Few Things from Spring 2015

Goodness gracious there is so many things that I know I could never get totally caught up, but Greta is just so completely fine with so much personality and littleness independent. She's been saying quite a few three and four and even five or sentences. She likes to copy her brother and therefore has really been quite advanced by watching him. The other day when we were in bed we just heard her singing the ABCs and she got all the way to Q and she was even singing into! Of course she wasn't enough enunciating great, but it was definitely the ABC song. And then a few days ago I asked her if she could count to 10, and she totally did! Of course it wasn't enunciated very good, but she totally did! So I'm trying to start working with her on her colors, even though it's still pretty early. Sometimes I really wish that she would have some sort of interest in the TV, but she just really doesn't seem too. Which is okay I guess. We're not really supposed to start letting them watch TV until their two years old anyway. That's something she does not copy her brother :-) dirty watch is probably too much cartoons and videos, but it sure helps us out. I feel guilt about it every single day, but hopefully it's not ruining him too much. Georgie just had his four year appointment, and I did his questionnaire, and there was only like ONE question on the whol thing that he was a 'sometimes' - not a 'yes'. I was so happy - he's right on track and maybe even a little advanced. Of course I try not to take credit for anything bc we've been blessed by God to have smart kids! - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone Tara Gatseos

Spring/Summer 2015

Once again, as usual, I have so much that I could talk about that it overwhelms me and so I keep putting it off. But as usual also, I think you're at least documenting some information rather than none is still worth it. Greta is a super Great talker, and now says up to 10 word sentences at times. She strings thoughts together like any two or three-year-old. She is very cute, and definitely has us wrapped around her finger at times, although we try not to do that. Her hair is getting Longer so it's been fun to do it differently's. We just finally had bangs cut for her for the first time a couple weeks ago. Georgie is no longer a little toddler at all, he is all boy, and a very handsome very smart boy, at that. he is definitely learning all about feelings and motivations and proper social behavior. He is very self-sustaining, which helps me out a lot. He is very good at getting dressed by himself and both kids help me around the house with chores, which is really nice. We just started to casually implement chores for him, and have trained been trying to have him make his bed in the mornings, and they both often help me set the table for breakfast. Feel like helping transfer laundry for me and putting it in the laundry basket. Georgie is way way way too into watching videos, and George and I feel guilty about it often, but sometimes we just really need him to do that so that we can get things done or sleep in a little. He still wakes up pretty early – usually anytime between 615 and 645. I've pretty much let go of the hope that I can get him to sleep later. But we've really been pretty consistent about making him stay in his bed until 7 o'clock and read books, and then he can watch videos after 7 o'clock. He still takes a nap usually, though some days he really doesn't seem that tired. There was a period of time A couple months ago where I decided to not push his nap, and give him the option of quiet time for. He fell asleep every single day for like two weeks during his quiet time! And then he basically just started saying that he would like to nap instead of quiet time. But some days he just doesn't go down that easily. It depends on our life and what's going on, And how much we are staying up later at night, which is really hard during the summer because it stays light so late. So when he gets to bed later I usually do make him do a nap, and I adjust his week time based on how long nights sleep he got. I do the same thing with Greta. She usually stays awake about 4 1/2 to 5 hours before going down for her nap. There have been a couple chunks of time where I got her to be doing a 2 to 2 1/2 hour nap, but being the summer and staying up later than I would prefer, she just frequently is overtired, and so therefore only does about an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half nap. It frustrates the heck out of me that I can't seem to ever get her caught up and haven't been able to get her to go back to her longer naps and probably like a month now. It's really hard during the summer though, and generally both can't act fine even when they are a little bit overtired, so I really really try to let it go. I'm definitely more anal about it then most of my friends, I'm finding. It's actually quite deal in my life and takes up a lot of my thoughts – their sleep! It's kind of sad I know. Right now, Greta usually goes down anytime between 630 and 730 at night – usually closer to 730. And Georgie goes down around eight or 830. I have definitely thought several times about forcing him to stay awake all day, so that he would go down easier at bedtime, because a lot of times it takes up to an hour to fall asleep. But sometimes it's just so nice to have that time alone during the day when their naps overlap, and he really does like his nap, so I haven't made him give it up yet. So that's their sleep right now. As far as eating, Greta is still pretty picky. We never cater to her though, and always offer her what we're having for dinner. Often times she'll just end up picking at it, and a large majority of her diet consists of fruit. She loves all fruit. She does like cucumbers fairly well, and carrots somewhat, that is as long as they are dipped in ranch. :) she likes cheese a lot and loves all things sweet. She is always asking about dessert and candy and cookies and cake. It's really sad :(. it's frustrating because she will eat chicken if we make her, and I find myself half having to feed her dinner to her with a spoon or fork, rather than her eating at herself, to make her eat it. She likes cereal and sort of will eat toast although she usually licks the jelly off. :) she asks to drink my coffee, and when I have given her drinks of it she really does seem to like it. And I do put cream and sugar, but not a ton of it, so it's kind of funny that she still likes it. Georgie is a really pretty good eater. He eats most things we give him, and we have found bribery to be very useful with both kids when we want them to eat something or more of something. It's kind of sad, but we will sometimes bribe them with dessert and it will help them to eat more. They were both getting in the habit of not eating very much of their meals, and then snacking too much in between meals because they would be hungry. Greta still asks for a banana first thing almost every morning, so we go through so many bananas. And I do think she really is hungry when she wakes up because she doesn't usually eat a ton of dinner. we