First Foods

Kaden is over six months now, but I haven't taken him to his Dr visit yet so I am waiting to do his official 6-month post.  But I did start feeding him some solid foods so I wanted to post a few pictures.

He has been SO ready for food.  He reaches for everything at the table.  He watches us spoon our food to our mouth.  He has tried to grab my food and shove it in his mouth.  I was sure he would go nuts for the food.

I did a little research about baby foods and decided avocado would be a good first food.  It's texture is a bit thick, but the flavor is mild.  And they are delicious!  And nutritious.  I had to pump some milk first to mix with it and then we tried it.  Sadie was so excited to watch him eat she couldn't even stand it.

As you can see, he wasn't a big fan of avocado.

"Seriously, this is what I was so excited about?"

I thought he would get used to it.  But in the meantime we decided to try rice cereal too.  I made it from brown rice flour I had ground and cooked with water.  Then I added some milk to thin it out.  This went over much better.

"This is better!"

I tried avocado again a few days later, but he literally cried after I put the third bite in his mouth.  So I gave up.  Some day he will appreciate the avocado, but it's not now.  He's tried squash, peas, applesauce, sweet potato, green beans, oatmeal and bananas.  He didn't love oatmeal (again made from oat flour and water, which is a bit of a weird texture) but he liked it when I mixed it with applesauce.  I have plans to make a lot of his food at home, but in reality I don't often have a ton of time to peel, chop, roast, mash, blend a butternut squash.  Or bake sweet potatoes, though that shouldn't take as long.  I do have some mangos blended and frozen waiting for their turn.  And I blended my own peas, though I left them a little thick.  He liked them at first, but he's still a little skeptic when I give them to him.  He has taken green beans much better than I expected.  And he made a face at the bananas, I assume because of the texture.  But he eats them.  I just mash it and mix it with a bit of water.  I have bought some baby food, organic on sale.  When I have time I will make some stuff.  I'm excited to add normal foods in his baby foods, like zucchini, spinach, berries, etc.  We'll see.

Sadie's Dance

Sadie has enjoyed dance this year.  Not really because she loves to dance, but because she has a couple of friends in her class.  I really don't think she would care much about it if she didn't have friends.  She doesn't LOVE it, but she doesn't whine about it either.  It's been fun.  She has done well at learning the steps and works hard to get it right.  But she doesn't love to practice at home either, especially with the music because it "messes her up"...

We were invited to perform at Kid's Fair because one of the moms was in charge of it.  So they were able to practice on the stage there.

Sadie LOVED kid fair because there were bouncy houses and balloons and princesses.  She got a balloon animal, a monkey, and she was thrilled.  She talked about Kid's Fair for... well, she is still talking about it.  (This was from their website)

During their dance they did okay, but Lisa (their teacher) is not happy with 'just okay'.  She pinpointed what they weren't getting and spent the next few weeks working on it.  I must say, they were doing really by the time their final recital came!

They sure are adorable!

Brynlee, Sadie, Sydney

Grandma and Grandpa were able to come to the dress rehearsal, which was fun.  They were able to see her dance up close and it was really quick.  They had something else going on that night so it worked out well.

This is the same outfit she wore at Christmas so I wasn't too stressed about getting cute pictures.  But once I got her hair all curled I decided to get a few.

She's becoming harder to photograph.  Four-years-old is an awkward smile stage.  But as I was taking her picture I noticed her eyes had turned a shade of green to match her dress.  I was determined to capture her eyes.  I noticed it a lot when we came in for a minute and she sat here with Kylee.

Anyway, she's adorable.

Let's see that closer up...

She was doing the dance really well at dress rehearsal and then I even had her practice just a little before we left.  I don't know if I threw her off or not.  But she didn't do as well during the performance as she had been doing.  Like, not at all.  But they are the youngest group up there and they still looked adorable so it's all good.

