The Regular

Stanley is hanging out with uncle Flounder today. This morning they went to a coffee shop together. Flounder sent us this text along with the picture below:

"Chocolate spiced doughnut. I thought I would culture this kid when the barista recognized Stanley. "That is not your kid, he always comes in with another guy" I guess Stanley is a regular."

Maybe we need to expand where we go for coffee, but Stanley seems to like  our current routine. Maybe a bit young to be a coffee shop regular, though. 

Home depot fun

Turns out that Home Depot holds a free class the first weekend of each month with a different activity. This was our first time going and we joined Wheeler. Thanks to Sam and Brenna's post, I'll just put the link below and you can see pictures and the activity did.  

Stanley enjoyed it and then had a wonderful play date with Wheeler. This was Stanley's first playdate by himself. My little toddler is being a big boy!

Thanks Sam and Brenna for the post:
Wheeler's Blog of Home Depot Drip

Amelia at 4 months

My mom has a wonderful baby book for me. My young brother's baby book has a few pictures stuff in it and his name on the front--this is about it. I always thought how unfair it is for a second child and I would never do that. Well, from the blog you can tell that I'm following right in my mom's foot prints.

Amelia at 4 months has really started to have a personality. She definitely gets the giggles at points and enjoys laughing lots. She has also started to recognize people. She gives a big smile when her dad, mom, or nanny Martha comes over. She is either scared or happy to see Stanley. Sometimes she is definitely a little reticent about having Stanley around; he has started to 'play' with her. It usually involves him pulling her arms in different directions to pretend push him and then he falls. I'm going to guess Amelia is going to either learn to run the other way or become pretty strong.

She is also on the move. I think her neck control is pretty amazing and she moves quite a bit. Her ability to move looks strange because she is so little. Her height is 50%, but her weight comes in at ~10%. 4 days before her 4 month appointment, she weighed in at 11 lbs 9oz. When we were in the store weighing her, a lady with a 10 week old kid came up and said "A new little one". If most people said that to me, I'd agree, but it was odd coming from someone with a 10 week old kid. I had to say that she is just little since her baby at 10 week old weighed 15 lbs. Amelia's little nannyshare partner John is ~18lbs, so Amelia is going to need to be strong to hold her own against Stanley and John.

Amelia can also melt people's hearts--of course she melts her families hearts, but also people we do not know. Because she looks so small, but she can put on a huge smile, people don't expect the smile and just ooh and ahh over her. I went in for a doctors appointment to ask about her weight (and her endless spitting-up). The doctor said that we have a laundry problem now, but we are going to have a bigger problem with her lady with her big smile, her blue eyes, and red eye.

Amelia at 4 months old.

Can
- Make lots of gargling sounds
- Laugh lots
- Hold onto toys for about 1 minute
-Get most almost any toy into her mouth
- Make people (Even strangers walking down the street melt).
-Sleep through the night for 4 of 5 nights. At least this was for her entire 3 month age. The day she turned 4 months old, she decided to start eating again at 3am)
- Hit things or pick up things from her gym or from the floor
- Roll 360 degrees over. (Usually to her right)
- Scoot on tummy time.
- Get her knees under her body


Loves
- Being in the Becco carrier facing in and out
- Watching the fan
- Nursing
- Mortimer the moose
- Sophie
- Her dangling thing gym
- Standing


Dislikes
- The car
- When she has a burp
- The Moby Wrap (this was Stanley's favorite)
- If she has to wait to get milk
- Did I mention the car...she is not at all bothered by crying for 45+ minutes. She doesn't mind the car seat because the moment you take her car seat out of the car, she is perfectly happy.

Storm day

Today was a storm day for all San Francisco schools. A huge rain storm came through. The night before we were told that Stanley's pre-school would be open, but please pick up your kids early. Steve nor I was sure what early meant? 3:30, 4:30, 5:00 (It normally closes at 5:45). When I arrived this morning there was 5 teachers and Stanley's friend JT. I picked him up early at 1pm and they had had a nice quiet day with a good teacher to child ratio. 5 teachers to 3 children.

Stanley definitely seemed to enjoy it. Here he is...definitely the only people in the parking lot.

Grapefruit

Apparently sanely loves grapefruit. 

Books

Amelia love books-reading and eating, though not sure that is how the chair is supposed to be used. 

Brother and Sister

Stanley agreed to take some pictures with his sister tonight. The results were tether than expected. The both smiled at the same time! I have about 50 pictures on my phone from this session. Only about 3 or 4 are any good. Thank goodness for digital cameras...

