Firsts

* Kate scored 3 goals in her soccer game today!! There are an odd number of teams on Kate's soccer league so this week was our bye week. Instead of not playing, they have the teams come and play the parents on the team. So it was Dads vs the Phillys. The Dads were good at not making a big pack and spreading out a little more. They also helped the less aggressive kids get some kicks in. As soon as they started I saw Kate run up to the ball and give it a little kick and I was so proud! Before long she had kicked it a couple more times and then, with lots of encouragement, she kicked it in the net! Before the day was done she had scored 3 and was really proud or herself. Who knows what will happen next week when we're back playing 4 and 5 year olds. And of course this was the game I didn't bring my camera!

* Sawyer has had no interest in potty training. When I ask him if he wants to sit on the potty he almost always tells me no. I keep bringing it up and telling him that Woody and Buzz go pee pee on the potty but it didn't help, he still had no interest. Tonight after his bath he decided he wanted to sit on the potty. The few times he has done this before he sat there for a little bit and no luck and he was done. Tonight he was sitting and I was helping Kate get ready for bed and he said, "uh oh, pee pee!" and I went and checked and sure enough....he had peed all over the floor. I am so not ready to potty train a boy! Think I can make it Ryan's job?

Sawyer's second haircut

Sawyer had his first haircut last November but it was just a little trim around the edges to even things out. Yesterday he had his first official, cut off a bunch, hair falling to the floor, crossing my fingers that his hair will still have curl in it haircut. We went to a friend's house to have it done and Sawyer felt very comfortable and sat still through the whole thing.
before:

during:


after:


I thing it looks great and it makes him look even more grown up and like a big boy!

I want to break free!

Today I put Sawyer down for his nap and then Kate and I started cleaning up a little bit. We finished in her room and were walking to the family room when I heard Sawyer's door open. I turned around thinking Kate was opening it and was surprised to find Sawyer...running out of his room...with a big grin on his face. I tried to put him back down a couple times before I finally gave up, his exit time got faster each time I put him down.
I am so clueless, I have no idea what to do! Kate didn't do this ever. Even when we switched her to a big girl bed with a gate on it, it took her a long time to realize she could even climb out of that. (which was really nice.)
So now I need some advice....what do I do now?

did I mention?...

Sawyer is officially a walker and has been for a while. When we left for Idaho as a family he was taking a few steps. While we were in Idaho he would go for about 5 steps at a time. Then I went to Tucson with the kids and Ryan came back here for school and gradually Sawyer was walking more and more. Before the kids and I came back to Houston, I was talking to Ryan on the phone and I told him I thought he might be surprised at how much more Sawyer is walking when we get back.
Once we got home, Ryan couldn't take his eyes off his walking boy! He told me, "Kristen, you said he was walking more, you didn't say he was WALKING!" I guess it was so gradual for me that I didn't even realize how far he had come!
It was a little sad for me the first night we were home. Before we had left, after we brushed and flossed teeth we had been in the habit of crawling down the hall as a family to Kate's room for book reading and bedtime. When we walked down the hall as a family I got a little sad to see how big he is getting.
But I am loving how cute he looks when he toddles around everywhere. I love to see him follow his sister around. I LOVE it when he walks and then stops and swings his arms back and forth. He also uses his new skills to get into trouble and I often find him perched on top of something he has climbed up on.

big boy carseat

we finally got our big Sawyer boy in his big boy car seat on Sunday. He didn't quite know what he was getting into at first, but he smiled all the way to church once he saw it wasn't a death trap. He liked pointing out the windows and I think he really liked the added sister contact it gave him. (it has yet to add more brother/sister fighting, knock on wood.) Today after a long day of being at the gym and then the park for a picnic he fell asleep in it for the first time, all hunched over like his head was going to fall off. I think I'm going to miss the comfort of his old baby car seat for quick naps! But I really love looking back at him and seeing his cute little smiling face.
Who wouldn't?

standing tall

Sawyer has been doing well with his crawling, but he spends most of his time cruising around the coffee table and couches and gets frustrated that he can't spend all his time standing. Today he started actually standing on his own and he was pretty proud of himself

He's also a big fan of marzetti!

My big boy

Sawyer is starting to do several things that have made me stop and think what a big boy he is becoming!