Afterwards I gave her some flowers.  She asked, "Did I do really good Mom?"  Yes!  She did wonderful because she got up there and did her best.

I'm not sure we will be able to do dance next year, but I'm okay with just doing gymnastics.  She has afternoon preschool so I can't get Lisa as a teacher and I don't think I want any other teacher.  And it's pointless to do it without her friends since that's the only reason she wanted to go.  I loved her teacher.  At dress rehearsal, the lady that's over the whole dance company pointed out that our girls did AMAZING.  That it is not normal for them to be able to do the whole dance without watching the teacher at that age.  Lisa is thorough and she's fun.  She threatens that they won't get prizes if they don't behave, and then she follows through.  Maybe another year we will decide to do dance again.

Sadie

Sadie is a pretty fun girl.  She is SO loving and touchy.  She will often give hugs to me and/or Kaden three of four times as she’s leaving the room to go brush her teeth.  And she will say, “just one more kiss!” when I’m already frustrated with her running late to whatever.  I will also often hear Sadie getting mad and then yelling, “Mom!  Kylee won’t let me hug her!”  It’s just so funny and ridiculous.  I usually say, “Kylee, hug your sister!” I try to act serious so Sadie thinks I’m serious, but Kylee knows I’m being silly.  Sadie is no fool, she knows I’m being silly too.  But it is hard for Kylee sometimes.  She just isn’t as touchy and I get it.  But how hard is it to just hug your sister?  Kylee will say, “She’s hugged me like five times already!”  Seriously, if these are the worst fights in our house, I think we’re doing pretty good.  But no, they are not the worst.

Sadie is not in a hurry.  Ever.  I will hear her going potty.  And then twenty minutes later I will hear her still in the bathroom, singing a song, possibly washing her hands, possibly still sitting on the rug trying to pull up her pants.  She likes to take her time.  Which is great when there is nothing going on.  But a lot of times we do have places to be or things to be doing.  I’m not so much a slow person so this is hard for me.  Especially when I’m asking her to clean something up that I could easily clean up myself, but I am trying to teach my kids to clean up after themselves.  It’s hard.

Sadie always wants someone with her.  Well, at least when she goes downstairs.  She wants someone to go with her to get her clothes, or put her to bed.  But lately she is just fine going outside to ride her bike all by herself.  I think she’s actually getting better at being alone and enjoying being in her own head.  She doesn’t need me to entertain her constantly during the day and doesn’t ask for electronics very often at all.  She mostly asks us to print out pictures for her.  Then she will color them alone in the kitchen.  So I think that’s a good sign.  But she still hates going downstairs alone.  She used to say something about monsters, but we always said how ridiculous that was, there are no monsters.  She doesn’t act scared, just lonely.

She has gotten especially sassy and Ryan and I have been trying to teach her appropriate ways to speak to parents and other adults.  The other day she was screaming at me because I put Kaden on his stomach.  She kept yelling that he doesn’t like it and I need to turn him over.  I told her he was fine, but she kept getting more and more worked up until she was screaming at me!  I’m like, “who is the mom here?  I will decide what the baby needs.”  She left screaming downstairs.  Funny, she doesn’t have a problem going down alone when she’s upset.  That’s not the worst though.  It’s when we will ask her something, like ‘get your toothbrush’ and she will snap, “I AM!”  Ugh.  The line between respecting your parents and being friends with them is very small and hard for kids to understand.  Like Kylee and her “sor-RY!” or “…duh!”  I’m glad we’re friends, but you can’t treat me like an idiot.  Or sass me with your unapologetic sorry.  Moving on…

