Hi there! Jen’s out of town, but today is our Anniversary! I wanted you guys to see my little blog post (so you can wish your husbands has as good a memory as I do! Heehee!)
Hugs,
Darrell

Happy 8 months, Andy-doodle!

I thought I’d have puzzles made for our moms this year from a collage I put together today. Do you like it?

Kodak is having a 25% off sale of $25 or more with code DAISY. Expires at the end of the month. I thought that code name was appropriate!

We’ve been working up to this day for a long time!
I made Brendan one of those word sliders (remember those from 1st grade?!) where I wrote in large letters on a folded piece of paper at, cut a square hole right before the at and then folded another piece of paper into a long ruler shape and wrote the letters f, b, c, h, s, r, m, & p down it so that (with a few pieces of tape and another cut) we could slide the letters through the paper so they’d appear in the hole presenting the _AT words one at a time.
We’ve played with it a few times and have worked on the first BOB book (words: Mat, sat, Sam, on) simultaneously and by george…
I THINK HE’S GOT IT!
Suddenly today he can make the connection that ssssssssss-aaaaaaaaaaaaa-ttttttttt is sat!!!! And he can read them ALL!
Whooooooopppppeeeeeeeeeeee! DaNcE oF jOy!!!
I’m using the Easiest 3 letter word groups list I prepared some time ago. I’m making an _AM word slider next for 2 reasons… Sam (and I’ll have to add “Sam” to my list) is the other boy in this first BOB book and the first starfall book is “Zac the Rat” and he encounters JAM. We’re gonna to have to discuss the meanings of bam, ram and yam first. LOL.
I know that Bren sight-reads “Brendan”, “cat”, “the end”, and “play” already. 😀
I finally found a preschool workbook that I love… it’s from Parent’s magazine and it is right on Bren’s current level plus some that is a bit challenging, it covers math basic phonics and more, plus it is beautifully done.

This has been our daily routine since Andy started sleeping in his crib. I really like it!!
10:30 Andy & Bren wake up, snuggle time
10:45-11:00 Andy BF 15 min
11:00-12:00 Bren watches cartoons, Andy plays, I compute for as long as Andy allows
12:00-1:00 All 3 of us eat a meal
1:00-1:30 Various stuff or cleaning. Often Andy watches a Baby Einstein video
1:30 Andy BF 10 min
1:45-4:00 Andy naps and I get some computer time, shower time (on a good day) and Brendan and I do some prechoolish stuff (play educational computer games, do workbook pages, read, play in general…). Bren and I eat a light meal.
4:00 Mommy’s Oprah hour, Andy BF 10 min and we play on the bed together while I watch. Sometimes Bren joins us or he’ll do his own thing.
5:00-5:45 Cook dinner and feed Andy, DH comes home
5:45-6:30 Eat dinner
6:30-7:00 Cleanup, relax
7:00-9:00 Various things, yardwork, errands, whatever. Andy BF for 10 min and naps for an hour usually around this time.
9:00-10:30 or 11:30 TV time, occasionally we play a computer game
Somewhere between 10:45 and 11:30 we get ready for bed. Andy BF 10 min.

Bren was playing playhousedisney.com (the LeMOOnade game) and it brought up an addition game where you are supposed to count cups of lemonade… except they don’t give you cups to count. The characters DO hold up their fingers but almost immediately this calculator thingy (where you are supposed to type your anser) pops up and covers their fingers so you can’t really use them. What that leaves you to use is an addition fact like this one…
3
+4
—-
?
This is PRESCHOOL???
Bren understandably wanted some help so I tried showing him how to count on his fingers… Bwahahahaha. He got the concept but had trouble keeping his fingers in the right positions and by the time he got the 2nd hand ready he forgot what the first hand was supposed to be. And he didn’t have a hand left to count the fingers with anyway. We did a few where he counted my fingers and then I decided to switch to objects. I picked up him box of Dora dominoes and pulled out 8 of them. I put them face down (pictures are just distracting) and made a pile of them. I showed him how to count out the first number and then add the second number’s worth of dominoes in and then count the total number of dominoes to get the answer. It was hard but he enjoyed it. He can’t do it by himself but he got a good introduction to addition.
Then we put the dominoes picture sides up and I showed him how to put like pictures together to make a big line of them. That was much easier!

