Memorial Day Parade

Lucky for us, Wausau had their Memorial Day parade on Saturday, so we got to watch it.

Marching bands, fire trucks, American flags and candy.

Everything you'd expect from a successful Memorial Day parade.

Weekend Getaway

What better way to celebrate the end of school and beginning of summer than with a trip to
Wisconsin.  We drove up Thursday night so we could wake up Friday and have all day to
hang out.  We started the day going to watch Aiden in a track meet. It was fun being there
to support him and be the one cheering this time around instead of running. ;)

Then the boys went "golfing" (aka driving the golf cart) with my dad in the afternoon.
They had so much fun!!  And Ryan said Owen had a pretty impressive swing.

After golf we drove over to Hannah's to let the kids play together for a little bit before dinner.

I love nothing more than being able to spend time with the people I love,
so for me today was the perfect start to our weekend.

Last Day of School

Today was Owen's last day of preschool, and Joe's last day in the 2-year old class.

 It was such a great year and we were blessed with four amazing teachers.  They were
super creative and did so many fun things with the boys.  We wanted to give them
a little something special to let them know how much we love them,
so we made them thank you books. 

For Owen's, he wrote on the front cover.  He is doing such an amazing job with his writing!!  

When you opened the book, there was a picture of the kids with their teachers
on the first and last day of school.

  
On the next page I wrote some of the kids' memories from the year, 
and then a thank you note from me.

We finished it off with a gift card for each to Winberie's.

I hope they truly realize what amazing people they are and how lucky we were to have them
teach our kids this year.  It's hard to believe Owen will be in kindergarten next year, but
thanks to Jayne and Aileen I feel he is ready to go.  And not only that,
but he's excited to go, which is really fun to see.  He's going to do great!

And Joe started off the year crying every time I dropped him off, and now he is a super
independent, confident little boy.  He loved his class, loved his teachers and made some
great friends.  A lot of them will be in his class next year too, so that will be fun.

I'm sad to see the year come to an end, but thankful we were so fortunate
to have such great experiences.  Thanks Pilgrim!!

Cruising

It's official...Miles has reached his cruising phase.  It doesn't matter what it is,

if it's taller than him, he's pulling himself up on it.

 I definitely have to stay a little more on my toes these days,

 but I love watching him perfect his new skill.

 

11 Months

Only 1 month to go and Miles has officially hit the 1 year mark.  Crazy!!

Growth Stats

Weight - 19.3 lbs (25th Percentile)

Height - 28.5 in (18th Percentile)

He has changed so much over the past month, mostly in the fact that he has become
mobile.  It makes his seem so much older to me.  Sadly, my little baby is not a baby
anymore.  He started crawling early this month and hasn't stopped moving since.  I forgot
what a difference it makes when they are crawling.  Gone are the days where I can let him
chill on the rug in the living room while I get dinner ready.  We have two small steps leading
down to the front door that he seems to want to check out any chance he gets.  He already
rolled down them once, so now I'm constantly peeking out from the kitchen to keep an
eye on him.  He's so fast!

Plus now that he's crawling, he's more curious.  He was always very observant, but now he
can go explore all the things he had his eyes on.  I have to constantly be on top of what
toys the boys have out since they have quite a few with smaller pieces that are potential
choking hazards for Miles.  It's a whole level of alertness I had forgotten about.

Just to add one more potential danger to the mix, yesterday he decided he wanted to climb
the stairs.  He climbed up the entire flight of stairs with me behind him making sure he didn't
roll all the way back down.  Now anytime he is crawling in the living room, he goes straight
for the stairs and starts pulling himself up.  He holds onto the first stair then stands up on his
feet.  He holds himself there for a few seconds excitedly bouncing before deciding he wants
to put his knee on the stair and start crawling up.  He doesn't know enough not to let go if he
makes it up a stair or two, so I'm constantly running up behind him so I'm there when he lets
go or falls backwards.  And it's not just the stairs, he'll try pulling himself up on anything he
can.  The toy box, the boys' bed, the sofa...anything at his level.  It's hard to walk away for
too long because he's not entirely sturdy yet so when he lets go and falls it's never graceful.
This is a tiring phase to say the least.

I guess it all works itself out though because Miles is finally sleeping through the night.
Yay!! I'll need that extra sleep to keep up with him during the day.  It all started a few weeks
back when I decided it really wasn't necessary for him to eat during the middle of the
night.  He was most likely waking up out of habit.  So for a few nights we would go in his
room when he woke up, cuddle him for a couple minutes and then lay him back down.  He
would cry for a little bit, but then he would go back to sleep.  After about a week, he stopped
waking up to eat.  Now he sleeps from around 7:00PM until between 5:00 and 6:00AM.
Depending on when he went to bed and how awake he is I'll either feed him and put him
back down, or more often than not, he'll be up for the day.  It's an early start to the morning,
but I'll take it over feeding him at 2AM.  Now if the other boys would stop waking up for
random things in the middle of the night I would finally get a good night's sleep. ;)

The other big change I've noticed in Miles is he's becoming more vocal.  He babbles a lot,
makes noises, and recently started doing this thing with his mouth that is somewhere in
between making farting noises, blowing bubbles and spitting.  It's actually really cute.  He's
getting closer to saying his first words too.  He says the "da" syllable over and over along
with his other babble and noises.  Ryan is convinced that he said da-da when he walked
into the room the other day.  He gets so excited when either Ryan or I come into the room to
see him that there's a good possibility that really is what he said.  He also is really excited
about his new tricks.  He can wave when you say "hi," and clap when you say "yay!"

The other thing he gets super excited about is food, especially graham crackers.  As soon
as he sees I am pulling them out he waves his arms up and down and bounces in his chair
with his eyes and mouth wide open (one of my two favorite faces he makes).  He LOVES
them!  The great thing is he eats pretty much anything.  I remember with the other two I
always had prepackaged pouches of fruits and vegetables with me that I would feed them if
we were ever eating out.  With Miles, I have been giving him whatever we eat, within
reason, for awhile now.  I cut it up in small pieces and let him give it a try.  He doesn't always
love it all, but he always tries it, which is a start.  It's fun letting him experiment with new
foods to see what he likes and it makes our lives a lot easier too.

     Miles continues to be the most content, happy, cutest, go with the flow baby.
I love him so much and love spending every minute with him. 

Joe's Spring Tea

Today was Joe's turn to have his very first Spring Tea.  He was so excited!  All the parents

sat on our blankets and his class came walking out.  As soon as he spotted us he ran over

with a huge smile on his face.  He was so excited and proud of himself.

He had decorated a small white paper bag and filled it with snacks for us to eat.

We had pretzels, string cheese (Joe's favorite) and strawberries.

And the most special treat (which I somehow forgot to get a picture of) was a dirt cup they

made.  The kids all worked together making the pudding and crushing the oreos.  Then they

put a big paper flower with their picture on it into the "dirt".  It was a really cute idea,

and super delicious!  All Joe wanted was the gummy worm in the middle,

so I got to eat most of the dessert.  :) 

After we had our snacks the kids sang a few songs and then all gathered to release their

butterflies.  These were the butterflies that started as tiny caterpillars in their classroom

and they got to watch grow, so it was a big deal for them.

I had such a great time mostly because it was really sweet to see Joe so excited and proud.

I love that Pilgrim does these Spring Teas.  The kids work so hard preparing for them and they are really special for both the kids and us parents.