pictures from our day...

Lydia - 4 1/2 Months

This was last week but thought I'd go ahead and post it since it has her stats too...

Lydia: 4 Months

Lydia is 4 months old!

This little girl is growing up so fast. She's SO sweet and content. Lydia has discovered that she loves the taste of her hands and tends to chew on them daily. She's also trying to grab toys and just generally pays more and more attention to her surroundings.

Evan loves her and even chose to keep her when someone asked him if he wanted to give her away. He loves to hug and kiss her, play with her hands and feet, and of course talk to her.

She is back to sleeping through the night after a 3 week phase of some sort, maybe a growth spurt? We are thankful for that and pray that she continues in that pattern. She's happy when she's awake, loves to nurse, and thinks her brother and her cat are hilarious.

The challenge right now? She won't take a bottle. I'm perfectly happy nursing her but it would be nice to have the option of a bottle if needed. We've tried lots of things but if anyone has something specific that worked for them I'd love to hear it!

We are enjoying our baby girl!

Books & Sleep

Well Miss Lydia, when I told you to sleep you listened. Thank you for sleeping 11 hours last night. Now lets work on that napping routine during the day!

Today Evan and I read 14 books in a row. When I say books, I don't mean short little baby board books, I mean BOOKS with real stories and characters. I love that he loves to read!

A couple more pictures to share...

My bathing cutie:

And all those books certainly give this boy an imagination...

Evan & Lydia

I'm always writing blogs in my head but then never get a chance to type them out and post them. I know I'm going to forget things as the days go by so I'm going to try to be better about posting little things about the kiddos. Read them if you'd like...but mostly I'm doing it for myself so I can go back and read it again someday!

And of course I'll start with a pooping story...

On Tuesday night we had friends over for dinner. Evan needed to poop. He was sitting on the potty when our friends' 17 month old little boy, Eric, came in to check out what was going on. Evan looked at him and said, "You're going to have to learn to do this someday."

Evan loves watching cooking shows on tv so last night we were watching 30 minute meals with Rachel Ray. Rachel said something like, "throw your pan on the stove..." and Evan looked really surprised and said, “She said throw your pan, that’s not very nice!”

As for Lydia...she's a sweetheart unless you make her take a nap. That girl loves her social time. As long as someone is talking to her and paying attention to her or she's at least in the bouncie seat amongst the craziness then she's fine. Her napping routine however is not great! I blame this on our long trip to IL and now I feel like I'm reading Babywise for the 7th million time trying to get her back to sleeping at night and napping during the day. Oh Lydia...please sleep.

Lydia loves to smile! Just look at her and she'll smile. She even smiled at the cat yesterday. She's also starting to eat her hands a lot and grab for toys on her playmat. I can't believe she's over 3 months old already!

These pictures were actually taken about a month ago...

Nicknames

This morning while cuddling on the couch...

Jen: "Are you my sweet pea?"

Evan: "No, your baby is your sweet pea."

Jen: "Oh that's right, and you're my peanut."

Evan: "And you're my robot."

Laughs from today...

Evan saw his sunglasses sitting on the counter. He put them on and said, "Mommy you're so shiny I need sunglasses."

Later in the day...

Evan was pretending to be a skunk, or as he says, "kunk." He turned around, mooned me, and said, "I have a smell coming out of my bottom." I couldn't help but laugh!

The Dump Truck

I asked Evan to tell me a story. I typed it out as he was dictating it to me so these are his exact words....

Once upon a time there were 3 dump trucks and they didn't know what to carry so they called up their grandmas and grandpas.

Grandpa told them " I have a heavy block to lift so can you please come?"

"yeah"

Well and Grandma told one of the dump trucks I have a big ol' tree in the middle of the road and I'm trying to take my little kid to (s)chool but I can't. Then a big ol' excavator came with a long arm and big ol' dumper at the back. And then it could do it.

Then one of the grandmas and grandpas had a big ol' rock in the way and they called a big ol' dump truck, one with a dumper at the front and a very long arm at the end of it. The rock was on the road and the little kid didn't want a big bump so they called up the excavator. It digged on the cement and cracked a hole in it and digged way down in it. Then a dump truck came and a giant excavator put the big rock in the dump truck and then a big ol' "frumper trucker" came. Its a big ol' truck that trims trees but it trimmed up the rock.

Where food comes from...

Evan is really interested in where his food comes from and how its made. This morning we saw a Velda Milk truck and he got really excited. He then explained to me that milk comes from cows and then a big tanker called a "milk truck" comes to get the milk and takes it to a factory where they put it in jugs and then another truck picks it up and takes it to a store.

During lunch he asked "who makes grapes?" My initial reply was "God does." But then I had to explain to him about the seed, sun, water, etc.

He also wanted to know how yogurt was made. I told him it was made out of milk but he wasn't satisfied with my answer, he wanted more. I told him I wasn't sure how exactly it was made. He then told me that someday he "would like to go to a yogurt factory so they can show me how to make yogurt...they'll know."

Evan's Favorite Word

Evan and I watched "Word Girl" on PBS this afternoon. At the end of each episode they ask kids what their favorite word is. When it was over, I asked Evan what his favorite word was. He replied, "Love." Then he gave Lydia a big hug!

Pirates

Evan and I were playing pirates in the living room. We were finding buried treasure with our telescope and flashlight. We spotted some treasure and Evan wanted me to go with him to dig it up. I was being lazy on the ship (the couch) and told him that this pirate's leg was broken. He quickly replied, "You can just put a pointy thing on it and you can walk again." So much for getting out of digging for buried treasure:) I didn't realize how educated he was on pirates!