And...his tenure packet is in!

Last week was a big one for Nicholas! I never mention how hard he is working at work--how many graduate students he manages, how many different classes he has prepped since coming here, how involved he is in his department, how much research he is continually doing including all the proposals and reports to initiate and justify it, how many papers he reviews for various journals, how available he is to his undergraduate students, how much effort he puts into his mentoring, and in general how hard he works. I am sure that I don't know how hard it is, but I appreciate all the effort he makes for our family. And I am really proud that he has submitted his tenure packet as of Friday! Over three hundred pages documenting all the work he has been doing! I believe he finds out sometime in the spring about the results.

Leading up to that submission, he had several late nights last week. This is how the kids and I spent our time while Daddy was working:

Leo got his first ear infection this week. We had a horrible, awful night on Monday. Tuesday we went to the doctor and they prescribed him amoxicillin. This is a picture of us at Publix picking up the medicine. I love that they can sit together! I swear that did happen! Olivia looks teary-eyed because (1) Leo got a shot, and (2) we didn't get to go to gymnastics. Leo started to feel better that night, but he broke out in a rash. I thought it might be a drug allergy since Nicholas is allergic to penicillin, so I was worried and took him back to the doctor the next day on my way to work. He's not, thank goodness. The rash was probably a heat rash or viral rash.

We went to the playground later that day just so that I could get a walk in and so the kids could burn up a little energy on the tennis courts. Olivia is such a good big sister, helping Leo. And Leo is fearless. Olivia would kick the ball across the tennis court, and Leo had no problem crawling after it.

We went to the playground/tennis courts every afternoon for exercise. Olivia likes to push Leo on the swings.

One afternoon, Mary Grace and JP joined us with my friend Jennifer. It's so nice to have a little adult conversation intermixed with the kids playing! Here are the girls "racing."

And here are the boys "playing."

And here are the kids settling down for the night one night that Nicholas didn't make it home in time for bedtime.

So much is happening all the time!!

Really, there is so much going on all the time, that I am finding it difficult to make time for blogging. So, in this post you get loads of pictures and not much text.

Playing in Olivia's room with the horses Grandpop Steve bought them for Christmas.

On Friday, playing in our room while I finished getting dinner ready.

After her first haircut, a la Mommy.

Leo is pulling up to standing, climbing on things, crawling everywhere, getting his 5th and 6th teeth, eating more finger foods, and just generally growing up too fast.

On Saturday, we had a big day! We went to the mall in the morning. The highlight for Olivia was the 25 cents of candy I bought her and throwing ten pennies in the water fountains. Then we went to Chic-fil-a for lunch and play time. Then, we went to tailgate at the Alabama game in the evening. Olivia had such a great time! She played with Leo in the car, saw the sights on campus, and bounced in the inflatables on the quad. Then we stopped by Nicholas's office on the way home and heard some echos. She loved it! At bed time, she kept saying, "I'm not ready for today to be over!"

Sunday was rainy and an inside day for playing and painting. Olivia and I got the giggles and were so excited to get outside on Sunday evening after spending all day inside!

Olivia and Leo continue to do great at school. Olivia never cries when I drop her off anymore. The drop-off line has made a big girl out of her--carrying her own back pack up the stairs and into the building. Last month they learned about the letter F, the numbers 1-5, the five senses, and friends and family. This month they learn about the letters A, H, B, and P and the numbers 6-8. They are on a fall harvest unit right now. The stories Olivia tells about school are hilarious, and I will try to dictate some soon!

Sweet Leo grew up a month this week

We had a few rough nights with Leo this week. His sleep continues to be bad. I won't even admit how bad. Last weekend to add to the bad nights, he woke up at 4:45 AM on Saturday, 5:15 AM on Sunday and Monday. He "talks" so loudly that he soon wakes up Olivia, so I took him for walks around the neighborhood on Sunday and Monday. Thankfully, a week later, I can report that he is not getting up so early and sleeping a bit better at night. I think the difference is (1) his top two teeth have now fully cut the gums and (2) he is officially a real crawler--not just a few movements, but full on "I'll follow you if you leave the room" crawler. This week, he also pulled himself up all the way on the ottoman in the living room, which was a bit of a surprise since I was in the kitchen when he did it and I was afraid of him falling back onto the tile in front of the fire place. Leo also perfected going from his back to his belly to all fours and then pushing up to sitting. He is so proud of himself when he does that and when he crawls a distance. A LOT going on in his little life! He is also saying "da-da-da-da" and some other consonant vowel combinations. I cannot believe how much he has grown up this week!

