Melissa Howell, This is for you - or your girls!
Either we have a very maternal 2 year old, or apparently I have been a little too showy with my feedings for the last 6 months. But either way, our two year old thinks he is lactating and that his stuffed giraffe "ba-ba", gets hungry for milk occasionally!
Life is good!
Weston and Tyler love to play, which means our house is usually messy but in a very comforting, claustrophobic - afraid you might break a leg tripping over something or puncture the bottom of your foot by stepping a a sword that belongs to a 3" tall plastic man, sort of way.
We have found that Elayna too can do the 'straight as a board'/'superman(woman)' trick.. Usually with her legs out straight as well. Her favorite part of her binki is the ribbon attached to it. And she always looks highly amused or very frightened by her brothers!
Tyler loves to play dress up and to participate in self proclaimed quests of gallantry, trying to kill all the bad guys. During his down time from that he loves to 'LOVE' his sister, which always starts with a cry and ends with laughter for several minutes.
Weston is great at being 4 and amazes me at how excited he is by everything.
Life is good, it really is.
We've made it a whole other month and Laynie, as well as the rest of us seem to have survived! Aside from a sick bug that seems rather attached to Elayna she is doing very well. She has mastered the walker, she loves to sit and play, and lately she loves to put everything in her mouth. The other day I found a tag stuck to the roof of her mouth like peanut butter. So long are the days of getting away without vacuuming and picking up little toys!
She has yet to roll over or spend any quality time on her stomach.. but if she is on the track her brothers paved we are only a few months from walking so I'm not too worried about her mobility. She already loves to walk around the room if we hold her hands, which I now do instead of letting her hold my fingers because she seemed to like to free-fall (at least she liked the idea before she fell on her face!).
We have graduated to a new clothing size, and thanks to a good friend we have very fun clothes to play dress up in! Thanks Melissa! The pediatrician has absolutely no concern about her weight as she is in the 75% for height and weight. And though I still think she is rather chunky - she apparently is rather proportional!
I have become absolutely enamored with her big brown eyes and long dark curly lashes. I think deep down I wish I had eyes like that! She is a joy and her brothers still love her which is wonderful to see, and she seems to be just as enthralled with them. We have been greatly blessed by having these sweet children in our lives.
We were able to go to the Seattle aquarium, which just opened their addition and finished with the remodels, one last time with our pass and coincidentally it fell on Laynie's 6 mo birthday. So we had a pseudo celebration. She was tired and a little out of her element most of the day but did enjoy the touch pools, in fact she seemed to be trying to get in them! But mostly she just sort of looked.... around.
The boys loved it as they always do and again we were the parents telling our kids to get down before they fell in! And I think we ran through the entire exhibit more times than anyone should in a 2 hour period! We saw a lot of sea animals/fish swim and swim and eat and swim some more. It wasn't too cold and so it made for a really nice day.
We were able to meet grandma Liz and grandpa Steve which made for an even better outing since we haven't seen them in a while, but it also made the odds at 4 adults to 3 kids and that was really nice!
Tyler has quite the maternal bug that he displays. He is always very concerned about Elayna (aka baby) when she is sad or hungry or needs something. He is very interested in helping with everything. He goes around saying 'I big muscles I carry baby', or 'baby drink my milk' as he lifts up his shirt to pinch at his pecks!
In the mornings he is very anxious to help get Laynie out of her crib when she wakes up. One morning I was a lot slower than Tyler liked and when I finally was concerned that I wasn't hearing anything from Laynie or from Tyler I went in to check on her and found him in her crib! All he had to say was 'Mommy, I stuck'! But opted to stay and play with his sister for a while. He has done that several times and seems to enjoy it as much as Elayna does.
Yesterday after Elayna's nap, same thing happened. But this time he was insistant that he get to take out Elayna's baby doll that she got for Christmas. And then immediately started expressing concern that the baby was stinky (as he was holding up the doll to smell her backside). Then he had to bring the baby to his room to change her diaper - but instead took off her pants and tried putting his underpants on the doll. I tried to get a picture of that - but I wasn't so lucky!
Tyler has also been spending his time fishing a lot lately. He seems to be convinced that our living room has turned into a big lake and he loves to fish off the back of the chair with hotwheel tracks for his fishing pole. When we do get the fishing pole down for him to use - that turns into a bow and arrow and he becomes Robin Hood! It's been a fun adventure with his imagination.
And just for fun.... comparison pictures of the 3 kids to see how similar they look. We are getting a lot more comments about how similar Weston and Elayna look, and how similar all their eyes are. So after looking at pictures last night with a friends and comparing I thought I'd post so everyone could see and have their curiosity answered! Yes, my kids are clones! Tyler has a few more Jenkins genes than the others - but still you could never mistake who's family they were part of!
These are all at 5 months with and without hats! And don't be too critical of the last 3 - they were all cropped from funny angled pictures!
New Years was a lot more fun than we would have planned, which was nice! New Year's Eve we got together with friends and ate a bunch of yummy foods that aren't really good for you (especially in the quantities we ate), played Dance Dance Revolution and put off and entire bag of loud fireworks, then ended with a few boxes of sparklers for the kids. Though they did enjoyed the loud ones too - the four kids just lined up on the sidewalk and kept jumping up and down during each firework that would go off. Then went back in for hot chocolate because it was so cold outside! At least for the two mom's who just stood still holding the babies!!
We stayed up a lot later than we planned but got to bed by about 11:00. The next morning we slept in - well everyone but me and Elayna - So I watched a movie until Weston came and wanted to watch his own. When the rest of the men got up they got on the computer to take care of their new pets, and I watched the rest of my movie. We ate a very late breakfast which meant lunch wasn't finished until about 2:30 when we started planning our day. And about 2:40 decided to go see the movie Enchanted which had it's final showing at 3:05. We rushed to get into the car (since it is a 20 min drive to the theater) and made it inside to sit down within the minute that the previews started.
