A new week

We had a lovely long weekend here. Here are the kids before we headed out to hot Hesperia on the 4th to visit with Jon's extended family:







Nate's at school this morning, and I'm taking advantage of the quiet (paying bills, posting on here) while Lucy naps.

Happy 4th!

The kids put on a 4th of July parade today at Nate's school. He told me all about it--he got to play a drum and a triangle, and it was lots of fun. He also wore this hat all day. He still had it on when I picked him up, and he wore it home up until nap time. I like the first picture, because he had just stopped crying (he didn't want me to take a picture because he wanted to play with the camera), and I just think it's funny and sweet. The second picture was later, and the pic of Lucy is just a cute one from tonight.

Have a great holiday!

Nate's sleeping chair

Nate often falls asleep on the recliner we have in his room. I like to take a picture of the funny/cute ones before I turn off the lights and move him to his bed.




And from the "archives," here he is this past winter.



I have a new post up on the autism blog, with another one coming tomorrow. :)

Fun on Friday

I love Lucy's little legs just hanging down.

So true

Now that the potty training stage has passed (with Nate anyway), I can appreciate how funny this doodle is:

Doodle by Lee. The code for this doodle and other doodles you can use on your blog can be found at Doodles.

Sweet

I caught some sweet playing just a few minutes ago. Nate is asking Lucy which toy she wants--the red or the yellow. He decides she should have the yellow, and then he shows her where it fits in the bigger toy. (Gets a little frustrated when she takes too long.) He picks the toys back up and next offers her the red. I love the "Yay Lucyyyy" at the end.



After this video, Lucy followed Nate into his room, and he closed the door. They're apparently playing nicely because I hear no crying, but I'm going to go listen in. :)

Special surprise

Jon and I went out last night and got a bike for Nate. He was finally ready for one (can use pedals and really liked a neighborhood friend's bike). I waited until Jon got home from work tonight, and we surprised Nate with the bike. I captured the "reveal" on our real video camera, but I also got some pictures and a riding video on our small camera. He was really excited, and instead of jumping up and down or smiling a bunch when he first saw the bike, he ran straight to it and got on. He rode up and down our street a few times with all of us. I came back to the house with Lucy half an hour ago, but Jon and Nate are still out riding. :)

Better

Things are much healthier around here today! Nate's fever was down already yesterday, though he ate only a couple of bites of food all day. Today, though, he has eaten more and is acting himself. Here he is yesterday--still a little droopy-eyed, but giving a nice fake "cheese" smile nonetheless. :)



Here's a sweet picture of Lucy from this morning, and then her repeating some words yesterday.

Sick sick sick

Poor Nate is sick. This is the first time he's been verbal enough and aware enough to sort of realize what's going on. When he woke in the middle of the night Wednesday, he told us, "Yuckies come out of my mouth." I told him the next morning, after it happened again, that it is called throwing up, and he can say, "I threw up." So he repeated, "I frew up." He was fully out of commission yesterday with a high fever, but he seems a lot better today.

I forgot how terrible the sound was...

... of your little one grinding his/her top and bottom teeth together. Nate did this for a time (a few weeks? a month?) when his top two and bottom two teeth were in, and now Lucy just started doing it today (her second top tooth is finally through). It is a horrible sound.

Here she is this morning. :)

Cool!

I've been searching around for a local church that is doing its VBS program in August, since that is when Nate is off from school. I haven't had any luck finding an August program, though, and many churches only do preschool VBS for volunteers' children (at least that's what our church does). Well, today I found out that tomorrow is Nate's last day of school until summer session starts on June 30. (You really would think the school would have given us a calendar or a list of dates or SOMETHING, but they apparently just assumed I would figure it out on my own.) Anyway, this means he can do preschool VBS at our own church June 23-27! I am so excited and am sure he will like it, especially since he already knows all the songs since I've been listening to/watching them nonstop in preparation. :)

Baby

A quick pregnancy update... I'm 13.5 weeks along and had a few appointments this week, including some bloodwork and a first ultrasound. I took both children with me to the ultrasound appointment yesterday (couldn't time childcare), and they sat in the stroller facing the screen. Nate looked up, saw the baby, and said, "It's a frog!" It was neat to see the little beating heart, the baby's profile, both feet (cute little footprints), the brain, etc. It's crazy how quickly so many intricate body systems begin forming! I'm feeling pretty good--haven't felt sick in a while. I don't know if I'm still super tired or not. I should rephrase: I am super tired, but I think it's jet lag. :)