Catching up on blogging

It has been months since we blogged. So, to catch back up, I'm just going to out a group of pictures together.

Stanley had his school pictures taken. We even got to include Amelia. 

Below Amelia and I are hanging out in the San Francisco fall. 

A bit blurry, but my mini-mouse and Thomas the train fans.

Postpone crawling

When Stanley was little, I always wanted him to crawl early. He crawled at 6months and 1 week while my parents, Geoff, and I were watching.

With Amelia I am hoping she does not crawl for a while. We have lots of Stanley's choking hazard toys that she can get too. But, I'm guessing she is not going to listen to my wish. Today at an appointment, she was in the car seat on the floor without the straps fastened. I turned around and she had flipped over and had her knees on the ground. (No picture of he his because is as so horrified) 

Here she is trying her best to move. I took the movie and then walked I away to start pasta cooking. The picture is when I came back. At first I thought she had done it by rolling over few times but most likely she was just scooting.

Scooching

Amelia has been on the move lately. She is getting lots older in many ways. When we put her down on the ground she likes to move. The below picture wouldn't look all that strange, but about 1 min prior I left her facing the books on the blanket and when I turned back around she was the other way near the chair. Places to go...

She has also been gettig better about napping. It takes her a while to get to sleep since she doesn't want to miss anything, but once asleep, she sleeps for one 3 hour nap a day. She still has 2 other cat naps. 

Skulls

Stanley really enjoys the academy of science museum skulls exhibit. Today we went and Stanley sat right down at the drawing table to draw a skull. He choose the grizzly bear skull to draw. I was pretty impressed at the drawing. A few photos to follow. 

The first part of his drawing 

Skulls

Stanley really enjoys the academy of science museum skulls exhibit. Today we went and Stanley sat right down at the drawing table to draw a skull. He choose the grizzly bear skull to draw. I was pretty impressed at the drawing. A few photos to follow. 

The first part of his drawing 

Be prepared

Stanley likes to sleep with a toy each night. I thought this was an odd choice, but as Papa Doug mentioned, he is just being prepared.

Here is Amelia enjoying the SF summer in November. Don't worry, again, she is prepared for the evening fog with her cozy bunting. 

Dressed up

Voting.

Today we voted together. Stanley had a ballot this morning, where he needed to vote for his breakfast fruit and how he wanted to get to school. He chose all three choices for both questions. He was given the strawberries, blackberries, and banana. For the other question, I had to make an executive choice; it would have been hard to have him ride the stroller, ride his bike and walk all at the same time. 

Here are some photos. 

After voting. 

My two kids

Here are a few pictures from the last few days of the two kids. 

Below at the market watching music.

While Yoyo (previously known as Lolo, but stanley has renamed her) was here, Stanley and mommy had an adventure by ourselves to See's Candy. Stanley got a hat and a candy. While coming home, we had about 15 people comment on the hat he was given while he carefully held is chocolate candy unopened.

My little doll Amelia.

Yesterday, Amelia had her first stroller ride without the bassinet. She far prefers the bassinet, but she was happy to look around and enjoyed her ride to get Stanley from school.

A morning with mommy

The day before Papa Doug left to head home to Rochester, we were telling Stanley that Papa Doug had to go back home to go to work. Stanley volunteered the information that "My dadddy goes to work". I'm not sure how it came up next, but he then said "My mommy goes to yoga". Hmm. It has been a nice maternity leave for sure. I'm guessing life will be a lot harder once I'm back at work. 

This morning was pretty typical of our slow mornings. Amelia gets up at 7:30 and has some time looking and enjoying the new fan installed in the house.

Stanley eats his raisin bread french toast. (I also partake--it is quite good)

A little bit of playing with our toys and Amelia at home. 

 

And then we head off to school. Stanley has quite the choices for getting to school...

- Walking

- Running

- Skipping

- Stroller (which usually means he is either eating breakfast or drawing pictures)

- Boogie board (on the back of the stroller)

- Or tri-cycle

If someone else has Amelia, we can ride the big bike.

Today he chose to draw pictures of the spider webs and Halloween decorations while we walked. Amelia slept in her bassinet.

Here is his art. I am very impressed since we are going over bumps and street edges the whole time.  It includes a a purple spider web (I think the circle is the spider, but I'm not 100% sure), a purple star, an orange kite. And, the black was something, but we went over a big bump and it get messedup, so Stanley scratched it out. 

Dance Moves

Stanley had a great time at a wedding we went to in Louisiana a couple weeks ago.  He was really cutting a rug out on the dance floor before dinner was served.  We're not sure where he learned all these moves, but they are pretty sweet if you ask me.  Look for a little "robot" around the 5 second mark, into some "swimmer", and then he swoops up Julia for some swing moves around the 21 second mark.  He seems to be following in his Papa Doug's footsteps with these moves.  I wonder if they have a school dance in preschool?