As we were pulling into the theater I started coaching the boys on movie theater etiquette with the normal... this is just like watching a movie at home except you can't talk during it. You can't ask questions during the movie, you don't get up and walk around, you just sit and watch the movie..... (I didn't want to have anyone mad at us for being too loud or distracting). And as I emphasized again the ' you can't ask questions through the movie' Weston said "but, but I don't know how to do that". John and I just laughed 1. because he was so honest 2. because he really can't not ask questions about everything 3. I don't think he's ever not talked for more than maybe a 5 minute period. I used to be worried about his speech since he didn't start really talking until he was about 2 1/2, but I only worry now that he wont ever stop! :) He is so inquisitive about everything, and when he's not curious - he's the tour director! It's been fun!
This was a real treat since we never go to the movies, in fact I don't think Tyler has ever been and Weston was about 5 months old when he went! So not only did we go to the movies, but we got popcorn and soda pop. Elayna was intrigued until she fell asleep, Tyler loved being cuddled and I think enjoyed the movie - Weston, well I'm not sure. He kept telling me that it wasn't his favorite movie and that he didn't love that movie and he wanted to go home, but at the end when a dragon is involved he seemed rather interested. But then said he didn't like the movie because of the dragon! personally I think he didn't like the movie because a girl kept breaking into song and it was a romantic spiff... Weston is more into trains, plains and automobiles! Rockets and spaceships are great too!
But we had a lot of fun as a family, and were glad that there was something to do inside since it was so cold outside!
There is really no special reason to post these, but Elayna is cute and for that reason alone they should be posted, I guess! :)
She is about 5 months in these picts and a complete joy! She is starting to act like what people think of when they think of babies. She babbles all the time, ba ba ba, ma ma ma and does spit bubbles and drool everywhere - all the time! She is constantly smiling, unless really hungry. Otherwise we get little grunts. She gives big grunts while eating - which when do you start teaching the 'no talking with food in your mouth' concept!
She is growing, but still has all those cute fat rolls on her arms. Not so much on her legs (though they are still chunky) or on her stomach - but her arms just make me and most everyone else laugh!
She has the most infectious laugh and smile and as she starts to get more active with the toys, the boys are getting more aware of 'not for baby' toys! Mostly anything they are playing with! She is sitting up now but topples after a minute or two, but seems to go longer every day! She refuses, still, to roll over even though I know she can do it. She hates to be on the floor period, unless sitting, and prefers to walk (maneuver) around the kitchen and dining room in her walker. I'm not sure how she does it, but she manages to always be at a different spot then when I saw her last - without the help of brothers! She is starting to mimick walking like her brothers did, we hold her hands and she will walk around the room! It should be interesting to see how our back hold out - but Weston is probably old enough to help this time around!
The cute pink dress is her Christmas outfit from Grandma and Grandpa Howell - but we are missing the shirt which was taken off shortly after putting it on because of a blow out. In fact she has yet to wear any outfit from Christmas more than about an hour because of blowouts! I'm not sure I know why they started, or what has changed because the blowout are over, but constant diapers and diaper rash have set in! Oh well! She hasn't started getting too angry about it yet! :) (the blue backdrop wasn't planned, but looks pretty good I think! thank you for random things!)
Christmas Day was really a great day. It was a very slow and relaxed day where we enjoyed spoiling and being spoiled. The boys loved their presents from Santa Clause - and everyone else. The boys are still are spending most every day just playing with their new toys!
We heard a lot of 'awesome's', 'this is the best present ever's', and little giggles here and there. Tyler loved to play with the toys and did a fairy good job opening by himself. Weston loved to help open all the presents if the owner was willing to let him and overall just loved the day!
Weston commented to me the day after Christmas....'Mom I am so very happy, it's so fun to have so many new toys!'. Which may be a sad commentary considering they only got a few things but we gave in this year and went ahead and got 'big space taking' toys! We even allowed toys that made noise! And then Weston wanted to know how we would be able to tell Santa Clause thank you for all the presents.
We truly were blessed and continue to be blessed. I can not express how grateful I am for the blessings that our little family recieves.
We really had fun this year with Christmas. The kids loved it and we loved being able to spoil our kids and enjoy their fascination and pure genuine joy for Christmas. We didn't get to acting out the nativity which I think could be a lot of fun, but all three kid sets we have were played with constantly and maybe next year they'll be used as nativity figures and not battle soldiers!
Christmas Eve we spent with some very good friends where they spoiled our kids with Webkins (stuffed animals that have a life on line -if you want- where you can feed, clothe and play with your pet animals)
The best pet my kids can have! Weston picked a bug eye chihuahua and Tyler got a horse. Elayna got a really cute lady bug with all the touchy-feely-noisy things babies love! According to the boys, she now has her own ba-ba! Let's just hope that by being about half the size of Tyler's ba-ba, it will be a lot less of a show stopper!
Then we came home and opened our traditional Christmas Eve present - pajamas and as tired as all three kids were they went to bed with no hesitation, aside from a list of questions Weston had about Santa and the process of getting into our house!
John and I then set out to display all the presents in a very Santa like way, ate the cookies, even personalized stocking stuffer's! 
Then we enjoyed a very relaxing evening -into the early morning watching tv shows on the internet!
We eventually made it to bed, but John had a very hard time sleeping because he was so excited and very early (8:00 maybe!!) he woke me up so we were awake before the boys so we could watch their expressions when they saw the loot! It was so much fun!
© Blogger template Shush by Ourblogtemplates.com 2009
Back to TOP