The BIG weigh in!

Dawson had his 6 month check up today and he was A-DOR-A-BLE. I was nursing him when the doctor and a student came into the room. Dawson whipped around all stuck in my nursing cover and started flopping around trying to see. Then he kept looking at the student (a woman) and smiling then looking away. Such a flirt! He did really well with everything except the shots. The poor guy had 4. Ridiculous. Anyway, here are the weigh in results.

Height: 27 inches 72%

Head: 44.5 cm 72%

Weight: 19lbs 14oz 87%

I know you shouldn't compare kids but just for fun I looked up Ollie's stats at 6 months:

Height: 27 7/8 inches 88.9%

Head: 17 1/4 45%

Weight: 17lbs 14 1/2 oz 55%

Dawson

Ollie

6 Months old!

I cannot believe that my baby is 6 months old! It has gone by so incredibly fast. He is darling too! He can now roll over front to back and he has rolled back to front but would rather not. He can sit unassisted and has for over a month. He loves the bath and communicates quite well. One night last week, I was undressing Dawson to get him ready for bed. I had planned to skip the bath and just dress him. He gave me this look like, "I'm ready!" and started flopping around on the changing table with excitement. So I said, "Oh! Do you want to take a bath?" He giggled and flopped around some more. He definitely knew what I was saying and was excited that I understood. I need to do better with the baby signs because I think this guy is going to want to use them! He also gets his chest off the ground when on his tummy and can do a plank! Ha!

I still often have muddled emotions over the NICU but I am so thankful he is healthy and home. I fall more in love with this boy every single day. Ollie hugs and kisses him nonstop so much sothat I constantly have to ask him to stop before he hurts him. Dawson loves to watch Ollie. We run around playing dinosaurs and hide n seek. Dawson laughs as we run and when we hide. He has a thing for Ollie's favorite Dinosaur Boris. It is hard to get them to share it. Dawson doesn't seem to like to read much but I think we can work on that!

He tried avocado tonight for the first time and absolutely

loved it. He has already had banana. I am planning to make all his baby food like I did with Ollie.

Tomorrow we head to his 6 month appointment so I will be sure to update you on how big my sweet love is!

O is for OLLIE!

Ollie really enjoyed this week. Mostly, because it's the letter O and besides the fact that O is the first letter of Ollie, it is also just a really cool looking letter. We did extra projects and a few extra special projects for this week. He already knew the letter but it was still lots of fun! Isn't that what learning is all about?

We started the week with a super fun project I found in March's Family Fun magazine. If you don't already know, I LOVE FAMILY FUN! Get

yourself a subscription yesterday if you love to craft and play with your children. We made the

leafy letter topiary. I went to our local greenhouse and let Ollie pick out a

pot and we bought the ivy. He was really into a hot pink pot but then he spotted a yellow one. Bob helped by making thesupport and Ollie I headed outside to collect rocks for the bottom and to plant our ivy. I love the pictures I was able to take of him! I think this project was uber cool!

Next, we made an O painting. I tied two ends of yarn together to create circles. Ollie then dipped

these into paint and stuck them to some paper. He also moved them around to create streaks. He loves to paint!

We also did an "O" toss. I made a ring catcher by taking an empty cool whip container and cutting a slit in the bottom. I then put a ruler into the slit. Viola! I made rings by using 4 pipe cleaners or chenille stems if you

want to be all fancy! I found that I needed the length of 2 so they would be big enough but I needed the weight of 4 so they could be tossed so I

wrapped each stem with another. Ollie liked this game for about 5 seconds. I do think he will come back to it though!

For a snack, I created an owl. I used a piece of bread, peanut butter, carrots, raisins, pretzel sticks and 2 vanilla wafers. I spread peanut butter on the bread and then used my oval cookie cutter to cut the owl out. I cut each of the wafers in half and used them to create the wings. You could possibly just use 1 but half of

each one crumbled on me so I had to use two. I cut slices of carrot into a beak and feet then added the pretzel sticks to the bottom and raisins as eyes. It was pretty cute. Ollie didn't even tell me it

looked goofy so ha! I look forward to when Ollie can actually help make the snack not just eat it:-)

Finally, Ollie spent some time "writing" his name. He doesn't quite have the motor skills to actually write it but he can spell it! I punched out the letters to Ollie from a set of die cut letters I bought at the dollar tree. I set them in front of him (out of order) & let him glue them in order onto a sheet of construction paper. This is a great activity for him since he thinks

Ollie has one L. After he used half a glue stick to stick on the letters, he decorated it with some animal stickers. I think this was his favorite activity. He has been able to read Ollie for quite some time and spelling it out was an added bonus!

