Summertime

Not much new has happened this week. It seems like they are adding new words everyday, though! Xander has a fascination with balloons and says an approximation of that word. Curt (from church) indulged him and gave him a balloon from church and all we heard from Xander's mouth was "ba-oon" for two days. He has also started saying "cracker" for every crunchy food he might want, cereal, cookie, cracker or chips. Grace has started pointing to something and saying "this?" wanting to know what it is. She'll put her hands all over our faces doing the same thing, wanting to know our face parts. She's very curious. Will still loves dogs and doors. If I haven't mentioned before, he loves doors! He will open and shut doors for hours. All doors, including dishwashers, refrigerators, and the little flaps the hide things in picture books. He was at Dale and Ellen's house last week, playing in the basement, and apparently opened and shut various basement doors for about 45 mins.

The pictures are:

Top: Will at the Children's Museum. There was a bridge that he LOVED. They said he walked over it for a long time, just making a circle around. Once he finds something he loves, he does it over and over again, (like doors)!

Middle: Grace being weird.

Bottom: Xander sitting in the hall. You can't tell from this picture, but he was the only awake from nap and he was in the living room with Brian. But, Brian had left the office door open. We don't leave the office, master bedroom, or hall bath doors open ever. We just leave them shut so we don't have to worry about them playing in there. So, if they see one of those doors open, they make a beeline for them to go into the "forbidden rooms". On this occasion, Xander saw the open office door and REALLY wanted to go inside, but he knew he shouldn't. So, he sat on the floor in front of the open door and looked in. He would look at us and smile and inch closer. He kept looking at us and whining that he wanted to go inside. I think eventually the urge overtook him and he went inside, but it's funny to watch the conflict inside of him when he knew he shouldn't go in. I'll post more next week!

A cool new haircut

Our big news this week is that Xander got his first haircut. He was looking like he had a mullet and as cute as those curls were, I decided it was time for a cut. Will was looking a little shaggy too, so on Thursday, Kara and I took them to a kids haircut place in town. Grace didn't get her haircut, she just went along for the ride. Xander was very good, no crying at all. Will screamed the whole time and I had to hold him in the chair, but he looks handsome, too. I do have to admit, I got a little teary when I saw Xander. Not because I was sad that the curls were gone, but because the cut made him look so big that I realized how fast he was growing! The top picture is before and the next two pictures are of him after the cut. In Will's health news, we're back on the inhaled steroid once a day. He had a pretty bad cough from the cold and we've been doing a lot of albuterol and this steroid to combat it. He's much better with about half the personality changes as before. He's still not the normal Will, but we'll tolerate this for a while until his cough is gone. Grace is still fine, as ornery as ever and fine. She likes to run away from us now when we try to get her to do something. She laughs and thinks it so funny. She likes being chased. There are no real other things to share this week, so I'll go now and hopefully I'll have more to say next week. (The bottom picture is of the kids reading with Brian under the piano. That's their "book nook" where they retire to read lately. Brian joined them yesterday and they liked that.)

Lots of news

Well, we had lots of things happen this week, and lots of pictures to go with it. So, here goes.

Tuesday, Will was on his 6th day of a low-grade fever and couging/wheezing again. So, back we went to Dr. Swisher. This time, we walked out with long-term inhaled steroids to do twice a day by nebulizer. We started them on Tuesday night and by Wednesday, we had a different

Will, but not in a good way. He was cranky, irritable, short-tempered and restless. So, we called back to the doctor found out those are all side effects. They may have us do it once a day, or lower the dose, we'll see. I'm waiting for them to call back this morning. I'm glad he's not coughing or wheezing, but this personality change is almost too much to handle, and he's normally such a good kid. So, we'll see what comes of this. They are all a little sick now, little coughs, fevers and runny noses. The teething isn't helping. Grace has had her fingers in her mouth for the past 2 weeks. Tylenol is taking the edge off, but they're all still a little grumpy and to top it all off, Mom and Dad have caught the bug. I am not feeling 100% today. So, needless to say, we had a grumpy weekend. Here's hoping we are all recovered by the end of the week.

In happier news, Xander has started giving hugs. Funny. He has also started saying "uh-oh". He's doesn't say it in context of anything, he just walks around saying it. Grace can identify a whole bunch of animals by sight. She points them out in books when you ask. Between her knowing what the animals look like and Xander knowing all the sounds, they're a genius! I've been putting Grace's hair into all sorts of ponies and barettes. She leaves them, too. I think it's pretty cute. She looked like Pebbles on day when I put on right on top of her head (Halloween costume idea?) Dale and Ellen took them to the children's museum on Saturday. By all reports, they had fun. I think it's a place to go back often. They also got a new pool, after the other one had an unfortunate run-in with a rose bush. This new one has a fountain, which is greatly exciting. They had fun with it. We'll be in it a lot this week, no doubt, since it will be hot.

Pictures are from top:

Grace with a cute ponytail on top of her head.

Will climbing onto the stack of 3 chairs and lounging.

The new pool.

Xander wearing Grandpa Mike's shoes and liking it.

Having a snack by the backdoor.

Xander giving Grace a hug.

Grace at the Children's Museum, I think in a groundhog tunnel.

The boys at the Children's Museum. I'm not sure what they were playing in.

No new pictures (Sorry!)

The whole week got away from me and I didn't take any new pictures. I will try harder this week to get some pictures. The kids may be going to the children's museum for the first time this weekend, so I'll try to get some shots of that. Along with no new pictures, we have no real news to tell. It was a pretty quiet week. We have been outside a lot, gone to the park a lot and that's about it. They are enjoying eating with forks and spoons, still doing pretty good. I watched Xander put the food he wanted to eat on his fork with his hands, then put the fork in his mouth. That's one way to do it! I taught them "Ring Around the Rosy" this week. They love it. Will laughs the whole time in anticipation of falling. Grace falls whenever she wants to, sometimes early, sometimes late, sometimes not at all. When she doesn't fall at all, I tackle her and that's funny. Xander isn't as interested in the game as the other two. He joins every once in a while, he falls at the right time, but usually gets up and goes off to do something else. Xander knows a cow sound now. Will loves dogs so much, he points them out in books when he sees them. If the windows are open and a dog barks anywhere in our neighborhood, Will goes to the window saying "dog, dog, dog" and tries to look for it. He's a dog lover! We've started putting little ponytails in Grace's hair right on the top of her head. I'll try to get a picture of that next week. She doesn't take them out, but the boys do. So far we've lost every rubber band we've put in. Oh well. I promise to post pictures next week!