May/June
The beginning o f May our family made a trip to Garden City Kansas to visit Mike’s Grandpa Glenn. It’s about an eight hour car trip, but the kids did absolutely fantastic!! Hardly any whining or complaining! We had such a wonderful time in Garden City. We loved being able to show the kids around their Great Grandpa and Grandma Peg’s hometown. We stayed in a hotel, which Blaise just loved. He slept in a king bed with us, and liked to roll around a lot! While we were in Garden, we spent a lot of time at GG’s house. We went out to the farm and Blaise got to ride in a tractor with Uncle Larry doing field work. We all went in the house that Grandma Peg grew up in. The kids just loved Kansas! One day, GG took us to the zoo, which was great. We also had supper at Uncle Larry and Aunt Cindy’s and Blaise got to make mud pies out in the driveway with his cousins. We did the hotel swimming pool, which Blaise was so excited for and talked about the whole way there. However, he hated it once we were in it. I think maybe because it was too cold. Sutton enjoyed it though.
The beginning of May, we took Sutton to Children’s for a physical therapy evaluation since she was standing on her toes all of the time and not crawling. They actually said that her problem was her core strength. We started physical therapy appointments the beginning of May, and right away she started doing lots of things like pushing herself up to sitting and pulling her legs up under her. She also could roll everywhere.
After we returned from Kansas, we spent a weekend in Treynorwhere we caught the flu. Blaise got it first and threw up in the car, and again at home that night. He was so miserable, and it was the first time he has really thrown up. Mike got it, and Sutton had slight symptoms. While visiting Treynor, we got to spend a weekend with just Grandpa Craig and got to plant all weekend! Blaise loved riding in the planter, and Sutton even got to jump in too! Four people in the cab!! WHEW!
We did a zoo weekend and Blaise is actually big enough now that he almost prefers running by himself through all the buildings. It still takes a stroller to get him from spot to spot because he gets so out of breath and tires easily, but once in the building he wants to be free to go!
Sutton got her first tooth in May! She shortly later got a second tooth! She has the longest tongue, and loves to play with it. She can blow raspberrys, does lalalalalalal on repeat NON stop, can curl in and more. I’ll always remember her and the funny things she did with her tongue!
We still struggle lots with Blaise and eating. He gags all the time when he eats. Sutton has taken over as the bigger eater at meal times. I typically end up spoon feeding him bite so that he gets enough to eat. One trick is letting him watch the ipad while eating. Some times that works. On the other end, Sutton can’t eat enough. Put something- anything- in front of her and she will eat it. Such a relief to have a normal child in this department for once. I can’t believe how easy feeding a child can be, and how life doesn’t have He has an imaginary friend who is called “the bear.” When I can’t find something he always tells me maybe the bear took it. Always talking about the bear. I love this kid and his imagination. The bear will always be a memory from his childhood I won’t forget. These days Blaise can count to ten, does really good on his ABC’s, and is improving on colors. He likes to cut paper and make crafts. One of the things I love most about him is his love of singing. Grandma Donna sings him lots of songs and he is starting to remember the words to some and sings them back to us in his own version. His favorites are Peas Portage Hot, Old McDonald Had a Farm, Working on the Railroad. He also LOVES books. He would sit down anytime of the day and listen to a book be read to him. I LOVE THIS.
Thank goodness we have the Johnson kids living next door to us. Talk about the best neighbors ever! Blaise adores them, and Sutton is starting to as well. I’ll be busy doing something and all of a sudden- boom Blaise has taken off sprinting outside or will disappear as soon as he sees them. It’s so fun being able to play outside!
June brought some first in our household. Sutton is a crawling machine!! She crawls on all fours- hand and knees and goes fast! She really took of crawling from her physical therapy it really didn’t take her long to figure it out. She also is the proud new owner of four teeth! It wasn’t too bad, but we got the teeth in without too much complaining.
June also brought lots of swim dates at the pool. Both kids do pretty good in the water. Sutton loves to be in it and splash. Blaise loves to squirt his water gun. He does not like getting his hair wet or going in too deep. He does love love love going down the big water slide. He always goes down sitting on someones lap.
Other activities in June included going to watch the boats in Tekamah at the lake with grandma Donna, going on the Ferris Wheel at Scheels in Omaha, and going to the Tekamah rodeo where Blaise got to participate in the boot race. Sutton loves all animals and screams at them non-stop. She had a poor time at the rodeo because we accidentally got bugspray in her eyes when we got there.
Blaise did a week of Vacation Bible School in June. We weren’t sure how it would go since this was the first time ever being dropped off somewhere or doing something like this, but we thought it would be good practice for school this fall. He cried pretty much every morning and made his dad or Jessie stay with him for the first part. He only had one potty accident the first day, and was good after that. He participated in the program the last day and did good- he stood up there in front with all of the kids, and even though he didn’t sing or do much- every once and awhile he would clap or jump around. Best of all, he stood there and didn’t come running to us when he saw us.
Sutton loves to eat everything in sight. I mean everything. If she think its food, sees food or hears a wrapper you better be giving her food. So different than Blaise. I say she could even eat a steak at this point because she can eat anything. She pulls herself up and stands next to stuff the end of June. She does okay sleeping at night, usually needs to be given her paci a time or two.
We went to the zoo in June with Uncle Ty. Blaise loved feeding the stingrays. We traveled to Des Moines to meet up with mom’s college roomates, who hadn’t seen each other in five years! We all stayed at the Adverntureland Inn in Des Moines and got to go to the Des Moines Science Center and swam. Blaise loved going down the froggy slide by himself.
July:
We did quite a bit of swimming in July at the pool Blaise did some swim lessons and didn’t love them but did good. He does not want to jump in the water or put his face in, but he absolutely loves the slide and he loved the though of jumping in off the diving board after watching his cousin cooper do this. Both kids have gotten eaten a live by mosquitos this summer, and Sutton always tends to react and get totally swollen and they leave a mark on her for a long time. She has cut quite a few teeth and has 4. Still working on sleeping, she doesn’t do too bad, usually just shoving a paci back in her mouth does the trick. We’ve graduated totally away from bottles and formula and she just does sippy cups and whole milk. The transition wasn’t too bad and she was very smart right off the bat at drinking from soft and hard spouts,