I took Sadie to the Dr with Kaden a couple of months ago so she could get her Kindergarten shots.  I told her about it way ahead of time and she was strangely excited about it.  She kept asking and asking.  I had to cancel the appointment once because she had gotten that stomach bug and was throwing up.  So then she was asking when we were going a lot after that.  Finally the time came, and I told her if she was good I would take her to go get ice cream afterwards.  Well, I ended up with my serious sinus infection at that time so Ryan is the lucky one that got to take her to get ice cream, though I did make it to her appointment with the help of some Tylenol.  Sadie passed with flying colors.  Dr Edwards asked her to count for him and he said he was impressed that she didn’t skip 14 and she clearly said THIRteen and FOURteen.  She didn’t always get that clear so I’m glad she’s doing well now.  Anyway, she could do everything he asked, hop on one foot, etc, etc.  She even took a hearing test and passed great.  Her percentiles were Height:  39.5 in = 27% Weight: 35 lbs = 38%  BMI:  15.77 = 66%  She seems to be dropping in height.  Her weight has raised but her height has dropped.  She’s a little shorty.  But I’m happy to see that she is gaining weight at a normal rate because she doesn’t really like to eat.  But I’ll get into that.

The time came for her to get her shots.  She did the opposite of Kylee.  She screamed and cried as soon as she was shot, but seconds afterwards she smiled and giggled and wiped her tears.  (When Kylee did it she was trying to be tough so she held it in until the nurse left, then she was a big mess of tears and nearly inconsolable.  Funny that I remember that so clearly.  I don’t remember Dylan’s as clearly, but I know he never tried to be brave.  He screamed nice and loud.)  Afterwards she was just fine. 

I told the Dr my only concern with Sadie is that she doesn’t like to eat.  He said it was very normal for 2-4 year olds to not eat much.  As long as she’s eating one out of four meals or something like that.  So the fact that she will often only eat a few bites of breakfast and a few bites of dinner is just fine because she generally eats a normal-sized lunch.  Okay, great.  So I don’t have to worry about stunting her growth (although she is rather short…)

But here’s my problem.  Dinner is where we get to try different foods and flavors and veggies.  Lunches are generally the same.  We have the same 6 or 7 meals that we rotate through.  A lot of the time she will just have a slice of ham and cheese.  We always have fruit and veggies, but the veggies are one of three or four that are good raw- carrots, snap peas, sweet mini peppers, celery.  Sometimes they get a fruit/veggie squeezer instead.  So in order to get different veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, onions, kale, edamame, squash, etc, etc, etc, we put them in dinner.  Sadie just rarely wants to eat dinner.  It’s not because she doesn’t like it.  She just doesn’t want to eat.  She will often wander into the kitchen when I’m cooking and say, “it smells yummy” or “I like that”.  But then when we sit down to eat, she will say she doesn’t want to eat.  Sometimes we will spend a half hour trying to convince her to just take one bite.  After she screams and throws a fit down in her room, she will often come back up and let us spoon-feed her a bite.  More often than not she will then say, “mmm, I like it!”  Half the time she will eat okay after that and half the time she will still refuse to eat, even after she just said that she likes it.  It is SO frustrating to me.  Like I said, I know she gets enough food, but I want her to have a variety of foods and to experience different flavors.  I cook a lot of different things and I always ask that my kids try a few bites.  Kylee does really well.  There’s not much that she has to choke down.  Dylan does okay.  Occasionally he will struggle and sometimes choose not to finish and I can only imagine he’s still somewhat hungry when he goes to bed, but he never complains.  I’ve never had a kid complaining about hunger right before bed.

I can’t tell you how many hours we’ve spent trying to convince Sadie to eat just a couple bites of dinner.  She has gone to bed without so much as a bite for dinner more than once.  At least half the time she would get mad when we kept hounding her to take bites, or threatening her with whatever punishment if she didn’t at least try it.  She would get mad and run off screaming.  I hate it.  I hate fighting at dinner.  I hate that dinner lasts an hour longer than it should because she takes that long to take a bite.

