Pictures at the Beach!

We had some professional pictures taken while we were at the beach. We did get some good pictures but it was very challenging to say the least. Getting both kids to smile was close to impossible. So here they are..... (I will post other beach pictures that I took in the next post.)

First Day of Preschool, Swimming, and Headed to the Beach

Grant started 4 year preschool last week.  He now goes 4 days a week and loves it.  About half of the kids are from his class last year. His teachers are great and he is going to learn a lot this year. They sing the Pledge of Allegiance everyday and its really cute to watch. I got to go the first day to see what the structure is like, etc.

Sloan is continuing to grow her vocabulary.  She now said "Oh Gosh!" all the time.  She can sing her ABC's really well now.  She also loves to tell everyone what to do....."sit down", "move over there", "don't touch it", etc.  "Mine" is a favorite word lately too.

We are at the beach this week so the next post will be lots of beach pictures! The drive is the worst part since Sloan hates being in her seat for any length of time.....and neither of my kids are car sleepers!

 Flying into the pool, lol!

First Day of Preschool 

Reunion with his friends from last year.  About half of the class is the same.

Grant and Sylvi before school.  They saw each other and ran up to hug.  It was sweet! 

Sloan at the soccer field! 

Getting ready to go to the soccer field! 

Sloan and Mason 

Headed to the Beach! It started with smiles but after 6-7 hours, the smiles are gone, lol! 



Potty Update, Soccer, and Pre-K

Sloan's favorite words/phrases for this week: "give it to me", "mine", "I want popcorn", "want to go potty", "go get baby", "diaper over here". She now loves to dictate where we change her diaper. She will lay in the middle of the hardwood floor and ask to be changed there. She is definitely trying to control more of her environment. She is demanding to go to the potty more often. Last night, we gave her a book while she sat on the potty. I am not pushing this at all right now and she had yet to pee in the potty. So, I was putting up laundry and getting their bath stuff ready. After we got them both bathed and ready for bed, I went back into the bathroom......and she had peed in the potty! I can't believe we missed it! Could be a fluke but we shall see...

Sloan's new thing is shutting any door that is open. And you can't shut it for her or she will make you open back up so she can do it. She wants more and more things to sleep with her now too. She has a few stuffed animals (cat, dog, 2 bears), 2 lovies and 3 blankets and would have more if we would let her. It is a bit crowded in there but she loves it.

Grant is starting soccer this week and he is pretty excited. His team is mostly kids age 4 and 5. His first practice is tonight but it might get rained out.

Grant also starts pre-K next week! We go for orientation this week and I know he is going to love it just like he did last year. He will now go 4 days a week.

Happy Saturday Morning!

Cruisin in her car!

He wanted a big pancake and that is what he got!

Sticker Time!

Ice Cream!

Sloan with her new sunglasses!

Fun, Music and Speech

Lots of playtime and sibling fighting lately. Grant and Sloan both want what the other has no matter what it is. Sloan has finally grown out of her 18 month pajamas so I bought her some that are 24 months. Grant was upset that he didn't get new pajamas too. He actually needs some new ones too but I haven't had time to find them yet. He is now in a 5T and wears size 10 shoes. He seems to have hit a growth spurt lately. His legs have gotten much longer. Meanwhile, Sloan has really short legs but a longer torso.

While Sloan is saying 3 syllable words like "banana" as clear as can be, Grant's speech is still not super clear. I took him to the ENT to get a full hearing evaluation and to have his tonsils looked at. He passed every test and can actually hear better than the average child his age. His tonsils looked normal too. Next stop was a speech pathologist. He did a few tests for them and he is considered to have "mild" speech issues for his age. We are waiting to see if insurance will cover him seeing the same speech lady at the hospital or if we will need to get someone else and pay out of pocket. She told us that it shouldn't take more than 6 months to get him pronouncing words clearly. To be continued...

Grant and Sloan both have always loved music. We went to a local pizza joint and there was a band setting up for later that night. The opening act guy got up on stage and offered to play some kids songs. There were a couple of other kids along with ours that got to enjoy the fun!

Sloan and the frogs!

Sloan loves to be pushed by Grant!

Grant and Mary Kate enjoying their suckers after dinner!

Enjoying the music!

Sloan and her favorite Transformer!

Singing, Counting and Bathtime Fun!

Sloan has always loved music but she is now getting pretty good at singing some songs herself. She can almost say the ABC's...she gets about half of the letters and actually did almost all of them tonight by herself. We tried to get it on video but she would not perform once we started recording, go figure. She also sings "Ring around the rosies" and then she will fall down at the end. She also counts to 3 now. She will say "one, two, three....five". We aren't sure what happened to four but she doesn't want to say it.

