Pumpkin Patch 2012

Our Annual Family Tradition:  The Pumpkin Patch!

For the first time ever, Christian was okay with touching a horse!  

Showing Miss Scarlett the corn box.

Auntie and Christian sharing a giggle!

Christian's Official Five Year Old Portraits

Happy 5th Birthday to Christian!

Our lil' guy turns FIVE today!

Happy Birthday, Christian!

Five going on 15 (or so it seems sometimes).

Christian is a spirited, high energy kiddo. 

He's full of smiles.

He's VERY curious about everything.

And has a lot to say ... all the time. 

He loves to laugh, and make us laugh.

Christian has tranformed from a quite, shy little child to a boisterous, outgoing boy.  He no longer clings to me when I drop him off at school  We enter the room and he immediately takes of to play with his friends ... and usually doesn't have time to say goodbye.

His last haircut, dentist visit and doctor visit were (finally) drama free.  We hope that is a trend that continues.

He has an amazing vocabulary, which impresses even his teacher who commented that he not only has a large vocabulary, he actually understands the words in his vocabulary.

He still loves to read and in fact, reads to his friends at school sometimes.   I overheard an older child (sibling to one of his classmates) reading to some of the kiddos one morning.  His reading was what you'd expect of a child learning to read:  monotone, short and choppy.  By comparison, when Christian reads, his voice changes with what he reads, his words flow.   I'm just so proud of him!

He's imaginative and playful and walks around the house with his cars, toys and now, spaceships and makes all sorts noises to imitate what he thinks they would sound like. 

He is incredibly curious about everything.

He's an awesome big brother ... he absolutely loves his baby sister and has the ability to make her laugh like crazy.

He's also good at testing his boundaries, and often times, our patience.  Christian definitely has a mind of his own and a big personality that he's not hesitant to display.

He continues to be a picky eater.   It is nearly impossible to get him to try a new food, and he's even lost interest in some of his old standbys. 

He's got an incredible memory.  Some of the things he recalls absolutely floors me!

He loves to swim and is doing so well in swim class.   He's "this close" to moving up to the next level. We're hoping this weekend he graduates from his current level.

We're waiting to get him into a gynmastics class and hope to have him in some sort of martial arts class in the future. 

He loves church and his "AWANA" classes.  He's a star at memorizing his weekly Bible verses.

Our Christian is a wonderful little boy and we're all blessed to be his family for the past five years!



Christian and The Computer

At our recent parent-teacher conference, we learned Christian LOVES the computer.  We had no idea, since he doesn't get computer time at home.  I didn't know he knew how to handle a mouse!  And his teacher said he found a feature on one of the games that even she didn't know existed.

So I was delighted to see this picture in this montn's school newsletter!  Isn't he cute?

I think we'll have to get out one of our old laptop computers and set up a little work station for Christain.  He loves to tell us, "I need to do research" and then I'll often find he's sitting at my desk trying to play with my computer (which is off-limits).  So I think having his own little setup would be awesome!



Happy Halloween!

We did things a little differently this year for Halloween: we didn't decorate the house and we didn't give out candy. We only had two trick-or-treaters last year anyway, and decided this year it woudl be more fun to just take the kiddos out.

Turns out, our little circle had a cookout at the park across the street, so we went to that and then they all gathered at the park to hand out candy, and we went about our merry way.

Christian was so cute as a shark and so very enthusiastic each time he got candy.  "Mommy!  I got CANDY!!!!" 

The temperature outside was perfect, which was a pleasant surprise as Halloweens past have been a bit warm here.  Scarlett tolerated the evening far better than we expected, too!

Both kiddos got lots of compliments on their costumes, too! :)



Shark Hair

Today we decided to spike Christian's hair for the first time.  When I picked him up from school, he was very proud to tell me he had "shark hair"! :)   Ah, this kiddo does love his sharks!  Everybody at school knows about Christian and sharks ... so no doubt, the "shark hair" came from one of his classmates.

Twister

Auntie Liz brought us Twister and we all played together for the first time.  Christian was pretty good about knowing which foot/hand was left/right.

Christian's First Solo Haircut

Christian's haricuts have always been a bit traumatic for us all.  He would scream bloody murder and we were always thankful that our hair lady has an incredible amout of patience.

For today's visit, Chrsitian said in the chair by himself for the first time (he's always sat in Jonathan's lap) and he did GREAT!  We kept him talking to keep his mind off the situation, and it worked.

It was the most pleasant haircut we've ever had!!

And you now how we are ... there is a video of the joyous occasion at the bottom of this blog post. :)





The Little Artist *sigh*

Ah, a marker in the hands of our young lad. Never a good idea.

In the past, when he's found a pen or marker, the next time we see him, he's done quote a job on his body ... ALL over his body.  You would think I'd have learned by now.  Guess I haven't.

We stopped into the new doctor's office down the street the other day, and they gave Christian a magnetic white board and dry erase marker. He asked if he could practice writing his letters, and since the drive home was so short, I agreed.

Big mistake.

I opened the door and he was so very proud of his artwork. I was none-to-thrilled, and let him know. Poor lil' guy went from proud to tears in a matter of moments. I felt badly, but despite how awful it made me feel, I had to stand my ground - it is not acceptable to write on himself, his clothing ... or the car.

Our Awesome Swimmer

Christian is doing so great with his swimming lessons!  We learned he's the best in his class, and he just needs a bit more confidence before he can move up the the next level.