1st Quarter Video!

Here is a video of our 1st quarter of 2011. I know there is about a week and a half left but I was motivated so I might as well get it done!

N is for NEIGHBORS!

This week we focused on the letter N. I know there are a thousand things we could do with N but we did just three! Three activities a week are about what I can handle at this point. For the first day, we did the standard N stickers on a construction paper N. It's easy and gives us a chance to talk about the letter without me having to do a lot of hands-on craft help. And really, we doesn't love stickers?

Each week, we have been learning a Bible verse. This week was Matthew22:39 Love your

neighbor as yourself. Ollie and I made some Ciabatta bread together. I also had him decorate red hearts with stickers and markers. We wrapped up the bread and taped the hearts on them with the verse. Ollie and I then delivered the bread to a couple of our neighbors. He really enjoyed doing this and I believe he felt proud of himself.

The final thing we did was create a number chart. I made a chart and placed each number 1-8. Ollie chose stickers and we counted them. He placed the correct number of stickers under each

number. He lost interest at number 4! ha!Anyway, we are enduring a little sleep training at the moment. Dawson has done marvelously well. Ollie, on the other hand, urgh

.

Mmmm

M seems to be the sound that Ollie gets and likes. There were so many fun possibilities with M. I had a hard time choosing but unfortunately I didn't have enough time.

The first thing I did was create a peanut butter and jelly Monkey

sandwich. Ollie told me it "did not look like a Monkey.

It looked goofy." Well I tried kid. I tell a he's hard to please. Of course Bob laughed at it too.

will do for her kid.I included a picture so you can all get a good laugh

, too. The things a mom

Ollie spent time gluing macaroni to a construction paper M. This is hard with a glue stick. I think it is time to invest in some good old elmers!

We read a book about Mooses (or Meese?) You'd think I'd know that but I don't sleep so my brain is mush. I traced Ollie's hands to create moose antlers. Then I had Ollie glue the moose face and antlers on to a piece of construction paper. He really thought this

was cool. And since he always wants me to trace his hands.

M is for measure. I had made colored rice. I created a few note cards with "measurements" and gave Ollie a 2 bowls of rice

and a bowl of dried black beans, measuring cups and an empty bowl. The idea was to read the picture cards together and follow the directions. Well, it was all too exciting and Ollie couldn't contain himself. Before I could even tell him what to do the bowl

s were dumped together. Cool idea, hard for a 2 year old.

Finally, we have been learning a Bible verse per week. I am pleasantly surprised by how good he is at memorizing them. I guess that shows the power of God's word. His verse was Genesis 1:1 God made the heavens and the earth. Ollie created a picture of heaven with glitter glue. He also created an "earth" out of construction paper. I read from the Bible while he worked. He really enjoyed this and so did I!

Dawson, Dawson, Dawson, Dawson Dawson-O!

It's a song ok. If you went to Wee Worship, you would know it! Anyway, let's talk about Tubs. Yeah, he's chubby and completely adorable and sweet and he has the best smile ever! Right before he turned 5 months, Dawson began to sit up unassisted. I am thrilled. I really think this stage is fun. He can't really go anywhere but he is content because he can see what's going on. He is such a strong little bugger. He can stand up while holding on to things (like me or the train table). He can also pivot. When he lays on his tummy or back, he can turn himself like the hands of a clock. It's pretty funny. Here are a few pics of my favorite baby

!

L is for Love...

I am several weeks behind. My wonderful children have decided to gang up on me and not sleep again. Urgh. It seems that I get one down and another gets up. I am ex-haust-ed. My arms and legs actually feel tingly. It sucks. Anyway, let's give this a go and see if I can form coherent sentences.

The letter L was a fun one because we worked on it on the week of valentine's day. He helped me prepare for our Valentine's Day party by gluing Ls to our sign. He also created an L collage one day.

My favorite was the lion we made using a toilet paper tube, some construction paper and yellow yarn. We read a lion book first and then I had him put the pieces together. He was so funny. When it was done, he said, "That looks goofy mommy. I want to make one like this," and pointed to the lion puppet we checked out from the library. Geez kid! You are only two; give yourself a break! LOL

We also made a "letter" bottle. A friend of mine pointed out this activity. I

bought the beads at walmart. It seemed the hardest thing to get a hold of was the darn bottle. He really enjoyed this activity. Pouring the beads into the bottle however was quite the challenge. He doesn't like to wait for things and went ahead and tried to pour them in without me. oops. I also let him pick a

color to dye the water.