Logan in September

My photo taking is definitely slowing down!  Logan has been very mobile the month of September.  He's also started eating much more solids...finger foods as well as purees.  He is also on a better napping schedule now that the girls are back in school and we're not running around quite so much.  If we don't run errands (which sometimes cause him to fall asleep in the car) then he will typically go down for a nap between 10:30 and 1 and can often go with just one nap.  It usually catches up to him though and eventually he'll have a day with 2 naps or with a snooze in the car in addition to his nap.

Logan enjoys watching for the girls on the school bus.  He always smiles when he sees them get off the bus!  We've also got into a nice routine with morning school drop-off.  We get the girls dropped off at school at about 7:40 and then we come home and Logan enjoys a good nursing when the house is calm and quiet!  Logan had a stretch where he wasn't sleeping well at night and was up nursing...but we seem to be moving past that as we've added more solids and as we've gotten into more of a consistent feeding routine during the day.

Here's a link to a video of Logan eating baby puffs baby snacks:

http://youtu.be/6URZ4PG6Sns

Logan is also standing up on everything.  He will get brave and let go and stand for a few seconds, but then he either falls over or sits down.  He can walk along the furniture and on Sept 19th, I clearly saw him let go of one piece of furniture and take a step over to another piece of furniture and then grab on to the second piece of furniture.  However, he doesn't seem like he's overly motivated to walk quite yet...he's pretty fast when he crawls and he's content to do that for now.  He does stand on his tippy toes when we wants to reach something high, so he's got that figured out!  He likes to walk behind his push toy too and he enjoys pushing the kitchen chairs around the kitchen!

Here's a link to a video of Logan pushing his push-toy:

http://youtu.be/IYRXqBVmx_8

Logan is into EVERYTHING!  He doesn't like his toys that much unless someone is sitting next to him playing.  Otherwise, he likes to get into the girls' stuff or my cabinets!  He can open cabinets and drawers now.

These cabinets under the sink are locked!

This cabinet is now locked.  The day Logan broke this casserole dish was the same day I thought to myself, "I need to move those casserole dishes or else lock that cabinet too!"  Luckily, there wasn't a scratch on Logan even though he was standing barefoot in a pile of glass after he pulled these dishes out and one smashed!

This is one of Logan's favorite drawers!

Logan has discovered climbing too!

Here's a link to a video of Logan climbing a stool:

http://youtu.be/y6njgXPu4B8

Logan likes the toilet.  He has flushed it before and he loves to reach down in it.  Eww!  I have to keep the bathroom doors shut or the toilets closed.  Usually I keep the doors shut since there are also stools that Logan will climb on if the toilet is closed.  Toilet paper is another fun toy to Logan...he likes to unroll it!

Logan is my running buddy when the girls are in school!

Here's Logan smiling!  He's wearing some of the girl's old PJ's!

Logan also figured out how to clap around September 11th.  He likes to take his socks off and chew on them, especially when he's bored while riding in his carseat!  He wakes up happy most mornings and babbles to himself until someone comes in to get him.  As long as he isn't hungry, I can lay him down at night or in the middle of the night and he babbles himself back to sleep!  Overall, he's a very happy and curious 8 month old!  

Zoo

One beautiful Saturday we took an impromptu trip to Menominee Park Zoo in Oshkosh.  We all had fun on our family outing!

More September Fun

Here are some random September photos!

These sunflowers grew from the seeds that must have dropped from a single sunflower plant that Makayla brought home from school when she was in 3K!  Last summer, after 3K, the sunflower plant grew in the garden but then got snapped in half when the tornado came in Aug 2013.  Makayla was devastated that her sunflower plant was killed.  We threw out the plant and didn't think about it any more.  However, some seeds must have fell and lasted through the winter because the whole corner of our garden was taken over by sunflowers this year!  They kind of choked out our tomato plants, but they were very pretty!  Makayla was very excited!