In the picture below, Christian was getting read to retrieve a ring off the pool floor.

I have a great video of him doing it, but unfortunately, it won't successfully upload.

And he now loves the flog slide at the end of class.  

He now goes down without any prompting from anybody.

Christian and the Water Dispenser

It is always exciting when Christian figures out he can do something by himself.

He is forever asking us to get him a cup of water, so you can imagine my delight when, out of the blue, Christian figured out he is tall enough to get his own water out of the dispenser in the fridge door!

So naturally, we had to take a picture of the happy moment! :)

So Long Pull-Ups!

At long last, we can kiss Christian's Huggies' Pull-Ups goodbye!

It has been a long road to get Christian fully potty traied.  A long, long road.  Loooooonnnngggggggggg road.

He still won't typically initiate going to pee, but he's getting really good at letting us know he's got to poop (yep, I'm writing about this in a blog ... he'll be embarassed one day, and that is okay).   And some days, he won't pee all morning at school.  I hope he gets past that before he moves onto kindergarten at a new school.  We've got a few months to work on it.

So we first tried naps without Pull-Ups and only had one accident - and Christian changed his own underware and didn't tell us.  So he knew how to handle the situation.

Then as our latest package of Pull-Ups was dwindling down, I decided that was it.  I wasn't going to buy any more Pull-Ups.   I made sure Christian understood that if he has an accident, he'll get wet, and his bed will get wet.

Last night, he drank A LOT of water before bed and we were worried.  So I checked on him several times before he went to bed and the three times I asked him if he needed to go potty, he said yes ... and went potty.

And he's gotten good about being okay with going potty when we're out an about.  So he'll got at stores, restaurants, etc.  It takes a few times of asking him, but he'll eventually go.  But, if we don't ask (aka insist), then he'll hold it forever. 
This latest achievement in ditching hte Pull-Ups is such a relief to us.  Finally!   And now we can stop spending money on Pull-Ups every couple of weeks.   YES!

Christian the Cubby

For several weeks, Christian has been going to "AWANA," which is an international, non-denominational Bible club for children.  His age group is called "Cubbies." 

He goes every Wednesday night for a couple of hours.  They have fun activities, games, snacks, etc.  The kids also get a book and each week, they memorize one Bible verse and periodically earn patches to put on their vests.  Memorizing verses is easy for Christian, since he can read and can visualize what he's memorizing, rather than just having somebody recite it for him over and over again.

Jonathan told me that before they entered the building tonight, Christian said, "Papa, you can go home now."  He's been doing the same thing to me at school when I drop him off.   Gone are the days when Christian was timid and needed to cling to Mommy and Papa.

We are just so proud of him!



The Amazing Dentist Appointment

We were dreading today - Christian's bi-annual dentist appointment.  It is always such a nightmare with Christian screaming bloody murder much of the time, and even refusing to get xrays.  We can't even tell him we're going to the dentist ... he just figures it out on his own as we turn the corner during our drive.

He began to panic as we pulled into the parking lot and I had to carry him inside.   When the hygienst called his name, I quietly asked her if she'd be okay taking him back by himself and she readily agreed.  Christian put up a short protest in going back by himself, but walked back reluctantly.

I stood by the exam area door to see if I'd hear him pitch a fit ... a fit that never came.  A very kind staff member would go look in on him periodically and report back each time that he was doing great.  He even let them get a full set of xrays - he's not had xrays since he was one.  ONE!

I am happy to report Christian has no cavities.  He eats A LOT of carbs, which can be the same as sweets when it comes to oral care.  Both the hygienist and the dentist commented on how great Christian did and we made to to make a BIG deal about how well he did and how proud we are of him (he LOVES to hear when we're proud of him).

Thanks to the xrays, we learned that there likely aren't two teeth coming in behind Christian's two extra front teeth.   That is good and bad:  that means there won't be adult teeth to work around, which is good. But that also means that there aren't adult teeth to push against the extra teeth and loosen them up so they fall out on their own.   So Christian will definitely need to have oral surgery in the next 6 - 12 months to take out the extra teeth.

An oral surgeon isn't necessary, technically.  I hear it is actually a quick procedure to pull out a couple of teeth (and I know from my own tooth extraction experience, it is pulled out in an instant).  But we all feel it is better to take Christian to a surgeon where he an be put under anesthesia for the procedure.

Dr. Kelly also noted that Christian will likely start losing his baby teeth in the next six months or so, according  to the xrays.  So he'll go from having too many teeth to have lots of missing teeth.  It'll be interesting to see how his facial structure changes without the two extra teeth.

Frankly, I'm glad we can have this issue with the extra teeth resolved before he starts kindergarten next year.  I don't think he gets any comments from kids at his school because they are all used to how Christian's mouth looks.  But kids can be cruel and I'm quite certain he'd get a few comments from new kids at a new school (and i base that statement on observing a couple of comments Christian has received in the past.  Little kids have no filters and just say whatever comes to mind.  Christian didn't mind, as he didn't understand that he was being teased.  But the comments broke MY heart on his behalf).

Here's a picture of our little all star with with Doctor Kelly and the hygienist ... a bunch of happy faces, and a couple of THRILLED parents who aren't in the picture.  In fact, the dentist said that if we'd send her this picture, she'd run in in our local newspaper in her advertisement! :)