Grant and Sloan both love taking a bath every night and do it together most of the time. Sloan has recently gotten much more comfortable in the water. She now wants to lay down all of the time either on her back or tummy. They both try to see who can splash the most and we usually have to calm them down so all of the water doesn't end up on the floor.

Random Pictures

Just some random pictures from this week.

 Grant got a new car accessory.  A seat belt pet and he had to have the ladybug.  He first saw this on an infomercial and talked about it all the time.  I saw them at Toys R Us and got him one. 

A rare happy moment in her carseat 

 She loves sunglasses!

She has some funny looks and this is definitely one that we get a lot 

We caught her picking her nose....she was thrilled and confused when she actually got something out, ha ha.  Gross right! 

Both wearing TuTus and loving it! 



Fabricated Stories, Swimming and New phrases!

Grant can tell a great story these days!  When I dropped him off at preschool one day this week, a teacher stopped me and said "I have a quick question for you.  "Are you an astronaut?".  I wasn't sure if she was being serious or just plain ridiculous so I laughed and said "No of course not, why?".  She preceded to tell me that Grant told multiple teachers that his mommy was an astronaut and went into elaborate details about it....even including the names of some astronauts.  I was shocked and told them I guess he got this from TV or my iPad.  He never ceases to surprise me!  The teachers got a huge laugh out of this one and they really believed him.  I guess it's better than him telling them that I sell drugs, ha ha.

Grant is improving every week in swim class.  He went down the slide without any float on.  He went under water, came back up and swam a couple of feet to the instructor.  It was impressive to see how fast he is picking it up.

Sloan now has a new phrase when she is eating.  She will say "I don't like it, spit it out" and then lean forward and wait for you to hold your hand out or a wipe so she can spit it out. 

Sloan likes to get in everyone's lap, especially Grants

Sloan now thinks it is so funny to go down the steps on her bottom and she says "ready, set, go" and then plops to the next step 

One of Grant's favorite foods....CORN!

She loves to walk Mason and now she tells him in a VERY southern accent, "Come owwwn Mason!" 



Writing his Name, Swimming, Jokes, the Potty and more new words

I was out of town this week for a few days with work but now I am back and have some funny stuff to share.  I had to go to a meeting from Monday to Wednesday and I got my first "I missed you mommy" from Grant when I walked in the door last night.  But it was promptly followed by "can I watch Disney Junior on your iPad?"......not sure if he missed me or my iPad more!

Grant can now write his name!  We were at a restaurant with chalk tables and he wrote his name without us even asking him to do it.  I took a picture of course.  It still needs a little work but we were very impressed!

Grant has also started telling jokes or what he thinks are jokes.  He must have learned this from someone in his summer camp classes.  This is how it goes.....he will say "How do you drive a car without a steering wheel?" and then he says "that's silly" and laughs so hard.  Like I said, not real jokes but he sure thinks they are and we have to laugh. 

Swim lessons are going great for Grant.  He is now holding his breath and going a couple of feet down to retrieve rings.  He is swimming a little further now without any floats but I am not ready to say he knows how to swim yet.

Sloan is cutting 2 more teeth now on the top so she has been a bit grumpy this week.  Advil has been our friend a few times I must say.  She continues to want to do everything that Grant does and copies him too.  I always forget what I have written about the phrases she says so I may repeat some.  Some that she says a lot now are:  "what's that noise?", "Thunder goes boom boom", "I want a sucker please", "I want to see that", What's that?", "Have it please", "I want cheese" and there are so many more I am not remembering.

Sloan's latest obsession is the potty.  She is very interested in sitting on the potty.  And she wants her "diaper off" as she says.  So I take off her shoes, shorts, and diaper and sit her up there......but she has yet to produce anything.  I just bought her a little potty to practice with before her baths since the big potty is huge for her right now.  She continues to tell us when she poops and will even go get the diapers and diaper cream and lay down to be changed.  She is still a little young to go cold turkey but we are going to start getting her ready.  She has also started waking up dry a lot more lately.  The thought of being done with diapers is really exciting though!

We went to Lowe's this past weekend to look at a bunch of stuff and the kids loved it!  However, Sloan refused to sit in the cart and refused to be held and refused to hold our hand!  She would only hold Grant's hand!  How funny is that.....crazy girl.  He had to hold her hand all over the store.

Grant's name in chalk!

Grant and Sloan in Lowe's 

Sloan on the big potty 

Sloan trying out the carpet!

She still loves to hand feed Mason 

Coloring at the Vet office 

Grocery Store fun! 

Another one of him with his name