Sawyer has started:

"real" crawling...as opposed to the army crawling he has been doing for a while

pulling up to standing in his crib so I come in to see his smiling face (along with everything else in the house)

eating all sorts of fun foods at the table and liking them

getting his top front teeth

**and I almost forgot the most important one!!**
he sleeps through the night!!

I'm kind of in denial that he can actually be big enough to do all these things, but I think its really fun too! I love to see him watch Kate and then try and imitate her. For some reason I thought that was more with just sisters or brothers, but this little brother sure looks up to his big sister....and bugs his big sister as much as a little pest of a baby brother should!

Whats going on over there guys?

Sawyer has been standing holding onto things when we've picked him up and put him there, but he's never actually gotten to the standing position on his own yet. Yesterday we were playing in the family room and Kate and I were coloring on one side of the table and Saweyer was sitting next to the other side. Next thing I know, I see a little head sticking up over the table!

Sawyer pulled himself up!

What a big boy!

6 months old!

I realized that I totally forgot Sawyer's birthday on Sunday....so we put on his 6 month shirt yesterday and took some pictures. I need to work on my photography skills...especially with a baby. Or maybe I just need to work on patience. Either way, I was annoyed with all the dog poop around my apartment's grass.



lovely...



Here are the best I got in the 5 minutes I tried





Look at all that hair on his head!

trying so hard to balance...and a little concerned after already falling over a few times

Sun in his eyes

Here are his 6 month stats from our Dr visit yesterday:

Weight: 14 lbs 12 oz (10th percentile)

Height: (50th percentile)

Head: (50th percentile)

Sawyer's favorites at 6 months:

smiling and everyone and everything
laughing at mommy all the time (she is SO funny!)
laughing at his sister...when she isn't right in his face or hitting him "accidently"
"crawling" in a circle
rolling over
talking ("guh" and "ba")
drooling on everything
holding things in his hands and chewing on them
kicking his legs in his bouncy seat and the bathtub


We got the go ahead to feed him some baby foods so we started out with carrots

I don't think he was crazy about it. He liked it okay, but he wasn't in love.

I also talked to the Dr and we decided to start supplementing some formula for my skinny baby. Despite the fact that he is so very happy most of the time, there were some signs of being hungry. I was excited to try it. I thought I would make up a bottle of formula, and once he got a taste he would down it like "where has this been?!?!"....but nope, he took a few chugs and then was done. And so were my hopes that he would then sleep through the night. sigh.

But we'll keep trying!

Sawyer's first tooth

I've been blaming the crankiness on this tooth for a while, and here it finally is!
(yes, this shot is of him crying....but thats the best way to see the tooth! I didn't pinch him to make him cry, I promise! he just happened to be crying, I saw the tooth and snapped a picture. sheesh....people get really upset when they think "his head is about to explode!")

can he really be this big?

When we went to the Dr last week, he said it was time to start trying the rice cereal. This was a little surprising to me because Kate seemed so ready to me when we started her on it....but I figure I'll do anything to try and help him sleep better at night! I don't think I blogged way back in the days of Kate's first rice cereal. I know you're not supposed to compare, but here is Kate one Sunday night while we were eating lasagna

She was SO ready to get that spoon into her mouth! Her first attempt at the real stuff was a little messy, but she got the eating thing down really quickly!

Okay, now here is Sawyer's before picture (looking cute in his bib!)

I held the spoon out to him like I had with Kate and he had no reaction. I know that is probably normal for a baby....I think Kate was just abnormal....(probably exceptional sounds better than abnormal) anyways, so I just put it up to his mouth for a taste. here is the after picture

(I promise I wasn't just throwing rice cereal at him!!)

He got really excited about it but I don't think his tongue was quite ready....it was pushing the rice cereal out instead of down!

I don't know how much he swallowed....his drool kinda turned into rice cereal drool!

Here is another first - Sawyer's legs can now reach in his circle play thing and he was enjoying that for the first time the other day

I can't believe he's big enough to do all these fun things already!

ahhh....

the grass is greenier, the sky is more blue and my babies are CUTER! guess why!!! sawyer slept all through the night last night! from his 7:45 pm feeding to his 7:30 am feeding!! thats right, I'm doing my happy dance! (I wish I could say I slept through the night too but I woke up at his usual feeding time, 4am, wondering if he was alive and couldn't go back to sleep!) despite that, I am one happy mommy today!

hooray for sleep!

did I mention...?

sawyer rolls over from tummy to back! he did it way back when mom was here and I forgot to make a big deal about it....until I gave him some tummy time today that immediately turned into back time when he rolled over....twice!

way to go sawyer! SUCH A BIG BOY!!

oh how I love the internet!

