Lessons Learned

Looking back on the past two weeks, I realized that our family had alot of 1st Moments and we learned quite a few things in such a short amount of time...

Ginger- She learned to take a bottle, yippee! Ken came home from his trip to CA and was like this baby is going to take a bottle even if I have to put sugar or chocolate milk in it. So instead we gave her juice, she loved it! Now she is drinking at least 8 oz. of formula a day. For the 1st week she would only take her bottle from me, and that kind of negates the whole reason that we want her to take a bottle is so we can celebrate our anniversary. Ken has put in a lot of time trying to get her to take a bottle from him and now she will let him feed her too. I'm down to nursing about 3 times a day.

Ginger also learned how to sit-up from being on her back (she is super fast) and how to crawl. Right now it is a half crawl and half turning and sitting up. But it gets the job done, she moves all over the place and is pretty happy. Although now she wants to pull herself up to stand all the time. I almost could describe it as an "itch" for her because she is trying all the time. She is fairly successful too. But she isn't quite 8 months old yet, at this time Rose was barely consistently rolling over.

Rose- She has been learning tons of words and talking in more sentences all the time. But the one thing I am most proud of is that she will now say "Thank you" regularly whenever we give her something or do something for her all on her own without any reminding. It's awesome! She does it all on her own, like not repeating me anymore. And I think she is starting to get "Your Welcome" down too, because she doesn't repeat your welcome as often. Before our conversation would be:
Me- "Say Thank You."
Rose- "Thank You"
Me- "Your Welcome Rose"
Rose- "Your Welcome Rose"

Rose has also learned to swim! In March I got her a swimsuit with the life jacket built in, that's the only way I feel comfortable taking Rose and Ginger swimming at the same time by myself. It works to keep her above water but at first she couldn't control it and would end up on her back or with her face down, so the life jacket wouldn't stop drowning, but at least it gave me a little freedom. Over the summer she has gotten more balanced on it. And her Lola taught her how to swim the past few weeks. Lola would say "Let's exercise!" and Rose would follow behind her on the steps, and now she does a swim halfway between a doggie paddle and swimming. Rose has loved the independence and she has been swimming all around the pool.

Rose also learned how to bowl. That girl is strong and she insisted on picking up her own bowling ball.

Darin and Nathan- Cassidy taught Darin how to play Rummy. When my nieces are visiting, it usually goes that the older two who are early birds wake-up before everyone and play around and the younger two night owls are up together at night. It's kind of perfect that way. So Cassidy taught Darin how to play Rummy, then Darin taught Nathan how to play Rummy. We are big gamers and I usually teach the boys all of the games we play over the summer, but they surprised me at the hotel in Ft. Worth and asked me if I wanted to play Rummy. So I said yes and got all ready to teach them and then they told me about how Cassidy taught them. It was nice that they just knew how to play a card game I always played with my Tatang(my mother's father) and my parents.

Darin and Nathan have also learned how to snorkel. One morning Ken took the boys to get snorkel gear for our family in preparation for our trip. They have both been practising. We wanted them to practice snorkeling for our trip to Cancun, but anytime we mentioned it to them, they have only talked about how they are going to ride jet skis to the jungle. One day in Cancun Ken has scheduled for just me and him to take the boys on the jungle tour where you ride across the lagoon on jet skis and then go snorkeling.

The boys have also started a blog. Here is the link:
www.tkidsonthemove.blogspot.com
They are in full swing of their Summer Reading Program that they do with their Dad every year. This year they are reading 40 minutes a day and Ken has them write up a journal entry once or twice a week. This year he talked to them about if they wanted to do it online. They of course shouted YES! We figure it is a good way to start teaching them about how to use the Internet appropriately.

Darin- Has learned to help out when he sees a need! It has been so wonderful!!! The boys are normally really good about doing chores, but this summer I really wanted to start moving them towards being more independent. I've been talking to the boys about how they are getting older and they need to start deciding what they want to do around the house, and how if they see something that needs to be done they can just take care of it and that would be part of their chores. So last week I asked Darin to move clothes over from the washing machine. Not only did he move the clothes over but he also started a load of laundry! I am so proud of him. He did the same thing with the dishwasher.

Me- I also have been practising snorkeling. I've learned that if I am wearing snorkeling gear I would really really love to swim laps. I am swimming about 1/2 a mile every time, it's hard because I get interrupted by one of the kids, even though Ken is taking care of them in the pool. Whenever I swim by Rose she will hop on my back and that makes it super hard. I'm worried I may not be in shape enough to snorkel in the ocean. Ken says I am but I feel like I should be able to swim 2 miles straight or something. Any of my friends who have done a triathlon, please tell my how far you have to swim in the mini one???

I also learned how to can tomatoes. On Saturday with my friend Reianna (Josh's cutie wife, for all my old sac friends) we canned 24 jars in 8 hours. It took forever. My parents took all the cousins again last weekend, so for the first 6 1/2 hours and 2 cases of tomatoes it was only me and her, and we had Rose and her son playing underfoot. But then the kids came home and we showed them how to blanch, peel, and squeeze all the water and seeds out of the tomatoes. With Cassidy, Darin, Nathan, and Abby's help we totally flew through the last case in about an hour (the last case for the weekend, I now have 5 mores cases).

We made spaghetti sauce, I'm not sure if I love it. I like it, but since I still remember all the work it took to make it I'm not sure if it is worth it. Ken loves it, and my mom thought it was really good. I didn't even want any spaghetti after we had spent the day canning it. I also made salsa, I didn't want to make it too hot and wanted it chunky. We put alot of bell peppers and just two jalapenos. From the Salsa I've learned to wear gloves when I cut them. My hands didn't burn at the time, but two days later anytime I put my hands in warm water I would feel the burn, it was like a painful sunburn, except under your nails!

Ken- He is learning all the rules to Axis and Allies. We put the girls down for a nap and they slept for 2 1/2 hours while we played the game. That was good because we could never ever play this game with Rose around. It is so complicated and in 2 1/2 hours only 3 of us were able to take a turn. Ken never took his turn. Although when it is your turn it is really fun. Ken brought back the game from CA for the boys. I think that once we get the hang of it, we will be able to play faster. But it is still probably a 4 or 5 hour board game.