Fun with Mom

Today marks the end of Luke's preschool session and the next one doesn't start up until September 8th.  That means he has 8 full days at home with mom and his baby sister.  Can I get a "Woot!"?  I ordered a book from Amazon.com - 365 things to do with your preschooler (or something to that effect) and it was supposed to be here today but alas, it's not and I'm not sure that we'll have it during our week of fun.  :) I plan on taking him to the park with the zip-line, and up to Grafenwohr (another military base with a huge PX and food court) for a day. The Play-Doh, water colors and acrylic paints are on standby. His little pool is in the backyard and is ready to be filled on a hot day (if any decide to come our way). We have books galore and we have the wii (*not that I am saying that is a fantastic activity for a preschooler to do with his time but it does require moving in order to play it so he gets in some activity while I sew or clean or update our blog.) But what I really wanted were a bunch of fun, no thought involved activities that someone else planned for me (the reason WHY I purchased said book), like an outdoor scavenger hunt or how to make a bug out of a plastic cup and pipe cleaners. Now I'll have to think up my own scavenger hunt for him and figure out how to make my own darn bug.  I think we'll make it (it IS only 8 days after all) and I think we'll have fun.  I'll let you know how it goes. And if anyone else has any fun activities for us (especially those from when we were little - like making colored salt with chalk!), let me know.  

Edited to add: The books are here! The books are here! Caterpillars made from egg cartons, here we come!  Woot!

I guess I have neglected you over the past month.

Brian has been on rotation for the past couple of weeks but yesterday he got a day off and today didn't have to go into work until 1:30pm so we packed up the kids and went bowling! Hannah had a miserable night last night and was up pretty much all night long. I don't know what was causing her sleeplessness but she was a mess and man, were we tired this morning! Anyways, she is napping now, Luke is resting on the couch and I have a minute to post some recent pictures of the kids. Some of my favorites are the pictures of Hannah in Luke's baby clothes. :) Last night we walked up into town for dinner and it was a little cool so I put on a thick white BabyGap pants and cardigan outfit that my mom bought when Luke was a baby. Now if only Brian would hook up our external hard drive so we could compare Hannah and Luke's baby pictures. And now that I am going through all these pictures, I realized how little I have shared with you this past month - no wonder why all the grandparents are mad at me! LOL.

Here's what you've been missing! (All the pictures are posting in chronological order.)

Luke showing off his soccer skills

Hannah discovering her toes.

Bath time!

Spike. Can you see it? We spiked her hair after her bath. We're not right. lol

Cruising on the tricycle.

Island girl.

Luke mastering the wii

Hannah looking adorable in her brother's old clothes and having a great time watching her brother play the wii

A storm came through and knocked down everything, including 208 apples off the stinking apple tree.

Hannah's new hat for the fall. It is a little big still but it for this fall.

Mowing the lawn.

Hanging with mom.

Practicing standing. Nope, she can not pull herself up, we propped her up in this position - she stayed there for a minute or so. :)

Ready for our walk into town - another one of Luke's outfits.

Luke bowling today - he had a great time.

Bautzen pictures

Finally, I am making the time to post some pictures from our trip to Bautzen. A few days after our return from our Poland/Bautzen trip, Brian started working a huge training rotation - however, instead of working here at our base, he has been working at the one about an hour and 20 minutes away - from about 10am to 12am every day, so he has been staying up there. He's been there since last Friday and should be home tomorrow evening and will take the next day and a half off. After that? Back to the rotation until the 15th of September, a glorious day, don't you think? ;)

