2 Months and Growing!

Today Matthew saw the pediatrician for his 2 month appointment. His stats are below as well as Joshua's 2 month stats for comparison (mostly for my sake unless someone else cares). During his appointment I did share my concern about his tiny little nostrils and his morning congestion that makes breathing and eating difficult. The doctor said he had no infection so the congestion was probably due to his small nasal passages. She gave me a steroid nasal spray to give him before bedtime to see if this helps. She also said that given some time the nasal passages will open up as he grows more. Matthew got two shots and one oral vaccination so he has slept the afternoon and evening away due to the vaccinations and probably due to the busy weekend as well. Overall Matthew is a healthy and happy little guy (and is still outgrowing his brother)!

Matthew weighed 13.11 lbs (83%) was 24 1/2 in. (89%) and head circumference was 40.5 cm (54%)

Joshua at 2 months weighed 13.7 lbs was 23 1/4 in. and head circumference was 40.4 cm.

Father's Day Fun

Sunday was a day of celebrating dads and for us that means celebrating and having fun at the cottage. Before we headed to the cottage Joshua proudly gave Cory the frame he painted (he did

a great job painting it from choosing the colors to covering every milliimeter). I had given Cory his gift the weekend before as it was a ticket to the Nascar race that Sunday. Then it was on to the cottage. We spent the afternoon and early evening there eating, taking rides in the boats and playing in the water (which was surprisingly comfortable). Even Matthew got to take his first dip in the lake! We had a wonderful time and hope to get out to the cottage more this summer as we now live closer! Thanks to my aunt and uncle for having us!

Letting Them Go

I posted before about Joshua receiving a butterfly garden for his birthday. We watched the caterpillars form their chrysalids and then we hung them in the butterfly pavilion hoping (and me praying) that they would transform before our eyes into butterflies. I'm happy to report that all 5 butterflies emerged throughout the course of a few days. We never actually got to see one come out of the chrysalis, but rather we found them each time sitting next to the chrysalis they had come from. Joshua has kept the butterflies in his room for over a week and tonight we finally convinced him to let the butterflies fly off into God's creation. Once we opened the pavilion a few butterflies flew off, but there was one who took it's time in escaping to the wide open skies. Now the pavilion is ready for when Joshua tries to catch bugs and butterflies this summer. Perhaps we'll send off for more caterpillars next spring and watch the whole metamorphosis right before our eyes again.

Coaxing a butterfly to fly off.

Tractors, tractors everywhere!

With the front lawn now coming in we thought we'd better start on landscaping. So, we headed out to Countryside Greenhouse out in Allendale on Saturday. If you've never been you should definitely check it out, it is an amazing place. We got most of the plants and a tree purchased to fill up the landscaping in the front yard and the best part is that they still had a great selection and everything we bought (all perennials) were 50% off! After the greenhouse we needed to eat lunch, but on the way we saw a number of tractors in the parking lot of a Family Farm and Home that we passed - apparently they were having an antique tractor show and a petting show that afternoon. Because the boy doesn't miss a beat, Joshua immediately asked if we could go see the tractors. We ate lunch and went back to check out the tractors and pet a few animals they had out. Joshua was enthralled by all of the tractors and even got to take a ride on a 1934 tractor and steer it! What a dream for a little boy! Glad we randomly ran across this little event.

Petting the goat.



Petting the calf.

Check out all the tractors! It was a sea of green and yellow!

Two extremely old tractors.

Joshua loves tractors!

Puffy Paint = Boredom Buster on a Rainy Day

Today I have a four year old and three year old who really want to go outside, but it's raining so that's not a choice and they are getting stir crazy. So, what should we do? We needed a fun activity to distract us from the dreary weather and quick. I thought back to my preschool teaching days and faintly remembered a fun puffy paint recipe. Unfortunately I couldn't find my recipe, but not too worry the mighty internet search finally revealed just the recipe I was looking for. Joshua, Owen and I set to work creating puffy paint. It's a simple recipe - equal parts of glue and shaving cream with a little food coloring added in, just put in a bowl and mix it with an electric mixer. We beat the shaving cream and glue together first (we did add more shaving cream to make it "puffier") then separated it into four bowls and stirred in neon food coloring. The recipe said if you were going to paint with this to put it in squeeze bottles, but we decided we could be more creative if we used paint brushes, besides the paint seemed a bit thick to squeeze out of a bottle and it was too darn messy to get in the bottle to begin with! Joshua and Owen had a great time painting and did so for almost an hour! It was a great activity, very simple recipe and provided lots of creative fun. If only I'd remembered to cover the table and have them wear paint shirts to begin with things might have been a bit cleaner, but hey they had fun and that's all that matters!

Fun at Festival

Despite the rain that was forcasted for Sunday afternoon we decided to head downtown for Festival. This year there were quite a few kid's activities offered that we thought Joshua would like to take part in. Even though we did feel a few sprinkles at one point we were able to eat some of the delicious festival food - the chocolate waffle sundae was delightful (Joshua's diving into it in the picture on the left)! Joshua made something in the "Glue-In", rode on the huge tire swing, made a "Mad-Hatter" hat, created paper art and made a beaded bracelet at the art museum. He chose not to do the "Paint-In" because parents weren't allowed in and he didn't want to be by himself. He also chose not to have his face painted - a bit outside of his non-messy comfort zone I guess. The other activity we were able to take part in was the Michigan Child Identification Program or MICHIP which is a free program that gives you a disk of your child's identification information including a picture, digital fingerprints and voice sample along with a impression of your child's teeth that of course holds your child's DNA all in a neat little packet that could aide police in finding your child shall they, God forbid, ever go missing. We've done other child identification kits, but this is far superior due to the technology they use. Overall we had a fabulous time! Joshua wanted to know if we could go back another day and was sad to find out he'd have to wait until he was 5 to go back. Guess we know what we'll be doing the first weekend of June next year!