I was at my wits end and decided to try something I’ve heard others try.  I got sick of her refusing dinner, and then having oatmeal or pancakes or whatever in the morning.  So I told her if she didn’t eat her dinner, I would heat it up for her in the morning for breakfast.  She still tried to refuse it, but I knew she would go to preschool and have a yummy snack there and then she wouldn’t be starving and willing to eat the darn dinner.  So I told her she couldn’t go to school if she didn’t eat.  Now, I get that this is a bit extreme.  I was really tired of the dinner fight and looking for a solution of some kind.  Plus, I think it’s irresponsible as a parent to send a kid off somewhere like school without feeding them something first.  The child will not do well and eventually whine to the teacher about how hungry they are and the teacher will have to deal with it.  So in the end, she ate her food (I had to spoon-feed her, but that’s another battle).

I voiced my frustration on Facebook looking for some support from people who had gone through this, hoping they would say it only takes a few days and then their children were happily eating their dinner normally.  But instead I got SO MANY opinions from all over the spectrum.  It was really eye-opening and crazy.  Some stories were really sad and obviously unhealthy for the children.  Some were “just let them make a PB&J for themselves if they don’t want dinner (or cereal)”  CRAZY!  Not only because that doesn’t have much nutrients in it (and that Sadie doesn’t even like sandwiches very much) but what about the other two kids?  The ones who eat their dinner just fine most of the time.  What happens when they see their sister eating yummy PB&J or cereal for dinner?  I’ll tell you what happens.  They immediately decide they would much rather have Sadie’s dinner and they would cry injustice and demand the same treatment.  I’m telling you, crazy.

There was talk about food aversions and kids that really struggle with certain foods, especially veggies.  I thought about it, and she certainly doesn’t love bread the way most normal people do.  But she actually really likes most veggies.  Sometimes I will make a meal and have asparagus as a side, and Sadie will ONLY eat five or more spears of asparagus.  She loves it.  And at lunch she is constantly asking me “what’s for a fruit and veggie”.  I can’t get away with a lazy lunch with her, she knows there’s supposed to be a few different food groups there.  I knew right away that Sadie didn’t have unhealthy relationships with food like some people had described from their kids.  And I knew that I wasn’t the type of parent to just let her have cereal every night (*shudder*).  But I also agreed with people who said forcing them to eat the food for breakfast was not the best idea, nor was making such a huge deal about food.  And fighting at dinner every single night was not good either.

My solution was that Sadie was not allowed a snack.  The kids get snacks after school every day.  They need them.  My two older kids are active and growing and they eat quite a bit of food.  But Sadie doesn’t need that much.  For starters, her lunch is eaten later in the day so she isn’t as hungry at snack time.  And she’s not as active as they are.  But I don’t want her to be miserable so I told her she is allowed fruit as a snack, but nothing else.  She accepted that and it’s been our basic rule for awhile now.  I sat her down one day and told her what my expectations were- nothing but fruit as a snack, no more screaming at the dinner table.  If she tried the food I made, she could then have a side of fruit or whatever else with it.  If she ate all her dinner, she could have a small treat.  If she refused to eat, she still needed to join us at the dinner table and no more screaming downstairs. Setting the expectations seemed to help a lot.  She started asking me when she could have regular snacks again and I told her she could if she ate dinner really well for awhile.  And ever since this started she has been doing better.  She still has her moments.  But it’s not like it used to be.  There are even days where she just eats.  She just sits down with us, picks up her own food and eats it.  Crazy!  She would always at least ask us to feed her.  Sometimes we would adamantly refuse and she would get upset.  Before the baby was born we tried to break her of this.  We explained that we have to feed the baby so we can’t feed big girls.  I don’t know why kids think food is so much easier to get down when they don’t have to actually put the fork to their mouth.  All my kids have preferred to have us feed them if it’s something they don’t like.  Well, sometimes it’s not worth the battle with her and I will just feed her.  But she has been doing much better.

The problem then arises when she’s playing with friends before dinner and she ends up eating something.  It doesn’t matter what she eats, if she eats ANYTHING big or small after 4 pm, she will not eat dinner.  SO frustrating!  Especially since she is not responsible or mature enough to be able to turn down fruit snacks at a friend’s house because I won’t like it.  But that whole battle is for a different post…

I’ll post about Preschool and Dance later too.