Leo is spreading out the time between nursings with the help of solid foods. We are going about four hours between feedings during the day with a solid food feeding at about the three hour mark. He loves his cereal, prunes, peaches, and mixed veggies. Really, he loves most anything except straight green beans. He is really feeding himself with accuracy, too. He likes to have Cheerios or puffs on his tray every time he eats so that he can feed himself something, too. I give him the Baby Mum Mum rice crackers some times, too, and he likes those as well. We gave him a frozen apple juice cube in his fresh food holder today, and he was all about that, too. What an agreeable baby!

Talking in the bathtub.

Crawling through the tunnel outside by the tent.

Playing in big sister's room.

Riding the pony. (The picture doesn't show this, but he has really great balance here!)

And here he is crawling! (I hope this turns out. I switched back to using the good video camera since it is awesome. I had stopped using it for a while because I couldn't get the videos to upload anywhere. I'm crossing my fingers and posting the link before it is finished processing on YouTube.)

The last pool day

I am so behind with blogging that this post is actually from last Sunday. The four of us made what will probably be the last trek to the neighborhood pool this summer. The evenings are getting too cool and the water is getting too chilly for swimming. But last Sunday afternoon was warm, and we swam in the little pool. Olivia was excited about learning to use the water gun herself, but showed amazing restraint not squirting the rest of us.

Leo is standing so well and the water level was so low, that he had a good time standing and watching Olivia play.

Leo continues to do well with his straw cup and his sippy cup. Here he looks pretty proud of himself.

When I ask Olivia to smile, this is what she does. This is obviously not her smile. I think I need to stop asking her to smile and just try to make her laugh instead!

This is a not very exciting video of Olivia squirting the water gun. It just shows what a cautious sweetheart she is. I get the feeling that Leo is not going to be so careful!

Being active and loving the cooler weather!

Leo beginning to crawl made me realize that if I am going to contain him, I have to start now! Since our open floor plan isn't conducive to gates, I've decided to take my mother's advice and introduce the pack-n-play for daily use. I have it right outside the kitchen door to the dining room where he and I can see each other when I am making dinner or putting away dishes. So far, so good!! Even Olivia has volunteered to get in with him and play! Now that is a small miracle! (That only lasted about three minutes, but still!)

And here is a small sample of Leo's crawling. He is slow and the crawling is only for the first 15 seconds, but I think in the next couple of weeks he is going to take off!



And the advent of cooler weather has brought all of us outside a lot more lately. Olivia is loving her tricycle and even pushing herself with the pedals. I think we are going to look into a balance bike. The Germans in the neighborhood have their little ones on these things super early, and not to be outdone... Haha! But, really...

And Leo enjoys putting around in his walker while big sister is on the tricycle. He can actually make this thing go, which Olivia had trouble with at his age. Notice that Leo is sticking out his tongue. He's doing that a lot lately because of his teeth, I think. He is also grinding his teeth together, which is an odd sound coming from a baby.

In other news, school continues to go well for both kids. Olivia does Kindermusik on Mondays, CompuChild on Wednesdays, and a gymnastics class on Fridays. Her recounts of days events are hilarious. For example, "Greta brought a magic wand for show and tell!" and "Miss Erin says, "Oh, my stars!"" or "I would not sit down at lunch time, so I got a time out." I am really impressed with Olivia's teacher Miss Erin. She has a curriculum for the kids. Their first unit was on friends, family, the letter F, and the numbers 1-4. Now they are working on a fall unit. Olivia learned the Months of the Year song, and here she is singing it after her bath tonight while she watched football.



