Holland at 15 months

Our sweet baby is just changing so fast. Her newest tricks are walking, talking and waving. She took her first real steps on August 4, 2016 at 14 months old. Within two or three weeks she was only walking. It is adorable. But darn, she gets around fast! I had to break out some shoes for her, which I can tell she still thinks are fun/weird on her feet. I let her walk around outside in the front yard yesterday and immediately she went for the saguaro. Early that day we went to the park and the only thing she was interested in was the parking lot. I have a feeling she is going to keep me on my toes. 

Unfortunately we really don't have a baby friendly yard. There are just plants and gravel. She stands at the sliding glass door to the yard and whines to go out, but there is nothing for her out there. Poor thing. We keep thinking about grass, but real grass sound hard and costly and fake grass sounds substantially costly. Hence we still have gravel.
 

Holland's first real word is fan. She loves pointing to the ceiling and identifying a fan whenever possible. She said it consistently for the first time on August 23, 2016 at 15 months old. Since then there are have been other new words. A couple of favorites are mama, dada, and whoa. I think she is starting to say hi, Jesus, story, and sister, but it might just be my imagination. One way or another though, she sure likes to babble to herself. What a sweetie!

Another favorite trick is waving. This is too cute for words. She will get the biggest grin on her face and use both hands to wave at Daddy when he gets home. Other people get a small one-handed wave and a smile. What a doll.

We are also working on teaching her how to give kisses. So far she will only give kisses when she feels like it, which is not very often. There have been a few times though when she will go for it. They are pretty juicy! She puts her mouth to yours and right before she makes contact she sticks out her tongue to give you a lick. It is hysterical. She is more likely to blow kisses than give real kisses. She does this at Miriam when we drop her off at school (when she isn't too mesmerized by the school buses). She also waves bye-bye at her.

Another funny one is that she doesn't say no-no yet, but she does shake her pointer finger to mimic no-no. I didn't realize that we even made that gesture at her, but it would appear to be so. The hilarious part is that when she does something naughty (like pull things off my nightstand while I am taking a shower) she'll come up to me afterwards and shake her finger at me with a smile. She knows she did a no-no, and she was just informing me. :)

 

Holland still loves stories, and it is darling to see her 'read' them to herself.  One of my favorites is when she hears music or we say 'dance, dance' to her. She bounces her arms (particularly her right arm). What a delightful cutie pie!

The beginning of a new school year

Sometimes I feel like this is all a fantasy. I am going to wake up and still be a teenager--busy with school, giggling about boys, when college, career, marriage, and children seem nothing more than far off dreams. I can't believe I am really in the thick of it. These sweet little girls are my children! That handsome, selfless, smart man is my husband! When did this all happen???

Well, I just blinked, and two of my little baby girls are now in school. Kindergarten and Second grade. School starts unusually early around here and Meet the Teacher night was in July! I put Miriam in the half day Kindergarten, and Eliza is in the self-contained gifted class. That means that they are attending two different schools. Ironically neither of my girls attend the school that we live in the boundaries of. Although, it is actually less crazy than you would think. Eliza catches the bus early, but because of where the bus stop is located (across a busy street) I have to drive her even though it is nearby. Since everyone has to be in the car anyway, it is pretty simple to drive Miriam to her school.

Right before she started Kindergarten she finally finished the Reading Lesson book. It only took about two years! :) She is a good little reader now, but she doesn't really love it as much as Ellie did. It seems like as soon as Ellie got a little bit of ability and independence to be able to read she just took off. A month or two later and she was reading through chapter books. Miriam does like stories and feels a lot of pride in being able to read, especially scriptures (kind of has a bragging problem actually) but she doesn't love it like Ellie did. I do catch her every day or two sitting down looking at books, and I think, reading them to herself. But I think she still considers it a chore when I sit down to have her read to me. I try to do this every day and if the book is too long or wordy she wants us to trade reading every other page (which I do, I want her to love the stories, and not get too bogged down or overwhelmed in the task of actually reading all of the words. I hope this is the best choice!). Miriam knows almost any given basic word, and longer words she can guess at pretty well, but she gets really frustrated/defensive when I tell her that she read a word wrong or to try to sound it out. She'll just argue with me that she read the word correctly. I just want to ask her if she thinks I am lying to her! Despite the frustration I am proud of how much Miriam has improved on her reading. I hope one day soon she can come to love it.  