Sadie is going through a bit of an awkward smile stage.  Most kids do at this age.  For the most part, she does this little closed-mouth, head-tilt smile that I think is supposed to be a sweet look.  But it's not much of a smile.  I do love her eyes, though.

When I try to get her to smile bigger, she will often scrunch up her face and end up looking angry.  Joys.  Can't wait for family picture time... (sarcasm).

All in all, Sadie is stinking adorable and a joy to be around.  I'm not just saying that because I'm her mom.  Grandmas love to be around her too.  And Dad.  She is a SWEETHEART and we want her to stay this same age forever and ever.

Piano

Kylee and Dylan have been taking piano and had their recital last week.  Dylan missed the Christmas recital because he got sick (and truth be told, he was not very good at any particular song).  It doesn’t come naturally to him.  He has worked hard to get where he is.  Some days are better than others.  But he does have a really great teacher whom he enjoys and who knows how to get them interested and engaged.

How adorable is he, his little feet barely touch the floor.

Kylee has been in piano for a few years now.  Her teacher has told me numerous times how quick and bright Kylee is and how she has a lot of potential with piano.  This year has been a little harder since she’s so busy with gymnastics, she would often only practice twice in the week.  But she learned her song and she did beautifully. 

I’m very proud of both of them!  I loved their recital!  Natalie only has a handful of students so the recital is only like 30 minutes long.  Perfect.  Grandma Anderson came and watched / helped with the kids too.

Here's the videos if they work. Two parts for Dylan because the whole thing is cute.

I'm glad Ryan kept recording to the end because it is so darn cute.  Even though it's a really small group they are playing for, they still get very nervous.

Kylee's song was longer so I'm not posting the whole thing.  Her funny part was at the beginning anyway when she announced she was starting over.  She later told me her hands were "shaking uncontrollably!"  Lol.  I love my kids.

12 Year Anniversary and Mother’s Day

Ryan and I celebrated 12 years of marital bliss by going to the new Japanese Hibachi Grill in town (Fuji).  We ran into some friends so we ended up sitting with them.  It was yummy and the grill is fun.  It would be fun to take the kids sometime.

We are not big on celebrations around here.  I was happy to have Grandma Cheryl watch the older kids so we could go out for dinner.  12 years sure flies by!

The next day was Mother’s Day.  The kids have been working on Mother’s Day pictures for at least a week.  They’re pretty proud of their work on my wall.

Dylan brought home some coupons from school.  He decided they were such a big hit that he would make me some more.  I love that kid.

Kylee put together a book with a lot of different poems in it and had the rest of the family sign it too.  It was very sweet.

Sadie made me a necklace at Preschool, along with a questionnaire.  She couldn’t wait for me to open it so I opened it a few days early, but she gave it to me again on Sunday  morning.

And the fun questionnaires they filled out at church. 

It’s great to be a mom! 

I also got this amazingly yummy chocolate caramel covered cake ball at church (I love that they give us treats on Mother’s Day!)  It’s a good thing that it came from The Caramel Tree in Rigby because if it was closer I’m afraid I would find myself stopping there often to get one of those tasty treats!

Mother’s Day is great, isn’t it?  I read a few things online (and when I say online, I mean they showed up on my Facebook feed, that’s how I get my “news” these days.  Don’t judge) that said something about Mother’s Day being hard for some because they feel like they aren’t good enough, they don’t do enough as a mother, they are hard on themselves.  I thought, huh?  Who sits and thinks about all their downfalls on Mother’s Day?  Mother’s Day is the day you sit and enjoy being adored by your children and have your husband let you know that he does know all that you do for the family and he appreciates it.  Maybe I’m abnormal, but I think it’s really sad that women are so hard on themselves, even on Mother’s Day.  I’m not perfect by any means, but I have a great family and I’m lucky enough to be called Mother so I am just going to enjoy that.