Rolling

Last weekend Papa Doug reported that Amelia had rolled over most of the way, but couldn't get her arm out from under her to complete the job.  Well, the other day she finished it off.  She struggled for a bit, but in the end she got the arm out and rolled all the way from her back onto her stomach, unassisted.  Take a look.

Not sure how much longer we have before she is chasing her big brother around the house...

Curious George

Here is Stanley's version of curious George. He is very intentional and deliberate with his drawing lately. You will notice that curious George has 2 legs and 2 arms and a nose/ mouth/ eyes. 

Definitely loving his drawings. 

Dance Moves

Stanley was showing off his dance moves at a wedding we went to this last weekend in Louisiana.  He was really getting into it.  We're not sure where he got these moves, but I'm taking notes.  Maybe I'll steal a couple of these moves for the future.  Watch out world!

Beach Trip

We went to the beach for a dinner picnic last night. The each we went to is a marine preserve with lots of tide pools filled with crabs, snails, and sea anemones. We all had a great time before we got too cold and had to go home. Lots of fun. 

3 years old

Stanley turned 3 this past week. It is so amazing for me to realize that it was already 3 years ago since he was born! How does time go by so quickly.

We ended up having a long drawn out celebration for him. Today he was surprised that there was no cupcakes and candles. Last Sunday we had some of his friends over with their respective families. Stanley just loved the party and enjoyed all of his friends with him.

Singing Happy Birthday to himself.

They got to do a lightening Mcqueen pinata. We found it at a little Mexican store and filled it with pretzels and non-candy treasures. However, it was more sturdy than expected and took the parents hitting it, cutting it with a knife and then Steve tearing it apart by hand and shaking out the treasures. The kids still enjoyed it though! 

Stanley is such a fun little kid. He has developed so much in the past few months and has also grown quite a bit. At his 3 year old appointment they said he will be about his father's height.

This is going to be impossible, but I will try to list what he enjoys below.

Stanley enjoys:
- His family all together including grandparents.
- Face time with grandparents
- Geoff and Deli
- His friends (David, Wheeler, Ronan, Peter, Casey...)
- Trucks
- The movie Cars and family movie nights with popcorn!!!! At his request, we always watch the same movie, Cars, which he refers to as "talking cars"
- Pasta, fruit, rice, PB&J, meat (always called by the actual animal name...pig, cow, chicken etc)
- Animals
- Books. He remembers almost all of his books. Sometimes he will ask for a book that we haven't read in a month. We will start reading it and he can recite almost the whole thing verbatium. Some highlights right now are "Mikey the Milkman", "The Lion and the Mouse", "Cars activity book", "Good night construction site"... and really the list will go on for a very long time.
- Numbers and letters. He enjoys knowing that words in a book mean something. IN Mikey the Milkman, there is a section with "Be quiet down there". He enjoys pointing to each word as he says it, though we cannot really say that he is reading it.
- Cranes, trains
- Running very quickly!! He was pretty scared of an older kid at the playground and to avoid him, just ran away from him. The other boy got pretty frustrated since Stanley was much smaller than he was. I just chuckled under my breadth
- Singing and listening to opera (really anything classical)
- Playing basketball and baseball  

Some milestones.
- He can hop 3-4 times on one of his feet
- Run really quickly!
- Not worry his mom at all when running on the sidewalks. He knows to stop before the streets.
- Catch a ball and throw baseballs and basketballs
- Hit a baseball being thrown to him
- Open or break almost any childlock item except the ones that are adult proof too.
- Use the potty

Luckiest Mom

I definitely consider myself the luckiest mom! I have such sweet, wonderful, healthy kids. Stanley spends lots of the day telling me what Amelia might like. For example, he will say, "He (meaning Amelia) needs to eat" or "he needs me to burp her" (again the he meaning amelia).

Stanley's language is phenomenal according to his teachers. At school they says he speaks as though he is 4+, which is good and bad. He talks with lots of the 4 & 5 year olds, but it is hard for him to do some of their activities, so he gets left out sometimes. But, the 3 year old kids don't speak to him as much. As do all kids, he gets a few things confused for example pronouns are usually all masculin. And a few other phrases that trip him up are "construction site," bananas which he still refers to as "ba-bananas" (though he definitely knows the correct term). and he calls steak, "cow-snake".

Here are the photos I took in the last 2 days of my two wonderful kids.