Summertime!

Wow! So I'm averaging one blog a month. Maybe when the twins get older and less underfoot, I'll do a better job with this. :)

Lots of things have happened since the beginning of May. Probably the most important things (and I'm sure he would agree with me), would be Josh turning 6 and finishing Kindergarten. With the Katy ISD calendar, both those events happened to fall on the same day. As a result, Josh ended up having a three-day birthday celebration. He went to an Astros game with Dan and Uncle Jeff (which the Astros actually won!), had a small party at home, and had a special cookie cake brought to school during recess the day before his birthday. It's hard to believe that the little boy I held in my arms in the hospital not long ago is 6 years old already. As my three boys grow bigger all the time, I find that I can relate to my parents who always embarrassed me when they brought up stories about my childhood. And now I find myself doing that with Josh, telling him about the things he used to do in relation to what the twins are learning to do now. It's truly a blessing to be a mom!

After much back and forth between us and folks at the school, Josh has officially been promoted to first grade next year. I need to spend time with him on reading this summer to make sure he doesn't lose any of the progress he's made. But other than that, he's doing great academically. Behavior is something we'll continue to work on, but I can already see progress he's making on self-control. Some days are better than others of course, but I think he's trending in the right direction, by the grace of God!

Here are a couple pictures from Josh's birthday party. Dan and I bought him a scooter this year, which he absolutely loves. I just wish it wasn't 95+ degrees everyday so he could enjoy it outside more!

The twins are getting bigger all the time. I just moved them up a shoe size, but hopefully we'll stay in 2T clothes for a while! Andrew is completely enamored with golf right now. I think that's partly due to watching golf with Daddy on TV, but he has some plastic golf clubs that he plays with every day in our house. The boy has a great golf swing at 21 months! I've been very impressed at how he hits and chases the ball all over the house. I guess he's trying to imitate what he's seen. And it's so funny to watch his reactions to golf on TV. He gets so excited when the guys make a good shot and points to the "flag" and "ball" and has started saying "good shot". :) Andrew is talking so much right now. Here's short list of the words he can say thus far - this, ball, shoe, "chick" (for chicken), juice, golf, "bass" (for basketball), Josh, Dada, Mama, up, out, box, go, grass, flower and flag (although he gets the last two confused at times). It's so great that he's learning to communicate more and more!

Evan is my champion stair climber. I swear, he can almost go up as fast as I can, just sliding his hand along the wall or banisters for balance. He's even attempted to go up and down the couple stairs on the landing without holding on to anything. Fortunately he doesn't try that on the main portion of the stairs! And he's FINALLY showing some interest in picking up and eating fruit again. For those who don't know, when I switched from baby to table food, Evan refused to eat anything that wasn't dry and/or crunchy (i.e. crackers, cereal, chips). He's not using utensils yet like Andrew, but the fact that he would even pick up an apple or peach slice to gnaw on is such a big step! And although he's not talking much, he's starting to do what Andrew did a couple months ago - point and say "this" to everything. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before he's talking more and more.

Here are a couple of pictures of the twins - Andrew playing golf in the living room and a cute closeup of Evan. I included one also of Evan and Josh "sword fighting". Evan has no fear and Josh is so great with his little brothers! I'll try to write more this summer to keep everyone up to date.