I pick Miriam up about 11 and then Eliza arrives home on the bus about 3. You would think that this would be a lot of time, but I am surprised at how fast it goes. If we go to the store, fix, eat and clean up lunch and put Holland down for a nap, that only leaves a few minutes to do things like read a book and do a few pages of a workbook (one that is more at Miriam's level than what she is doing in school). I still enjoy the one on one time with her though. The picture below shows that my five year old, Kindergartener still rides in the 5 point harness. We all have to fit in the Corolla and I don't think we could fit two booster seats next to each other. Even if we could squish them in, there would be no way that Miriam could do the buckle with so little room between the seats. Even though we have a particularly narrow convertible car seat (the one Miriam is in now) I am still surprised at how little space Eliza has to work the buckle to get in and out. Still she manages it, much to my relief! Miriam can buckle herself too (but not unbuckle which is kind of awesome!) so I just can't regress and have to go back to buckling her.

On the first day of school we took some photos of the girls (see below) and John drove Ellie to school because the parents are allowed through the gate and onto the playground the first day. He said that she was pretty excited to show him around the playground. 

I went with Miriam and took Holland. On the drive to school Miriam told me, "Mommy, if you die, I want you to give me poison too so I will die with you." What a sweetie! At the end of the day she told me, "Mommy, I might call you Mrs. Bowlin (her new teacher) because I think about her so much" Also, "I might forget about you because I am in school now." Okay, thanks kid.

She does love her new teacher though, and school in general. The half day class isn't self-contained anymore, which is sad. But the teacher makes it really cute talking about the kids as "half-day friends" and "full-day friends." Miriam has told me numerous times how she wishes she was a full-day friend. Too bad kiddo. 

So Holland and I have a little bit of one on one time too. Often I am at the gym while Miriam is at school and when we get home she needs to go down for a nap, but on the days that the girls have ballet after school at the gym I exercise then and we have some play time (or grocery shopping time) in the morning. This baby loves, LOVES books! It is by far her favorite activity. She is also being such a little walker and talker. I will have to do a post about that very topic later. She discovered how to climb on top of the kid chairs, much to my horror. She also recently discovered toilet paper. It's fun. She is so much more cuddly than the other girls were at this age. I love it. She will actually rest her head on me when she is tired or just feeling cuddly. It is so sweet! I am so glad I get to have some time just Mommy and Holly. 

I am glad that Miriam and Eliza are such good friends! I wish they could be at the same school. Sometimes it feels like my heart is being torn in two different directions, but I know that they are both in the exact situations that I would want them in. Half day and gifted. They both seriously love their teachers. For the first week it almost seemed like they were competing to see who loved their new teacher more. I am so glad that there are such nice teachers out there. I know there are some bad apples thrown in, but I truly believe that most teachers are in it to help children, which is wonderful.

First day of school!

Eliza has always enjoyed school. She has always had sweet teachers, but this is the first year I have really seen her light up about what she is learning. She comes home practically glowing! She is almost giddy to show me all of the things they are doing at school, which I have to say is a lot! I was blown away at curriculum night with all of the things they are doing. Both years before this I felt like I needed to supplement her learning at home in order to make sure she was continuing to learn and be pushed a little bit. I definitely don't feel that way this year! She is doing so much and by some miracle her teacher does it in a way that makes this huge leap in curriculum, work, and expectations a fun and exciting adventure. I was told by several friends how amazing this particular teacher is (Mrs. Whigham), but I was still floored at how sweet and loving this woman is, how much they are doing in the classroom, and what an amazing environment it is for my Eliza. I feel so grateful she gets a year with this teacher.

Happy back to school girls! I have to laugh at how all the school supplies in her back pack makes it so huge against her tiny body. Kindergarteners are so tiny and cute! My Eliza is a doll too. I miss them so much during the day, but I feel confident that they are in great school situations, which makes it so much better. I love you girls!

Too many school supplies for a tiny Kindergartener!