Pictures

The camera battery lasted long enough for me to upload my pictures... Here are my favorites! :)

Lots of afternoons spent in the back yard with the hose and baby pool, including some slip-n-slide attempts (with demonstration by Jon):











A few pictures from Jon's and my trip to Williamsburg (me in front of a replica ship in Jamestown, then the governor's palace in colonial Williamsburg, Jon in stocks, then more Williamsburg):







And back in Lynchburg, Nate having more fun: planting a flower with Mimi, throwing a frisbee, playing with Uncle Greg:

Made it

We made it home in one piece yesterday. In fact, the travel day was actually relatively easy. Our first flight left Virginia at 6:20 a.m. (meaning we got up before 5:00, which was 2:00 a.m. west coast time), but the kids did great being woken up a little early. Nate was actually especially talkative on the way to the airport, making sure to give a running commentary: "There's a stop sign! We're going to the airport! I'm yawning!" It seems that Nate is now officially pretty easy to travel with. We think, though, that Lucy's ears really bother her on planes, because she got really agitated during every descent.

I accidentally left our camera's battery charger at my parents' house, so I haven't been able to upload all of our pictures. I'll put some on soon.

I wasn't sure whether Nate would go to school or not today, since we just got back yesterday and everyone's tired. But he was so excited to go, so I took him. I love that he loves school. :)

Some Virginia pics

Off

We're off to Virginia tomorrow for 10 days... woo hoo! I've been packing and writing lists today. I'm looking forward to lots of family time and hanging out while we're there, and Jon and I also have a two-night trip planned to Williamsburg (the children will stay with my parents). Here are some pictures before we go.

Lucy thinks she is hilarious when she puts on glasses or hats.




Jon and I found this paper that Nate had drawn on. I've never seen him be able to do circles before. The second picture is him showing the paper and being very proud. :)

Helpers

Nate had a lot of fun this morning helping me clean. I sprayed the glass cleaner on the mirrors, and he wiped. Then, he got to dust (Swiffer dusters are great). Most exciting, he got to vacuum the floor underneath his chair at the dining table with the hose extension. (This was especially gratifying for him, I'm sure, as there was a mountain of crumbs down there, as usual.)

Then this afternoon, Lucy emptied the clothes from the dryer into the basket.



It takes a lot longer to clean with "helpers," but it sure is so much more fun.

Today

My friend Casey watched Lucy for me this morning while I went to school with Nate and helped in his morning class (SDC) from 8:30 to 10:45. Let's just say I wish I'd had time for some coffee first! :) It was fun seeing Nate in his element. Today was his turn to count the days/numbers on the class calendar, pointing with a little paintbrush stick, and that was very cute. He is getting to know all of the songs they sing and adjusting to their daily schedule. One of the boys in there, in particular, is very verbal, seems to have no behaviors, and is about 4 and a 1/2 (and also extremely cute), and I was glad to see that Nate is seated next to him in circle time (don't know if it's always that way or not). It was a fun morning.

Adjusting to school

The title of my post is not really talking about Nate but about me! Surprisingly, Nate has made the transition to big boy school very well. He still likes it every day and isn't having major meltdowns at home like I thought he might (after having spent half the day "holding it all in" at school). The adjustment has really been for me--trying to figure out how to organize my day and week, since everything is different now. I'm getting into a new groove, though, and I like it.

Nate spends time every day talking about things he is looking forward to. Right now those things are riding in a big airplane (for our trip to VA) and riding the school bus. (The school bus thing is slated to start on June 30, when he would be riding just in the mornings, but we might change our minds about this and just keep driving him. I'm sad that this would disappoint him, but we'll see.) To help him understand when fun things are going to happen, I got a calendar with big numbers. He can help me change out the month and the numbers each month, and then on event days, we'll put on a special label. For May, you can see his birthday and our airplane trip:



He also knows a song with the days of the week (just start on Sunday and sing all the days through twice to the tune of "Oh my darlin' Clementine"), and the calendar will help him figure those out too.

Here are a couple of pictures from last night, when he and I were laughing at how his pants looked:

Comedian

Lucy and I always share a lunch at the mall food court on Sundays after church. She eats an entire half of a sandwich and some of my tomato soup. When we laughed at how she kept the spoon in her mouth yesterday, she kept doing it over and over and scrunching up her face to look even funnier.