Faith 2 Years 4 Months

The extent to which Faith tries to keep up with her big brother is impressive. More and more she is wanting to do big kids things or do the same things Bryce is doing.

She wants to eat the same foods as he eats, which thoroughly frustrates Bryce. She wants to sit at the table without her booster seat; buckle her own seat belt; get dressed on her own; brush her teeth on her own; and the list keeps going. She has always been very independent when doing these things, but more and more she is getting adamant about it.

Her latest thing is telling us she wants privacy when she goes potty on the big potty. I have to stand outside the door until she tells me she is finished. I found this hysterical since I have to come in and wipe her when she is done. She has been doing really well using the potty. She no longer uses her little potty seat, but instead sits on the real toilet. She is doing almost all of her poop in the potty.

Faith is getting really into Veggie Tales. When given the choice she will choose a Veggie Tale movie over any other movie. Her favorite character is Bob the Tomato.

After spending the weekend in Tahoe earlier this month with the Husen's and Garcia's, Faith started carrying her babies around in her shirt or pj's trying to emulate Auntie Em carrying Ella in a Ergo Baby pack. She was stretching out her shirts and pj's trying to make the babies fit. At Nanny's suggestion I went on Amazon and found an Ergo Baby carrier specifically made for baby dolls. I immediately ordered it. Faith has spent entire days wearing her baby carrier. The only baby she puts in it is Ella. She has names most of her babies. She has Cole, Kira, Ella, and Ashley to name a few. All are named after babies she knows. If you call a baby doll by the incorrect name she immediately corrects you.

While she is still very attached to her pink lovey, she has started wanting all of them in her bed with her. She will tell you, "I want too many YaeYae's." I hope this means we can more easily distract her when it is time to wash the pink one.

Spokane

We had another wonderful trip to Spokane to visit Auntie Rachel, Uncle J, Samantha and Emily.

The kids and I flew out Wednesday morning, January 26th. Nathan joined us Friday night. We then all flew home together on Monday.

While we were there we did a lot of hanging out at the house so the kids could play. Samantha and Bryce got along wonderfully. Emily and Faith played well sometimes and at other times it was obvious they are both used to being the baby of the family. They had a tough time sharing and compromising.

Some of the fun things we did included tubing at Mt. Spokane, a drive to see the Bald Eagles, lunch out, Mobius (a discovery museum for kids), watching Samantha's ballet, tap and tumbling classes (Bryce participated in the tumbling class and had fun), and baking cookies.

Bryce 4 Years 7 Months

Bryce's artistic skills are improving dramatically. He is really amazing us. The other day he asked me to make a top hat with him out of paper. Not being very artistic, I wasn't sure how this was going to work out, but thankfully he had a plan. He instructed me step by step. While at first his directions didn't seem to make sense, I caught on to his plan and it worked great. He told me to cut a rectangle and then make it a circle. This meant to cut a rectangle then fold the two short ends together to make a cylinder. Then I was told to cut a large oval for the top and attach it to the circle. Next I had to cut two small ovals for the brim of the hat. While the two small ovals didn't make a "normal" brim, they looked correct from a 4 year old's view point of looking head on at something.

He continues drawing and writing letters on a regular basis. When he writes his name, the letters go from right to left, but they are in the correct order and legible.

It is so wonderful to watch this development occur.

For the past few weeks Bryce has been ultra sensitive. He cries easily over little things. If you ask him to do or not do something his reaction is sometimes to head upstairs because he thinks he is in trouble. I'm trying to be sensitive to his sensitivity, but he is really over the top right now.

Bryce went through a huge growth spurt this month. In a matter or two weeks his pants went from being too long to being high-waters. I had to pack up all his size 4 pants and get down the box of size 5 hand-me-downs. Thankfully there were plenty of pants and I didn't have to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe mid-season.

Bryce started staying through respite care (from 1-3) at school. I am hoping the extra hours help him to be better prepared for Kindergarten. He really likes it as it means a short quiet time and then more playtime outside with his friends.

We are still undecided on where to send him for school. We are applying for financial aid at Rincon Valley Christian and are touring Riebli in a few days. Hopefully after our tour we will have a better feeling one way or another.

Bryce has completely stopped having accidents at night. It has been over 6 weeks since he woke up with any wetness. Yea for not having to wash sheets as often or wake up to change him.