I have been puzzled over what I thought was my first post-baby period. “She” started up about 6 days ago (7m2w3d, April 4th) but very scant bleeding. Not at all like my typical period (8 days long, 4-5 heavy). I thought AF (or Fake-F) was gone yesterday but I got a hint of her again this morning. Either arrive or leave- just git your foot outta my door!
With her arrival came an immediate crash in my milk supply. Andy has been fussy and eating a TON of solid food. I noticed he wasn’t making but 1 fully wet diaper a day and for a couple of days I even gave him some watered down juice bottles just to keep him hydrated. He seemed to nurse normally in length and frequency though I didn’t hear many swallows. I was ready to throw in the towel but he started getting more yesterday and this morning all was back to normal- yippeeee! Andy was relieved, I think and it was the first breakfast in maybe 5 days where a “normal” meal of puffs and banana oatmeal was enough to satisfy him.
Andy now refuses plain Cheerios. Bren did this too so I am not surprised but a liitle sad because they are so good for you. I pondered over Apple Cinnamon Cheerios and Honey Nut and ended up with the apple. Bad choice- thay are basically regular Cheerios with an apple glaze… that doesn’t dissolve well. They are much crispier. I hope the Honey Nut are not glazed. Anyone know?
Andy’s biggest news is that he sleeps in his own crib at night now. I had done 2 CIO (cry it out) naps prior to starting and he had 2 nights of just a few minutes crying. Now he cries until I am out the door and then he’s done!!! For 10 hours! I am totally boggled and excited that both boys sleep in their own beds!!! DaNcE oF jOy!!! Our bedtime routine is so simple! Both get jammies. DH brushes Bren’s teeth and puts him in his bed. I nurse Andy and put him in his crib. Done. In 15 minutes!
Andy’s 2nd biggest news is that he has 2 teeth! The bottom middle 2 popped up together last week. Just about the same time Bren got his first tooth. He has bitten me twice so far and WOW that hurts. But it is not as often as I thought it’d be.
Andy finally outgrew his infant carseat so he is in a big boy toddler seat now. I miss being able to set him down places in it and not having to use the stroller but dang it was heavy!!
Andy’s toys of the week- an empty altoids tin and an empty baby shampoo bottle. Silly boy.
*****
Brendan was inundated with birthday presents… he still has 3 or 4 unopened ones just waiting. He’s loving it, of course. One of his presents was a scooter with 2 wheels in the back. He’s slowly learning it. He doesn’t like the helmet we make him wear. His first helmet set was too small so we went back and ended up with a helmet and a pads set that were meant for 8 year olds!!! And the knee pads are still too tight! :/
Talking funnies: “Preer Fan” for Peter Pan (thanks for the movie Mimi!) and “Klaw Brudders” for Koala Brothers (from playhousedisney.com).
Bren amused DH a few monrings ago by asking him for a hot drink. They sipped hot apple cider together and had a good time.
Toy of the week: He has been using a marker as a microphone and pretending to be an announcer lately. I think it’s from Cars. He has also been taking the pens and pencils from all over the house and for awhile protested when we claimed one back. He is really into coloring, tracing shapes and letters, and having us write words (mostly names) for him.
Recent quotes:
“push it to the limit”
“My tummy’s talking to me”
“You’re the best girl I ever had in the whole world” Awww…

Very simple, very calm, very nice Easter at home. The grandparents left with me a small gift for each of them and I only used what was in the Easter storage box and candy we already had. Brendan had a blast hunting eggs in our living room since in was cold and wet outside.

That turned out nicely!
ETA:

Bren and Lightning McQueen bear a strong resemblance, lol.
Bren’s pizza party turned out great!! He was only shy for the singing- I am so happy!!! He has really turned a corner there (that his brother has entered full force…sigh!). Having taken him twice to this pizza place in the prior 2 months and talking often about what to expect at the party (eat pizza, play games with the boys and girls, eat cake, etc.) REALLY helped. He was so excited when this day finally arrived.
Bren’s favorite game turned out to be one where you lay back in a chair and hold on to bars and the machine would shake as you watched a film of a roller coaster. A real one. He ended up loving it (with a hilarious video of his first uncertain moments) and rode it a few times with a 7 year old girl named Kendall. He rode the dinosaurs with the Smith clan as well. He also impressed us with climbing to the top of their indoor playground tubes- I knew it wouldn’t be long before he made it to the top of one somewhere!
The guest list was
Gene & Waynell (who watched Andy for me!)
The Smiths (Carol, Ed, Kendall and the 4 year old triplets- Nicole, Hunter, Brandon)
Mary K and Leonard
Cathy and Chuck
Michelle with 2 1/2 mo old twins Quinn and Connor
Diana with month old Alayna and 5 year old Joseph
Jorge and Cristina with 1 year old Alvaro
Cricket and Sarah
Ann with her boys, JJ and Jackson
Peter Piper Pizza did a great job. We were right on to avoid the weekend. We were informed from the start that they were so un-busy that we didn’t have to hurry and could stay late. We bought a bunch of their cheese stuffed crust pizzas and they were terrific!!! It was a great deal for $5.99 a child plus about 6 extra pizzas. I was running around crazily until about halfway through and decided to stop worrying about everyone and plopped myself down to eat and visit instead. Darrell TOTALLY managed Brendan and the entertainment department while I made sure everyone had food & drink, fielded questions from the host and moved the party along when needed.


Brendan loved his cake. It was made from the cake shop that made our wedding cake, Lucy’s. It was bee-utifully decorated as a Lightning McQueen racetrack… apparently this style is so popular that the company can’t make enough toppers so I used our handy dandy Lightning McQueen from McDonald’s. LOL. Saved myself $8.00 too. 😉

Right before we started singing.
We have a pile of presents in our living room. We really are blessed by generous friends and family. We are letting Bren take the lead when he wants to open one. We started off with his Mimi and Papa’s gifts since they are leaving in the morning. Among their other gifts, he received a Spiderman scooter and a Cars helmet and pads set. I think the helmet is too small though. We’ll have to find him another one.
My baby is really growing up into a wonderful little boy. Sniff. 😀