do still try to eat generally healthy as a family though, and I buy all whole-wheat things and I try to keep lots of fruits and vegetables on hand, and we always offer those as a snack first, or string cheese, which the kids love to. We've been doing frozen bananas and frozen grapes as well, and they really like those. They also like smoothies when I think to make them. It's made me much more conscious of what I'm eating, and how much dessert I really do crave and eat. I am really trying to get a handle on it so I can be a better example for them. Georgie just memorized the Pledge of Allegiance because of a program enstroms was doing where they would get free ice cream if they recited the Pledge of Allegiance. With all the repeating we were doing, Greta actually memorized a fair chunk of it too. It's amazing! Her cute little squeaky crackly whiny voice, which is just her normal voice and really cute and hilarious, saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I've been trying to get it on video but it's really hard to pin her down and say all of it. Especially for the camera :-) Georgie is definitely starting to show more of an interest in reading, and he's been asking how to spell words and sometimes he'll write letters and then ask me what that word is. If it's a word that is phonetic and follows the general rules, I will have him sounded out and we will spell it together. I am slightly wondering if he might have dyslexia slightly, because George did, and sometimes Georgie will put letters that are supposed to be at beginning at the end of words – only a couple times, and it seems like there was something else he did that made me suspicious. So it's definitely on my radar, but I'm not worried about it because it's very treatable and will get through it if he does have it. But I think you definitely will start reading and writing words in this next year. I think that he is very socially smart. Sometimes I see other kids around his age that are kind of unaware of their social situation, and Georgie is always very aware. He's sensitive to peoples thoughts and feelings, and it is just really fun and exciting to see him learning about the world in this way. I love him so much! I just don't want him to grow anymore, because he is my sweet handsome smart dashing funny little boy. he is learning about the fruits of the spirit, and is definitely more aware about sharing and taking turns, which leads me to my next absolute joy – Georgie and Greta have been playing together! just in the last couple months, now that Greta is talking well, and understands everything we say, and is very mobile and runs around just like Georgie, they have realized that they can play with one another, and it is so so so adorable! I'll just start playing tag or hide and seek together, and I think Greta is just getting much more fun for Georgie, because she's more on his level now. they'll write on their hot wheels car together, and Georgie will push her down the roller coaster in the backyard. And they'll play drive-through in their little play car in the backyard. And the other morning when Greta came into the family room where Georgy was watching videos she said "I love you georgie" and he said (slightly annoyed, but atleast he still said it!) "I love you too Gretta"! I died! I melted! We really try to instill in them a love for one another, and how they need to protect each other and watch over each other and love each other. I so hope that this will continue throughout their life. I definitely think that Georgie will be a very protective loving big brother. The other day George and I were talking about something in the front seat, and sometimes Gretta will just say "what you talking bout?" And the other day when I walked in the backyard at my moms house, I heard her get up at her little kiddie table and shout to the other three kids in the sandbox "hey evybody - look at me!" So cute! Teeth. Greta has been getting quite a few more, and now has at least three of her incisors. She might even have her fourth one coming through now. You kind of just stopped keeping track at some point. I can definitely still tell when she's teething, and her insides hurt or rough, just like they were for Georgie. But she actually has a pretty full mouth of teeth now, and I think all that she will need after that is her molars. I am so so so glad to be finished with the worst of the teething. Greta definitely can get really angry and threw temper tantrum sometimes. It seems like she doesn't maybe more little more than Georgie dad. She's just kind of a drama queen sometimes, and definitely likes being the center of attention sometimes. She also is a physical touch girl, and really likes to be held by mommy a lot. So I really try to give in and hold her a fair bit because I think it's one of her love languages. she is pretty independent, and definitely likes to do everything that big brother likes to do. She always wants to sit in his car seat, and buy our own car seat, and lots of things like that, that George he never asked to do – but probably because he didn't have a bigger sibling that he was watching do it. So it's definitely a second child thing. They been going back-and-forth about doing preschool for Georgie next year, but it's hard for me to justify it when I just really don't think he needs it. He is very on track, if not advanced, and I do preschool like activities with him at home. And he is very socialized between church and mopped and play dates and small group. I'm thinking we may just do some preschool with him one semester before heel start school, so next spring of 2016. We're starting to think about schooling too. We were kind of wanting to do the dual immersion academy, but now that we're moving, scenic elementary is in our neighborhood and would be his school, and it has a very good reputation for being One of the best public schools in town. So we really need to start putting a lot of thought into that and researching some of the schools. Georgie is still in gymnastics and loves it. He has also been taking a sports class this summer through parks and rack, where he learns a few different sports. In June he learned about baseball soccer kickball and football. And in July it's all open soccer. It's been fun to for him to learn about sports. he seems to be a decent soccer player. We also did a little cooking class that was a one time thing, and we made some little snacks and that was fun for him. He does still like to help me cook and bake, when I'll let him :-) Since credit will be too soon, I'd like to get her involved in a dance class, and probably will do that this fall. She enjoys watching George he do his sports and gymnastics though. :-) I'm really excited that the kids are going to get to see their house being built. I think I will be really fun and learning experience for them, especially Georgie. I'm sure there is so much that I am forgetting, but I will try to be better about doing shorter blog posts when I have thoughts. Hopefully this is a good account though of our lives for the last few months. :-) - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone Tara Gatseos

