A sunny day, a great website, and a rather lengthy update...

It’s been rainy here the last few days, so we’ve been busy trying to keep entertained indoors. Today was beautiful though; sunny and mid seventies. Here are a few shots of the kids playing outside today. They were happy to be back out in the sun! click on any of these to get a closer look

I found a great website this morning in my search for a local children’s resale store. It’s an online resale store called Worn but not Forgotten. It’s so nice to sit in your own house and leisurely look through used kids clothes for a great price. Much easier than dragging two kids out shopping! All the comments on the website as far as quality and everything sounded promising, plus you get 20% off your first order. So I got a couple of things for both kids. Three shirts (all new with tags from The Children’s Place) and a winter hat for under $20. Not bad. Check it out if you have kids to clothe!

So I decided after all my pointless babbling last week while Ryan was out of town (could you tell I had no one to talk to without him around?!?), that it’s time for a little family update. Yes, I manage to blab endlessly about the mundane things we do (or don’t do) every day around here, but I thought maybe I should take the time and make sure I say some things that don’t get said in the everyday stuff. More what’s going on with the individual than what did we all do today.
So here we go. Let’s take it one at a time.

Sawyer
is a monster. There is no other word to describe him. He plays like a monster, he eats like a monster, he tears the house apart like a monster; he IS a little monster. A very happy little monster. He LOVES to get into trouble. He’s figured out if he pushes something up to something else he can make steps to climb. He’ll push tubs or boxes or toys or stools, or even Savannah’s crocodile keyboard over to climb up to the couch or the table or the bed or whatever. He’s fast too. And he’s so dang proud of himself; he actually has trouble climbing because he’s laughing so hard, he’s that happy and proud of himself. Which is kind of nice for us, because if you hear him cracking up for no apparent reason, you know he’s doing something he shouldn’t be. What a goof!
Here’s what else he’s been learning at just about 10 months old:

• He climbs on everything!
• He stands alone all the time now. No steps yet, but it seems like everytime I look at him, he’s just standing there next to the couch or table or a wall or whatever he usually hangs on to, but he’s just standing there not holding on, using two hands to play or grab something or whatever. He seems too little to be on his own two feet!!
  
• He gives kisses. The nice big wet slobbery baby kisses!
  
• He climbs on everything!
  
• He barks now. When he hears the neighbor dogs, he starts barking. And if you say doggie, he’ll bark for you. Pretty cute.
  
• He says “icky”. No attempt to say mama or dada or no or byebye. Just icky. Probably because that’s what he hears us say to him all day long as he puts EVERYTHING in his mouth.
  
• He used his first sign language last week. He signs “more” now, most often during meals, but I think I’ve seen it once or twice while we’re playing.
  
• Did I mention he tries to climb everything?

Savannah
is acting older and older everyday. I have to remind myself she is only three. She’s really into clothes all of a sudden. If I let her, she’d probably change her outfit ten times a day. As it is, it’s at least twice a day. Luckily if she really likes something she’ll want to wear it two or sometimes three days in a row, so it kind of all evens out laundry-wise. I took down a box of clothes (my last box of hand-me-downs mostly from Ellie, what am I gonna do?!) to go through for the fall and had her look through it with me. Big Mistake! It just about took all day to get through the box with her looking over every piece in there and wanting to try most of it on. And of course the things I thought were the cutest she barely glanced at, and her favorites are, shall we say, not my taste. Her absolute fave was, of course, a silky pink flowered skirt that goes with nothing else we own (although she thought it went perfectly with an apple green shirt that has a big flower on the front –"because flowers match with flowers, don't you know?"). She wore it yesterday and commented all day that “gramma G has a dress just like this. But I don’t look like gramma G because I’m not a gramma, I’m just a little girl.” Her second favorite item from the box is a horribly bright silky tank top with all kinds of flowers and butterflies and sparkly gems and a little chow puppy?!? in the middle of all the flowers. She hung it on a hanger on her dresser drawer handle yesterday because she had it planned out to wear today. Ryan was putting her to bed last night and he saw the shirt hanging there and actually asked, “what is that?”. I had to laugh as I told him that was the shirt she was planning on wearing tomorrow. His reply was, “okay, but what is that?”.
Aside from her growing sense of fashion, pretty much all she does all day is draw people and try to write every name or word she can think of. Correction: every name or word that I have the patience to spell out for her in one day. Once she’s worn me out of spelling, Savannah is all about playing games and pretending. Her favorite game to play is still hide and seek, but she knows it’s not my favorite, so she saves that one for daddy. With me she always wants to play "Honey Punch". Don’t ask me where she came up with that name. “mom, do you want to play Honey Punch? You can be the honey and Sawyer can be your brother and I’ll be your mommy.” I guess I call her honey a lot?
When I’m too busy to play, she plays with her babies or animals. She loves to pretend and usually sets up some pretty elaborate situations with her “family” of animals.
Thankfully she loves playing with her little brother too, and she’s very good about including him in most of her play. If she’s not role-playing and they’re just hanging out with toys, one thing she loves to do is build block towers. And the great thing is, she loves to build them especially for Sawyer to knock over. It’s pretty cute, because she’s real patient with him and doesn’t get too upset when he tries to knock it down too early. And she doesn’t build them too high “because if it’s too tall, he’ll knock it down and it will hit him on the head and that wouldn’t be fun.” We’re all lucky she’s turning out to be such a great big sister!

And us grown ups (aka the boring ones)...
Not much new to report with Ryan or me, I’m afraid. Not as much growing and changing going on with us compared to the kiddos.
Other than turning a year older and his trip to Boston, what has Ryan been up to? Well, he’s juggling three fantasy football teams, starting up a new soccer season with a Pfizer team in Kalamazoo, and still finding time to play a game of pool every night.
The highlight of my week was that Ryan decided to share half of his birthday money with me (don’t tell grandpa Bob!) so I can finally go get my hair cut and colored. I haven’t had my hair cut –not even trimmed- in over a year, can you believe that?! Well, I guess if you’ve seen my hair lately you wouldn’t find it that hard to believe!! I am so looking forward to getting my hair done! I LOVE how relaxing it is to have someone wash and dry and style my hair for me. It’s got to be one of my favorite things in the whole world. And I’ve deprived myself of that for far too long!
There'll also be another baby around here starting next week. Now that the beginning of the school year is here, my friend Nicole starts teaching and it looks like her adorable Porter will be coming to hang out with us two mornings a week. I think it'll be fun to have him, and I know Savannah and Sawyer will love having him around.
One more thing I’m really looking forward to is finally painting our living room this weekend. We just haven’t really known what we wanted to do with that room or how to decorate it, but we’re just going to go for it and get some paint on the walls. We’ve had our tv sitting on a laundry hamper and paint squares taped up around the room long enough. It’s time for our living room to feel like we live in it! I still don’t know what we’re going to do about a tv stand or armoire or whatever, but by the end of this weekend, we’re going to have a finished living room. Which may just mean a visit to Ikea…

So there’s a quick rundown (or not so quick) of the four of us lately. We’d love to hear from any and all of you as to what’s been going on in your world. Give us a call or an email and let us know!