I've been busy taking care of the kiddos, the house and my online shops. There was an apparent back to school rush on my reusable sandwich and snack bags. I've sent out over 40 bags in the last 2 weeks. (If you are curious about my bags, you can check out my .com - FrayBabyBibsandMore.com OR my Etsy shop - FrayBabyBibsandMore.etsy.com.)
Luke is still going to preschool so I've been dropping him off every morning and picking him up after lunch. He is in a new room with younger kids (darn fall birthday, he missed the cutoff for pre-k) and he was bit the other day by an angry 2 1/2 year old. 3 days later and the dental mark is now a nice circle bruise. (yes, the child was sent home, yes his parents were talked to and the school has a 3 strikes, your out policy). Luke is a child of technology and has mastered my iTouch - he scrolls through my music on a regular basis and plays Memory matching games, and he's fast! He also has learned how to play the wii, which blows my mind. He is an excellent bowler, wake boarder and plane flier. When we first got the wii, we would let him have a controller (without batteries) so he could feel like he was playing and when we let him attempt to play any game, he didn't have a clue how to manipulate the controller. Now, he is a pro and even has figured out when to swing while playing a tennis match. He still loves being outside and cruising around on his tricycle and kicking the soccer ball but we didn't sign him up for soccer this year. I think he is a little too young for organized sports - at this age, it is mass chaos and as the mommy who would have to go to all games and practices with an infant in tow while daddy works rotations, I decided no soccer, we'll try next year.
Hannah is fantastic! In fact, she is 7 months old today so in honor of her 7 months on this earth, I'll recap what she is up to. She sits like a champ and is pretty content doing that and has no desire to master a new skill, which is fine with me, she can stay immobile as long as she desires because once she figures it out, there will be no stopping her. When on her back, she does crunches, plays with her feet and even pivots around to see what is going on but doesn't attempt to roll over and sit up (although today I'm pretty sure I saw her thinking about sitting up). When on her belly, she pushes up to see what is going on, burrows her head into the ground, pivots around, scoots backwards and rolls onto her back. As I've been typing this, she has been moving around somehow, seeing as she started out playing with her toys on her play gym and now is located about 2 feet from her playgym, facing the other direction and chewing on a flower rattle and grabbing her toes. She likes to play with her toys, shake them everywhere, twirl her feet around and around and power slam her legs down. She furrows her brow when concentrating and it is adorable and when she catches you watching her she smiles HUGE. Everyone says she is the smiliest baby they have ever seen and she obviously gets that from me, I mean really, I do have one of the sunniest dispositions out there! ;) She also kicks like crazy and is long and thin like Luke was - abs of steel! However, she is a lot shorter than Luke was at this age. I dress her in Luke's clothes because that kid had some CUTE clothes and I just clip a blue bow in her hair. And speaking of hair, she has a LOT on top and not so much on the sides. Tis better to be sporting a toupee rather than a mullet, I suppose. :) She grabs everything in sight and can manipulate small objects with great dexterity. I don't remember Luke having such well tuned fine motor skills at such a young age. Umm, she makes the "th" sounds a lot, babbles, when upset says "mum mum mum" and when excited I've heard her shout out "dadada!" but Brian hasn't been around to hear it. She is eating solids, she loves banana (only when mixed with cereal) and avocado. She's been introduced to meats and likes those as well. When she doesn't like something or is finished eating she purses up her entire face and wrinkles up her nose and rubs her hands in her face. It can get messy. She has 2 teeth and they are pretty cute. She looks lot like Brian, which means she looks a lot like her Grandma Dinah. Who knows who she'll look like as she grows but it is fun to watch her do so. Ah, and how could I forget, Hannah has been waking up at night for a feeding and doesn't show any signs of stopping that crappy habit. lol. I was spoiled by my little man who was sleeping 12 hours at night by the time he was 3 months old.
A cute sibling story - the other day I picked up Luke from preschool and his teacher walked out with us. I stopped to talk to one of the staff and Luke's teacher asked to hold Hannah so I handed her over. Luke thought it was fantastic that his teacher was holding Hannah and talking to her until his teacher said "She is such a sweet little baby girl! Can I take her with me, Luke?" Panic flew into Luke's eyes and he ran up to his teacher and started tugging on her arm saying "Give my baby back to my mommy!" It was pretty funny and his teacher did indeed give Hannah back. :)
It looks like we're headed to Lubbock late this fall for Brian to start on his Master's Degree - Interdisciplinary Studies - International Relations. We are excited to live close to my brother and his fiancee, to live in a college town where Red Raider football rules and to get a taste of life outside of the Army, even if it is only for 18 months. We're hoping to get in a few more trips to various places before we leave - we'll see what we can accomplish!

Here are the long delayed pictures from Bautzen. And if you are curious about our trip to Poland, visit my Fraybaby blog - HERE - to see the amazing pottery from all the shops we stopped at.