Leo won't take a bottle at school at all now, which is okay because he can get enough solid foods to sustain him. They say he has a sweet little personality there--happy to look at and interact with the younger babies. I'm so glad they both are doing well there!

These kids are growing up!

Leo is flying higher on the infant swings than Olivia goes on the big girl swings. (That's okay with me. Then I don't worry! I love my cautious girl!)

Olivia is starting to "swing" on the bar before going down the slide, though.

And, of course, she "helps" me mop!

Leo's top two teeth cut the gums this past weekend. Now he is eating "real" solid food!

And stealing big sister's toys by CRAWLING over to them! Yes, I said it. It's official. He crawled five moves today on the floor--belly off the floor, coordinated knee and hand moves. Watch out, Mommy!

And Leo is sitting up so well now that he can go on wagon rides! He LOVES the wagon, and Olivia gets a kick out of having him in there, too!

Another busy weekend!

Every day is busy. And then the weekend comes and I think we are going to have time to catch up. And every weekend passes and I have to remember to be thankful for all the things we did get done, all the time we spent together, and all the rest we were able to get and not lament all the things still left on my list. I often remind myself to stay in the moment because I know that these days are fleeting. Olivia and Leo are growing up too quickly right before my eyes. I thought we looked silly one evening after baths, and thought a mirror picture might capture the hilarity and sweetness that is our bedtime routine. I love it! After dinner, I give Leo a bath while Nicholas gives Olivia her's. Then I nurse Leo and put him to bed while Nicholas gets Olivia ready for bed. Sometimes they play for a while, sometimes they watch some football, and they always start story time by the time I am finished. Here we are in the midst of it all (No, my hair is not colored. That is a dirty hand print on the mirror!):

In other big news, we sold our sleeper sofa that was supposed to be in the office to make it an office/guest room. (Loyal readers will remember that we purchased that sofa after moving Olivia to her new room and making the nursery Leo's room. Since we didn't have a guest room, we bought the sleeper sofa. Alas, it did not fit around the corner into the office, so we had to put one half of our big couch in the office and put the sleeper sofa and the other half of our big couch in the living room. Finally, that is over!) So, our big couch is back together in our living room and we moved Olivia's big girl bed, which we bought from our German neighbors who moved back, into the office. This is because she is just not quite ready for it, we can ease her into it by having her take a nap in there before we take the plunge and move it to her room, and we figured we could use it as a guest bed until then. Olivia loves to play on it. Here, it is her stage and she is a ballerina:

On Saturday we stayed home and enjoyed the football and getting some projects done. Nicholas and Olivia put together her bed and I cleaned out Olivia's closet. I've got two tubs of clothes for my sister who has the next girl. First it will make a trip to the attic, though!

Sunday we enjoyed cooler weather. We went to the playground with our friends Jennifer, Mary Grace, and JP. It was awesome! So awesome, that we stayed for an hour and a half and I had to jog home to get Leo there in time for eating. Good! I started my couch to 5K challenge that ends witha 5K on November 11. Here goes! And here are JP and Leo playing:

We went to an awesome birthday party for our friend Colton's second birthday on Sunday. It was at a petting farm called "The Barnyard". Olivia fed the catfish:

Took a tour of the ducks on the pond:

Bottle fed the little pigs:

And the little lambs:

Then she fed the miniature cow, goats, llama, donkey, and miniature horse:

Then she petted the rabbits:

The chicks:

And went for a miniature horse ride before eating cake and singing Happy Birthday to Colton! What a day! It was awesome and we were all worn out when we got home (and glad I had something in the crock pot and didn't have to cook!)

Then Olivia got sick. When she got home she had a fever. Last night it got worse and she is very congested and has a runny nose. So far, the rest of us are okay, but today we kept the kids home from school and played here inside until almost dinner time when Olivia wanted to go outside. Here is Daddy indulging the kids in a "dragging" ride:

And just because I think it is funny how infants and toddlers have taken over this house, including the kitchen cabinets, here is a picture of our "glass" cabinet.