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| I love this stage of language development in kids. Finn has been writing lots of signs lately, and this is actually a super important (normal) stage of language development. It's called the phonetic spelling stage, often happening in K-1st, and it's when kids want to write things exactly as they think they sound, not necessarily as they SHOULD be written...haha. Layla never, ever did this, likely due to her dyslexia...she was always too nervous to sound things out and would only write words she knew were 100% correct (still true to this day). It's a bummer, though, because this is actually a very important stage for brain development when it comes to language and writing/spelling. If kids skip the "sound it out yourself" stage, it can be harder for them to be good spellers down the road. It'd kind of like how it's important for babies to crawl before they walk, for brain development purposes...not for transportation purposes, long term. Finn doesn't care one hoot and writes the funniest notes! Can you read this one? It says "I have supin for yo to se ladr." Or, translated, "I have something for you to see later." |
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| Baby's first McDonalds. He for SURE tried some of the food. If I were a better mother I might have brought some organic veggies with me, haha, but as I am me...he tried some nuggets and fries. ;) He loves everything so far...other than canned pears. Not a huge fan of those (at least it's one of the few foods he has ever spit back out). |
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| Songs will be written in the future about the depths of Layla's love for Kellan. It's epic. |
Check this drawing out. While it's simple stick figures, I'm super impressed by it. 1) they are at an art gallery...how fancy is that, right? 2) he drew a chandelier. I can't draw that. 4) He drew depth and perspective! I can't do any of this, guys! Haha!
Day 2 of me being fun Mom was to take the kids to the MN Children's Museum on Thursday morning, before they had art class that afternoon and then a play at the Children's Theatre that night. What a DAY-o-FUN for our normally home-bound kiddos...haha.
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| Boy do they love the green screen. They could spend a good 45 minutes here. |
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| Playing with levers, buckets, and ping pong balls. |
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| A good strong wind never hurt anything. |
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| Kellan was basically in awe the entire time we were there. Staring around, not making a peep. |
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| AMAZED at EVERYTHING. |
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| The 4 stories tall ropes, ladders, and slides were EXACTLY what Finn needed on this gloomy day. He ran and ran and ran. And I was so glad. |
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| She was making a very intense taco. |
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| I used a white noise app on my phone to put him to sleep in 1 minute. I heard lots of chatter about this, and got asked about it several times. #4thchild No messing around. Get it done, man. And use ALL THE TOOLS available to you. |
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| Stupidly expensive donuts from the little cafe. The most overpriced food on the planet. |
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| Layla and Finn borrowed my camera to take selfies with a giant lion in the gift shop. |
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| Still amazed. Now with a dirty face. |
Thursday night Jonas took the kids to the play, and I stayed home with Kellan who is VERY ACTIVE AND LOUD these days. I was able to give him a 30 minute bath which never can happen with his very engaged siblings around.
These two are from Friday, I believe. He had an awful night of sleep (thanks, teeth...sigh) the night before and fought a valiant fight to make me NOT prep for our company that evening. Don't let these smiles fool you!
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| Licking all the sugar out of the empty bottle. Endless entertainment, or 30 seconds of silence? |
Seven months.
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| "Hey, wait...what now??" |
Today was the first Sunday of advent. We WERE going to visit Messiah Episcopal church, where I was going to church for about 2 years before Jonas moved out here and we got married. I have such a special place in my heart for that church, so I was excited, but...it snowed last night. And then I realized they had an 8:30 start time for their first service. And then Kellan had an awful night of sleep again last night (like crying in his sleep all night long, not wanting to nurse to calm himself, etc. So sad, and so tiring!). And just like that, I lost all resolve to head out this morning...haha.
We set up most of our advent stuff today and Jonas was a big help with doing a very small amount of decorating. As Advent is the season of waiting, we'll wait a bit before we leap right into Christmas and all of those decorations. Maybe the tree will come on December 15th, or that weekend. Anyway, today we did several different types of advent calendars: The Jan Brett one my Mom made, a magnetic one, and a sticker Jessie Tree. We also did 3 individual lift the flap ones for the 3 older kids. LOTS of calendars around here, haha! Then we read a Christmas book from our BIG box of collected winter and Christmas themed books. Reading is so much harder for me these days, with Kellan, and while I love how many audio books the kids listen to, and I know it "counts," it's totally not the same. So I loved that this was able to happen today.
Kellan chewing on some bread last Sunday:
Kellan trying out baked asparagus this past week:
The kids at the Minneapolis Institute of Art before the play on Thursday:
Finn was involved in his first Beyblade war this Saturday! He almost won! Haha.