This is why I am reading less and less of all the stuff I see online.  Everything is all “what you need to know to raise boys” or “how to not push your teenagers away” or “what you should be doing for your marriage”.  Either that or pep talks about how we are not doing as bad of a job as mothers as we think we are, or how we need to change this or that.  I start to panic for a second thinking ‘I will miss something huge about raising boys if I don’t read this article!’  But then I read it and it’s mostly common sense stuff, sometimes some good things to think about, and sometimes stuff I completely disagree with.  But it’s not too hard to see how everyone is starting to feel inadequate with all these articles floating around telling us all what we should be doing.  Bleh.  Leave me alone.  I’m getting along just fine without every mommy-blog in my life.  :)

I mean, I must be doing something right to receive these special notes from Dylan for no reason at all,  Other than my homemade pizza 3>

Yellowstone

Last weekend we went to Yellowstone.  Ryan decided we should go last minute and I was a little nervous about taking Kaden because I knew it would be a lot of driving, but I didn’t want Ryan to take the kids without me and Kaden so we decided to just do it.

Kaden started out well.  He slept almost all the way to West Yellowstone.  He started getting fussy and we stopped at a park in West Yellowstone to let the kids play while I fed him.  He even did well for the first part of all the driving.  We drove towards Old Faithful, stopping at a few stops along the way.

My favorite was the pink, spitting mud.  Sadie liked that one too.

Ryan's favorite was this pretty blue color.

Sadie thought this sign was great and kept talking about the boy so I took a picture of her with it.  She kept saying things like, “I never knew there was a place this beautiful!”  She is such a happy little girl. 

We had packed some food for lunch so we ate lunch in the car and then waited a few minutes for Old Faithful to go off.  Dylan is good at finding weapons.

(Honestly, I thought it would be bigger… But it’s still cool.)

Ryan wanted to hit up a few other spots so we got back in the car.  We made a few stops here and there.  We talked a lot with the kids about how these things are made, about volcanoes, about animals, etc, etc.  

Sadie wasn't a fan of the sulfur smell.  She has a sensitive nose...

We saw a lot of buffalo, a few elk, but not much else.  We also saw a car that had driven into the river.  The kids thought that was pretty crazy.  Not sure how that happened, but we're glad it wasn't us!

Kaden was great whenever we would get out of the car, but he screamed when we put him back in his car seat.  We were hoping he would fall asleep, but he just screamed.  Sadie fell asleep and I nursed Kaden while Ryan took the other two to see another spot.

And we all went to this cool green one.  It was a really pretty area.

And then we decided that everyone was pretty tired and Kaden wasn’t going to make it to the Canyon one that we had planned.  So we headed towards the exit and dinner.  Kaden screamed the whole time.  I kept thinking he would fall asleep right before we got to the restaurant and then we wouldn’t want to get out to eat.  But he didn’t.  I figured he would be exhausted and fall asleep shortly after I nursed him.  Nope.  He was wide awake and happy.

We had dinner and then headed towards home.  Kaden screamed again.  But he did fall asleep after a few minutes.  Unfortunately he didn’t even sleep for half of the drive.  We stopped again about 45 minutes from home and I tried nursing him to get him to be calm.  He was fine when he was not in his seat, but when we strapped him in again he screamed and screamed.  Then out of nowhere, about 20 minutes from home, he just gave up and stopped crying.  He stared at the kids while they talked to him and played.  He giggled and smiled at them.  He is so strange.

The kids were all really tired!  Really, really tired!  I guess a lot of driving and “hiking” will do that to you.  I know it seems like the only memorable part is Kaden’s screaming, but really it was a fun, fun day.  Sadie has been talking about it a lot all week and asking when we can go again.  They had fun looking for animals and feeling the water in different spots to see if it was warm or cold.