One weekend in September Freedom had their town-wide rummage sales.  We didn't have a formal rummage sale, but the girls put a few things by the road and sat there on Saturday afternoon.  They sold 2 grocery carts, so they were happy!  :)

Having fun at the playland at Baypark Square Mall in Green Bay

More fun at the local apple orchard.  They have super yummy pears!

We had a beautiful sunrise one morning!  The photo doesn't even do it justice!

Fun Outside in September

The kids had fun playing outside one day after school!  What a beautiful day!

Lydia picked her outfit.  A tutu and some soccer shin pads...

Go Pack Go!

Chad went to the Packer game with his friend Pat.  So all the kids had to get into their Packer gear!

Chad's friend Pat with the girls!

Back to School and Playing School

The girls started school on 9-2-14.  Makayla is in kindergarten which goes all day, every day.  Lydia is in 4K (pre-kindergarten) which goes half days, every day.  Makayla was very excited that morning and happily posed for a photo!

Lydia was a bit grumpy about taking a photo!  She doesn't like photos much to start with and she was cold when she stepped outside that morning.  So here's her grumpy photo before I went in and grabbed her some pants.  We didn't have time for any more photos after changing clothes...

Here's Lydia getting off the bus after school.  She was much happier after school!  :)

Here's a happy Lydia!

Here's Makayla getting off the bus a few hours later.  She came home happy too!

Both girls always come home smiling, but our mornings were a bit rough the first few weeks.  Makayla has separation anxiety and had a hard time saying good-bye to me and going into her classroom.  She had a lot of tears and needed lots of hugs and I had to peel her off of me the first few weeks.  Then, there were a few days where she chose to ride the bus to school and she had no issues saying good bye when she got on the bus.  After about 3 weeks and a few bus rides to school, she was all of the sudden fine with drop-off and the crying stopped!  Phew!  Lydia grumbles a little about going to school, but she will go into her classroom without any problems.  Lydia would rather be home playing than going to school.  She also doesn't like to talk about school when she gets home.  Lydia gets mad when I ask her questions about school....she just wants to go play when she gets home.  Usually mid-afternoon she will randomly tell me stuff about school.  I think she is pretty shy and quiet when she is at school, but she definitely talks my ear off when she gets home.  She also doesn't like to take a show-n-tell to school...I think because she has to talk when she takes something in.  She also didn't seem to care much about what she was learning the first few weeks, but lately I've seen her being more excited about learning and telling me more about what she's learning and being proud of what she learned.  Makayla on the other hand is happy to talk about school when she gets home.  She enjoys school and the recess time and the art class and she likes eating lunch at school and taking hot lunch.  She enjoys learning and seems to be doing very well with her class work.  It is definitely a long day for her though.  She gets off the bus at about 3:45...that doesn't leave much time for snack, homework, play time, dinner, and then bedtime routine and books.  I like to have the girls in bed by 7pm on school nights or else the mornings are very rough!

I find it very amusing that the minute Lydia, and especially Makayla get home, they want to "play" school.  I think Makayla and Lydia have "played" school almost every day since school has started.  I sometimes get roped into being the student and it's not always fun...they are bossy and demanding teachers!  If you don't do something exactly how they want, they tell you that you need to move your clip down (which means you're being naughty in class).  However, they don't always give thorough instructions, so even when I'm trying to be a good student, I still get reprimanded.  They have an elaborate set-up the comes out every time they play school.  They used to play in the living room and then they'd have trouble with Logan getting into their stuff.  So then I had them move to their room.  Recently, they've moved downstairs to take-over my recently cleaned basement!

Here they were playing school in the living room!  They did not want the mama-razzi taking photos!

Here's Logan invading their stash of school stuff in the basement!  He love that purple pointer with the white pointing finger!  He knows the girls play with it a lot and he always goes for it!  Here, he opened the cupboard, crawled in, and grabbed the pointed while they were at school!