Katie, thanks for prompting me to keep blogging. I do enjoy this and like the history it is keeping of our family; it's just tough finding the time. Today I FINALLY got a great 'blogworthy' photo of Kiley's big grin. I was able to get the other kids' smiles on camera much earlier, but with the new technology, the 'red eye' pre-flash startles her and instead of getting the great grin I get the 'hey - why are you messing with my good mood' look instead! But, here it is at long last... You can also see that she has some curl in her hair.
January 28th, Kiley - 3 months & 1 week old
We've had a great couple of months. We enjoyed several holiday parties with friends, got to see both of our families at Christmas time and rang in the New Year - not with a bang but snuggled up in bed with our newest family member. We watched the ball drop on t.v. at midnight East Coast time and were ready to sleep by midnight - it was perfect!A Christmas Nap
Kristi, me, Dawn & Shannon at our house
Kiley weighs about 16 pounds now. It doesn't mean anything to me anymore when people tell me how big their kids are because I can't remember what is 'normal', so here is a growth chart to put it in perspective. If you match her 16 pounds on the left with 3 months on bottom, you can see with the red 'X' that she falls well above the top curved line which indicates the 95th percentile. Statistically, she is off the charts in terms of weight and thankfully height as well. Jake was too for about the first 18 months and now he's a bean pole, but for now she's our little chunky monkey!Jake has started guitar lessons. We wanted to buy a used 3/4 size classical guitar but couldn't find one, so we just bought him a really nice guitar and hope he'll stick with it. We think he's got a good instructor who is well-known around our neighborhood and comes highly recommended. I'll snap a picture soon of him practicing. It's time for soccer sign-ups again so Syd will be playing again with her team in March.
The kids got report cards yesterday and both did really well. In 3rd grade they go to numeric grading so Jake had all grades above 90. Sydney had only one area below expectations and a number of areas where she is at the level she needs to be for the end of the year, which is what you'd expect for a kiddo in special ed. Her tutoring is really paying off - she's been going two days a week for an hour each day of one-on-one help - and her reading is greatly improved! Jake is being re-tested for special education (they have to requalify every three years) and from what I hear so far I think he will no longer qualify. They've both come such an incredibly long way!
On the homefront - we got new carpet which is exciting and will be even better when we get all the furniture put back away where it belongs. For now things are kind of chaotic, but we're trying to weed out and put things back in new and fun (and orderly) ways!
We are selling girl scout cookies and just need to stop selling them to ourselves :). In spite of thin mints, I'm doing well on Weight Watchers and am down almost 40 pounds from my highest weight right before delivery. I'm getting some work time in, but either work slips or the house slips since the kiddos come first. In the back of my mind is the fact that I won't have another infant and I don't want to miss out on a single minute.
Kiley is getting a bit more predictable. She sleeps from about 10 p.m. usually to about 4 a.m., nurses, wakes up again when we all get up around 6:30 and nurses, then sometimes plays for a bit but falls back asleep until 9a.m. Then she's up for awhile and we usually have our bath and get dressed and run errands if we need to. She usually has a nap around noon and a
nother longer nap later in the afternoon sometime, depending on what we've got going on that day. She's up at dinner time and takes one more nap before she falls asleep for the night.Martin is amazing and continues to help with everything - housework, putting kids to bed, changing diapers, repairs around the house, replacing my laptop hard drive, etc. on top of his full-time job which has been busy and a little stressful lately because of some changes in regulations for his industry. He is managing to make some time for play... We're busy, but I like that and I'm especially grateful for it with this economy!
Martin in his office 'bunker' playing lazer guns with Jake
