Big boy Bike

Here is a video of Kale riding his new bike. He is pretty good at it!

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Happy Birthday, Kale!!

Oh, be still my heart...can you believe he is 3 today? I remember the day he was born like it was yesterday. After sitting in the hospital room for 10 hours and barely dilating at all, Kale's heart rate began to rapidly decline, so I was rushed in for an emergency C-section. After many, many drugs later (it took them forever to get me numb), I saw my sweet firstborn. I will never forget the happy feeling when I heard Kale cry for the first time. It's amazing how quickly my life changed.

 

These days, Kale is still my sweet baby, but at the same time, he is becoming a smart, independent little boy. He is such a loving brother (most of the time). He knows exactly what to do to calm Liam when he is crying (he is also the first one to know when Liam poops in his diaper--he has a nose for those sorts of things.) He is also becoming so good at all things "physical." He has wonderful gross motor skills. He received this bike for his birthday. The first few minutes he struggled to pedal. He is great on his trike, but is not used to the brakes on a bike. Within just a few minutes, he had the bike down and he is FAST!!! Kale is also a wonderful climber, runner, and has mad skills with any kind of ball.

 

Kale takes after both of his parents these days, as well. He has quite a temper and gets frustrated so easily. He throws some nice little fits as well. He is also a little more than slightly OCD. If I put the chairs that belong at his little table in the "wrong order," he automatically notices and corrects my mistake. He is definitely his mother's son. He is also a little trickster. He has a sense of humor like his dad. The other day I had a friend over and he came into the living room with a cup of water. He took the cup and and turned it upside down over her head. He knew it didn't have any water in it, but we didn't. He laughed and laughed after "tricking" us.

 

Oh my sweet baby boy, I can't believe you are three. Where did the time go? We love you more than you will possibly ever know and we are so extremely proud of you. We can't wait to see the wonderful young man you are becoming. We love you!

Pointless Post

I don't really have a point behind this post, other than to say, isn't he just so cute?! He loves to walk around shirtless and his big belly hangs over his pants. Liam is learning his body parts. He knows arm, fingers, nose, belly, and head. He is also pretty good at his animals noises. He can imitate almost any sound--it's truthfully a little scary. Anytime we are outside and he hears a lawn mower, ambulance, airplane, etc, he begins to make the noise. Also--he is a GREAT dancer!! I have been trying to videotape his moves. You will seriously be impressed. :)

Crafty Momma?

 

 

So, I have been trying to do more educational activities, particularly with Kale. I started following this blog called, I can Teach my Child. It has all kinds of different activities you can do to teach your child. I have gotten lots of easy ideas, however, our products never turn out as good as the person who writes the blog. So, I am currently trying to teach Kale the letters in his name. I cut out this E and gave him a plastic Easter egg and some paint. He was supposed to do "egg stamping" to decorate the E. He attempted to use the egg more as a brush than a stamp. It looks nothing like the sample from the blog, but hey, he knows it's a E!

I  also had him sort some shapes and glue them in the right column on the paper (I thought of this idea all by myself!!) He did pretty well, but he kept thinking my circles were hearts. Clearly, my circles are not all that round. I am not the best artist.

And finally, I bought these special markers to write on windows. We had a blast with these. I wasn't trying to teach him anything this time--it was just fun!

Injuries

So we have had a rough last couple of days. On Tuesday evening, Kris and I went out in Carytown for dinner. On the way back to the car, it was dark, and I missed the curb. I had heels on and managed to crash and burn. I twisted my ankle and have been hobbling around ever since. I can't do stairs at all, so getting around this house is difficult.   Then, yesterday morning, Liam tripped and face planted right into our hardwood. It was bad! His nose bled, he chipped his front teeth, and got a big knot on his forehead. He wouldn't eat or drink anything, so we made a trip to the dentist. Turns out he managed to push his 2 front teeth into his gums and they are now "mobile." The dentist has hopes that they will fall back down naturally and stabilize over the next couple of days. We have no way of knowing if there was nerve damage, but if there is, his teeth will likely turn gray or brown and there's nothing they can do to repair the discoloration. We would have to wait until his baby teeth fell out. I sure hope that doesn't happen!!   And finally, Kale was hopping around on the chair and managed to fall and crash his head into the hardwood. He immediately got a huge knot and required ice for his head. It has been a rough past couple of days!!

He is Risen!