I'm BACK!!! I really don't know how we survived without the internet! we've had spotty wireless from different places in our apartment, but it has been so slow and not reliable. seriously, I don't know how you can move somewhere (especially somewhere with such confusing roads as houston) without MAPQUEST or YELLOWPAGES.COM!! but I'm back in the swing of things now. currently ryan is at school (his first day of real classes after 2 days of orientation) and both my kids are napping. wahoo! I only have about 5 boxes left in the house and then I have some garage organizing to do. (most of the boxes are in the same place they were placed on the day we moved in.) so we are feeling settled. the apartment is great and I promise to post pictures someday. lets see....where to start? I feel like I've been away too long!!

Ryan update: he is liking the people in his class. there are 14 and 4 of them are guys. he thinks they are all cool. we went to a social with all the current students at BCM (PAs and nurse anesthetist students) at a YUMMY tex mex restaurant named papasitos on monday and they gave him some tips. he is scared about getting back into the study scene (especially because first block is only a month long....how can you take 4 classes in a month?!?) I am slightly jealous because I love school and enjoy studying and I wish I could do a little bit for him to take the pressure off...but of course it doesn't work that way! good luck ryan!

Sawyer update: he is smiling!!

they're kinda hard to catch, but it sure is cute!

he also began getting a heat rash on his face on the drive down here and it has been getting progressively worse! the poor boy! (I guess thats what you get when you have a fair headed boy in the humid air of houston!) I finally called the dr in tucson and told me to put hydrocortisone on it and it only took a few times and its mostly gone. just a few around his eyes and nose that I didn't put the cream on. mom wanted an after picture but he's sleeping now so I'll put one on later.

sawyer also went swimming for the first time! isn't he a hunk in his orange swimming suit?!?!

the girls can't stop kissing him!!

okay, so really its just me and kate and someday he will think thats really gross, but we can't get enough!!

my 2 swimming cuties!!

he actually liked the water for a little bit (liked it as in didn't cry in it) which just goes to show how warm our pool is!

Kate update: she is getting used to her new home (although today I was in my bathroom and I asked her to take all 3 of her blankies she had on the floor to her room and she left and then I was walking out of my bedroom and she was walking back from the living room with a confused look on her face....she was a little lost!)

the past 2 morning we've been going on walks around the complex and she loves them. today we saw 2 cats and passed the lawn mowers a few times and she got excited each time. she is a cute helper when sawyer needs a binkie. my newest favorite thing she does is I'll be changing her diaper and I'll say "put your bum right here" and point to the floor in front of me and she'll say "like this?!" and stick her bum out at me. everything is "like this?!" on sunday after a rough day at nursery we were talking about how much fun she was going to have and I was talking about how she was going to be happy next week and she said "like this?!" and smiled really big. too cute.

Kristen update: after almost 2 weeks of having my mom's help (and 3 years before that!) my mom abandoned me in houston. we really couldn't have done this move without her and we are so grateful to her!! after I took her to the airport tuesday morning the bathroom she had been using smelled like her when I got home and I was missing her. but we are surviving. there are some things that I've learned are harder without grammie here. like walking up to our second story apartment with groceries and sawyer in my arms and a screaming kate saying she wants to be held. or running errands (it was "I'll run into the post office while you wait in the car with the kids", and "you run into the drug store while I wait", etc) and laundry (clothes were getting magically cleaned while she was here) I miss you mom! I'll get off the subject before I start to cry (again!)

I'm looking forward to making friends here. today I went to the ward playgroup. they meet every wednesday morning and it was fun. there were so many people there and once kate stopped crying and being clingy, we met some people. our ward has 45 kids under the age of 2 so it is pretty crazy. kate doesn't do well with crazy!

so there is a kissell update that I know you've all been dying for! don't worry, if my kids continue this awesome sleep-at-the-same-time routine, there will be plenty more where this came from!