Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Family photos

We had some family photos taken by Bethany in September...and she never disappoints!  She is so talented and I will cherish these photos forever.  Check out a few of the pics on her blog: http://bethanyfphotography.blogspot.com/2012/10/precious-family.html

Pumpkin Carving

Last night we carved pumpkins! Olivia wasn't a fan off all the slimey guts and happily sat in her highchair "scooping" with her scoop.  Peyton did great on his pumpkin this year.  B and I also carved ours after the kids were in bed...and drank wine!  :) I love Halloween.  Today I baked the pumpkin seeds...delish!




Frankenstorm!

Olivia's (Mama's) finished product...

Focused

Peyton's finished product

Big brother putting silly eyes on Olivia's pumpkin


Putting them outside for display! Luckily there was a break in the rain and it was pretty warm out.


Their faces pretty sum up their personalities

Ha

The Springer pumpkin fam!

Olivia update

I really don't even know where to being with our girl...she's changed so much since my last update.  I'm having a hard time finding any time to keep up the blog with my work schedule and with our weekends being so busy.  I know most people probably don't read these updates, but I want to document the little things about Olivia at 21 months. So here are some tidbits...

~Her vocabulary has exploded.  She's starting to put a few words together to form small sentences.  She repeats everything we say (especially Peyton).  My favorite phrases of hers are: "Yeah baby, say it!" "Otay" (Okay), "Hah good day!" (Have a good day!) "Yep pease" (Yes, please).

~Peyton and Olivia often fight over talk time and attention now, especially in the car.  On the way to school, if Peyton is trying to tell me something, Olivia often will talk (yell) over him "Mama! Mama!" Peyton really gets frustrated and then in turn tells Olivia to be quiet. When I finally about lose my marbles from all the yelling/talking. I tell Peyton to pause for a minute to see what Olivia wants to say.  Then she'll say something like "Hi Mama" or "Mama, see dum (dump) tuck?" HA...it's just her way of making sure she is heard too.  Peyton handles it pretty well, but I can see how it is frustrating for him.

~Olivia had a rough summer with illness.  She had multiple colds, Coxsackie virus, a couple stomach virus' (she's just getting over another one!) and croup.  Ever since, she's not been the great eater that she used to be.  She still loves her fruits and veggies, but has shied away from pasta and meat.  Her favorites right now are pineapple, apples, peanuts, toast, oatmeal w/pb, peppers, cucumbers, yogurt pretzels, croutons and granola bars. Oh and cah-cakes (cupcakes).  I'm pretty sure the combo of her sucking her thumb nonstop and Peyton bringing home germs from school is the culprit of being sick so much.

~She loves to color, especially with "marfers" (markers).  She loves to take the cap off and put it on the top, scribble a bit and then recap the marker (or not). 

~She also loves puzzles and legos.  She plays with her duplo legos but would much rather play with Peyton's smaller legos.  She does well building with the smaller ones with us watching closely, and luckily she never puts them in her mouth.  She has really good fine motor skills like Peyton does.  I'm excited to build the pink lego sets with her when she gets older.  She really likes cars/trains too.

~She's so stinking tall. She is in 2T, sometimes 3T clothes, size 7 shoes, and size 5 diapers.

~She's sleeping well.  She takes a nap during the day, sometimes two and sleeps from ~8pm to~7am.

There's a lot more I could say about her, but these are the basics!  She is so fun right now, I remember loving this age with Peyton too.  Here are some random pics from the last month or so...I've also been horrible about taking pictures NOT on my phone. :)

Brushing her teeth

Timeout~she thinks it's the cool thing to do



She loves Peyton's train set

Monday, October 8, 2012

A weekend with E!

The weekend before last, Ethan came and stayed with us for the weekend while Kate/Jeff were out of town. It was a busy busy weekend with three kids! The boys had a lot of fun together and Olivia had fun being in the middle of it all.  
iPhone pics...
I think Ethan wore this Transformer costume 90% of the time  :)
Watching a movie together
Ethan's comfy bed for the weekend!

A full car on the way to Peyt's soccer game
Saturday night some of us met up at my dad's house for dinner and Rummy Royal.  Always fun!

Olivia loves her cousin Steph


Coloring quietly while Olivia napped
Shoe helper
Ethan loves Legos!

The boys spend a ton of time outside building forts, birds nests and riding bikes






We ended the weekend with some Pico Berry after dinner. 

2012 Jog-a-thon and a school update

On Friday, Peyton's school had the annual Jog-a-thon.  This is one of the two big fundraisers the school has every year.  I volunteered most of the day helping to set up.  It was nice to chat with the other parents and Peyton was SO excited when he saw me after lunch!  Peyton did awesome running! It was a 45-min run.  He lasted the entire time, running with a few much-needed water breaks.  It was a 440 yard lap...he ran 28 laps, I was impressed!  Then after the jog-a-thon the school had set up a huge Family Fun Fest with a bouncy house/slide, arcade basketball, pie throwing, and BBQ.  It was a long, exhausting, but fun day.  

Running super fast

Giving me a great smile as he runs by the water station  I was manning.



Peyt and Ethan going down the slide. I love their smiles!



And some video of Peyton running....


And throwing pie at his PE teacher Mr. Z

Shooting some great shots in arcade basketball

School update:

Peyton is thriving in school.  He's adjusted well to all-day Kindergarten and he loves his teacher.  
They are doing a lot of sign language.  He can do the entire alphabet and the pledge of allegiance in sign language.  It's so crazy how much he's learned in just a month of school.
Some feedback from his teacher:
~He loves to help her and other students.  He's always helping tie shoes.
~He loves stamina reading! Everyday they have time alone to read.  The teacher has been timing how long they stay on task and he's up to 14 minutes!  They have a 'Daily 5 Reading Behavior' chart and he's scored 12 out of 12.  "He gets lost in his book, no looking around or flying through the pages. He reads quietly and stays in one place in the reading area. Lastly, he consistently pays attention and participates in mini lessons."  I'm so proud of him! Now if he could only listen and behave this well at home! ;)


He's made lots of new friends and loves going to school.  We are really impressed with this school and so glad we made the choice of having him attend private school.  It's proving to be so worth it.