I have to premise this blog post by saying that unfortunately most of my pics were accidentally deleted. Liam grabbed my camera when I wasn't looking and of course, managed to drop it. It's a miracle that it works, but somehow dropping it deleted every pictures I have taken over the past few weeks including Easter egg hunts, our trip to the petting zoo, and checking out our Easter baskets this morning.

This morning we dressed up in our Easter finery and headed out the door to church. We attempted to get pictures first. If you have small children, you know how difficult this can be. It's easy to get frustrated because they just won't cooperate!!! But one of these days, we will have some entertaining photos to look back on.

Kale started out being really sweet with Liam. He wanted to "hold" him. Liam currently weighs more than Kale by about a pound, so watching Kale "hold" Liam was interesting. By the time we got to the above picture, he was done being sweet. In case you can't tell by the look on his face, he is squeezing Liam's hand as hard as he can.

We did manage to get some good ones with just Liam. He is still a sweet, smiley baby (most of the time). I actually took some pictures yesterday (which of course, got deleted), of Liam in time-out. Kris put him in the time-out chair for the first time and he was screaming and crying and throwing a big 'ole fit. Well, of course, I had to capture this "first" on camera. As I went to take his picture, he stopped crying immediately and got a huge grin on his face. As soon as I was finished with my picture taking, he started screaming again. I really wish I had those photos...

He is just the cutest little man. His cheeks are so chubby and he is so squeezeable! I could just sit around and hug him all day, but of course, he won't let me. I did get a rare opportunity to rock him on Saturday though. He has really been giving me a hard time with naps lately. We put him down for his afternoon nap and he fell right to sleep, but woke up about 45 minutes later. I went in and picked him and he put his head on my shoulder and wrapped his chubby little arms around my neck. I sat in the chair and rocked him for almost an hour and a half while he slept. Now I won't be able to do this every nap, but it sure is nice to do every once in awhile. I miss rocking my babies.

Of course, I dressed the boys in matching outfits. They looked quite handsome.

Kale is really asserting his independence these days. Well...who I am kidding? He's been asserting his independence since birth. When we want him to take a picture and he is not interested, he just closes his eyes.

Before church, the boys enjoyed diving into their Easter baskets. They got all kinds of stuff that they didn't need. Kale got some silly string and he and Liam were both literally rolling on the floor when we sprayed Kris with it. They both thought it was so funny to "get dad." Another gift that was a hit, was the jump rope I got Kale from the dollar store. Kris and I both took turns trying to show Kale how to use it. Let's just say we both needed a good laugh.

 

Both sets of grandparents spoiled the boys (as usual)! Grandma and Grandpa Helling sent candy, a book, and a hen that sings a song and lays eggs. Gram Debbie and Poppa David sent a bunny tower that has various compartments that open and hold candy inside. We just got rid of all the candy from Halloween, but now we are restocked!! I took pictures of everything, but of course, they got deleted.

Kale and I dyed Easter eggs after naps, and Liam and Kris played in the living room.

Kale really enjoyed dying the eggs. He mainly liked to roll the eggs around in the container and play in the water.

We did have to hold our egg hunt inside as it rained most of the day today. They boys did get the opportunity to participate in two other Easter egg hunts last week. During the first one, it was snowing (nothing like hunting eggs in the snow) and during the second hunt, Kale was completely uninterested. The place where the hunt was held had a basketball goal, so all he wanted to do was play basketball. Sigh! We went home with one egg.

They did much better upstairs...although they both took frequent breaks to eat the candy inside of the eggs.

We caught Liam eating the candy WITH the foil on several times.

The final product! The eggs actually turned out really good, but it's only because Kale forgot about them and they got super dark.

 

We also had a delicious Easter dinner. I made a soda ham in my crock pot and I have to say, it was one of the best hams I have ever had...very juicy. I highly recommend it!

 

He is risen! Aren't you so glad?  From our family to yours, Happy Easter!

 

My Big Boy

Believe or not, Liam is big enough to sit at the table instead of in the high chair these days. He is very good and doesn't try to get up and run around. But then again, he does love food, so he's not going anywhere as long as there's food on his plate.

 

I was rocking this sweet boy before his nap today....well, I was trying to rock him. He doesn't really cooperate these days. He just too funny sometimes. As I was attempting to rock him, he kept looking at me and smiling his mega-watt smile and giggling. I told him, "It's night-night time, Liam." When I would say that, he would squeeze his eyes shut as tight as he could. The corner of his eyes would wrinkle up, then a few seconds later, he would pop his eyes open and start giggling, and the "game" would begin all over again.