My baby's first haircut!

I don't usually wait this long to post - apparently it has been a busy couple of weeks! We've had a lot of therapists here in the mornings which is good, but it makes the mornings feel more full. The weather has been great! I love that the kids can go outside so much, and that we've been able to have some trips to the park after school. We had a big get together at our house last weekend, the weekend before that we had a marriage conference at the church (which was wonderful!) - yep, it's been a busy couple of weeks:).

Nathan is such a character. He has started trying to make us laugh. When he notices that we laugh at something he does, this little grin spreads over his face and he does it again, and again, and again! He now often wants to walk when I drop off or pick up Lynsey, which is fine, but sometimes time does not permit this! Also, he has a mind of his own and tends to wander onto people's lawns and driveways and gets pretty upset when I set him on the right course. He finally cut his last molar, but now I'm afraid the eye teeth are coming! Please not yet! He is sort of down to one nap, but I find that if I put him down around 9:15, he will still fall asleep quite quickly and sleep for up to an hour and a half! I feel like he should be down to one nap already since he is over 14 months, but he is hanging on to that extra sleep. I'd rather he have it at night and stop waking up before 7, but you can't have everything! We also had a bit of a momentous occasion for him this past Tuesday - his very first haircut! I've been putting this off, even though it's been needed for some time now. I didn't want him to lose his baby look! I'm not that sentimental with most things, but apparently this one bothered me a bit! We got it done, and he did really well, actually. A bit of crying, but not bad! Brian thinks his haircut looks a bit goofy (I didn't want to go totally short so it's a bit like a modified bowl haircut!) but I think it's cute:). Next time we might go shorter, but I'm happy he still has some baby hair on him:).

Lynsey started soccer last week! She absolutely loves it. She claims she wants to go every day! It's nice to see her having so much fun. She also wants to stay after school and run around with other kids every day, which I don't mind, but a lot of days there are no kids sticking around. I feel a bit bad for her because I think she might be a bit ahead socially compared to other kids in her class (I've felt like this since preschool when I noticed she was greeting all the kids by name and most of them just stared back at her). Interesting the contrast between her and Adam in this area:). We are still having some trouble with her emotional outbursts, but it does seem to be slowing down which is nice. I can see a lot of myself in her, so I am trying to be really empathetic, but it is hard some days!

Adam is loving the weather - he can now add going outside to her repertoire of things he does every day! He's usually out there in his pajamas first thing in the morning, but I've long given up on imagining what the neighbours might think of us (our friends' little boy running around outside with no underwear sort of cures that illusion that they aren't already judging us haha!). I don't feel like he's making rapid progress, but slowly but surely we do see improvements in a lot of areas. He is so brave at the park these days! The things he is climbing all on his own compared to last year is amazing. He now goes to the fridge for every meal and gets the ketchup and brings it to the table (he has started eating ketchup on everything!). The other day, we were having mushroom soup for lunch but he went to get the ketchup as always. I told him we were having soup and we didn't put ketchup in the soup, thinking he would definitely argue, but he just walked back to the fridge and put the ketchup back. Again I say it's hard to predict when he will understand exactly what you're saying! We've started giving him and Lynsey "blanket swing" rides (Brian and I swing them on a blanket and plop them onto the couch) and Adam just loves this! It's been a great way get him to start some back and forth communication with us. We can now ask him, "Are you ready?" and he says without us prompting him, "I'm ready". Also when we ask him whose turn it is, he is slowly starting to consistently pat his chest and say, "my turn". We've had trouble finding activities that motivate him enough to work on some of these communication skills, but Blanket Swing seems to be one that is working! Thanks to his Speech Therapist for suggesting that one:).

I have to talk about the marriage conference weekend a little bit. First of all, Greg Speck is a wonderful speaker and I really enjoyed his teaching all weekend. So worth going to! The most amazing part of the whole weekend was that we dropped Adam off in the church daycamp Saturday morning at 9:30. We did not go get him until 3pm. They did not call us once! Our wonderful babysitter Madi was there, taking him under her wing which was helpful, but she said she didn't even have to do that much! Truly a miracle, as he doesn't even make it through Sunday School without me there. I guess God really wanted us to hear the message of the weekend:).