Making his "Mad Hatter" hat.


Nice hat!

Chocholate waffle sundae - YUM!!!

Riding on the giant swing - you can barely see him tucked in there!

Creating a "ramp" for his cars at the "Glue-In"

A Visit to Cran Hill Ranch

Last summer we camped at Cran Hill Ranch a couple of times and really enjoyed it. This year we are not sure how much camping we will do. For now we only have one trip planned in August and that might very well be it as we have an infant this year - feels like I haul a bunch of baby stuff with me just to run an errand so I can't imagine all the baby paraphernalia I will have to load the trailer and car with! So this past weekend Shawn, Erin and Owen were taking one last camping trip as a family of three up at Cran Hill and invited us to visit Saturday. Knowing Joshua would love a chance to visit Cran Hill and get a taste of camping we took them up on their offer and spent Saturday afternoon and evening there. Coincidentally they had a little carnival set up at the campground Saturday afternoon so we took the boys to play on the inflatables and play some carnival games. The favorite by far was the inflatable slide that we practically had to drag them away from - even Cory and Erin (yes, even at 9 months pregnant) went down it! After the carnival it was time to fit in a little playing at the playground, fishing, roasting hot dogs on the fire and of course making s'mores! Below are a some pictures from our visit (put your cursor over the pictures as they slide by and captions will pop up).

Waiting for the butterflies. . .

For Joshua's birthday a month ago we bought him a butterfly pavilion that comes with coupon to have 5 caterpillars mailed to him. We finally sent in the coupon and received the caterpillars a week and half ago. Joshua has been watching and waiting for them to turn into chrysalids, which can be hard for a sometimes impatient 4 year old. Finally yesterday morning the last caterpillar finished forming his chrysalis so we took them all out of their cup and attached them to the butterfly pavilion. Now Joshua is patiently waiting for the butterflies to emerge. (Please excuse the 'just-rolled-out-of-bed' look in the pictures below, but Joshua literally had just gotten up and noticed that the final chrysalis had formed and he wanted to move them to the pavilion right away.)

Brothers!

Oddly enough Joshua likes to try to match Matthew with their clothes. Of course finding matching clothes for a 6 week old and a 4 year old doesn't happen very often. Thought I did find very similar outfits for them to get their pictures taken in later this summer which will be cute. So I had found the T-shirt Joshua is wearing in the picture on clearance a couple weeks ago and it just happens that Matthew has a little onesie made by the same company. Right away Joshua noticed they matched so he wanted to make sure they wore their "matching" shirts on the same day and have their picture taken of course. (Love the two extremes - Matthew with very little expression and Joshua with an overly cheesy grin.)

Comparison

When first born Matthew reminded me very much of Joshua as a newborn. A few days after being home Matthew had already changed and the differences between the two boys were more pronounced. Lately however, I have thought that Matthew is again looking more like Joshua did at the same age. This week I put Matthew in one of Joshua's old outfits (right down to the same socks) and then remembered I had a picture of Joshua in the outfit. I quick snapped a pic of Matthew so I could put them side by side and compare the similarities and differences between the two. As you can see in the pictures above, you can definitely tell they are brothers, but the head shapes and hair lines are the biggest difference. My favorite part on both of them, the cubby cheeks!

Pictures

Okay, so people are right. I am not as good about taking out the camera and snapping pictures of the second born. I must say it's a bit more of a challenge as I'm juggling the two kids to consciously make an effort to get the camera out. So, I've been leaving it out of it's case so it's easier to grab. Here are a few random pictures of Matthew from the last week.

Smiling!

I had somehow caught Matthew randomly smiling a couple weeks ago, but last week he started actually smiling when we smiled or talked to him. Gotta love the grin that creeps across that little face and lights up your world when all you do is say "hi"! My heart fills with joy and the tears come to my eyes at the sight of his adorable smile - makes those 3 am feedings a bit more bearable!

1st Year of Preschool Completed!

Last night was the last preschool event of the year. I still can't get over how a whole school year has flown by and how Joshua's 1st year of school is already done! Joshua had a great year thanks in large part to his wonderful teachers! They made his first experience in school a very positive one. They were the constant in his ever-changing little world this year as we moved twice and added another member to our family. They taught Joshua many things like problem solving, sharing, being part of group, cognitive skills such as patterning and sorting and Bible stories. They were the heart and hands of Jesus. I am so thankful that Joshua was able to experience the preschool program that I put my heart and soul into for so many years and to have such loving and caring teachers. I don't think the realization of not going back to that school has quite hit him yet. I know that when it does he will miss his friends and his teachers. I too will miss his teachers who are both good friends of mine - Jessie, his teacher on the left was my student teacher and then we hired her to take over for me when I had Joshua and Natasha, his teacher on the right, taught at my school but not in the preschool program while I was there which was something we always had hoped would happen. We will definitely be staying in touch with these two wonderful women and hope to go visit them next school year. Next year brings many unknowns as Joshua will be attending a new school and teachers who we do not know, but we look forward to new preschool adventures! For now, it's on to lazy sunny summer days!