Facial Expressions While Eating

This was a post that never got published a long time ago (obviously)!

They're SO SO cute! He's so focused and his lips are so cute (breast AND bottle). And when he's breast feeding his little arms move all about slowly, grasping everything around him. And then he'll rub his little eye with the back of his hand if he's tired. Sooooo cute! I will miss this.


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SO MUCH STUFF!!!

Okay – there is so much that I could blog about that I could probably stay here for two hours, but I'm feeling very overwhelmed and behind so I just thought I would go ahead and try to start somewhere. I will probably forget a bunch of things. Greta has just been so so so completely adorable lately – she is just Miss Independent and so so so Soso Soso incredibly smart. She said a five word sentence probably about a month ago. She said Grammy and Poppy coming over dinner? I couldn't believe it! Most kids are barely staying to word sentences, if that around when they turn two years old. she has been saying to word sentences for several months, and says three word sentences and even forward sentences often now. She's stringing words together crazily. And completely understanding every single thing we say and ask her to do. She has gotten a little bit better about not being a morning person, although she still is not The happiest morning girl. :-) A lot of times I do think it's due to teething, but it abs and flows. I can definitely tell when she's teething a lot more than I could tell with Georgie. She's very textbook and just get very cranky. She's kind of cranky in general fairly often, but she so Smart and cute and outgoing and :-) that it totally makes up for it. George and I were just talking about how she is just becoming such a little drama queen, for lack of a better term and just such a little character. She has wrapped right around her fingers and she knows it :-) she Who gets hurt all. The. Time. She pretty much cries once every two minutes due to tripping on the narrow or just running into something randomly. :-) But I definitely think it's because she has a big brother who she wants to keep up with. She is extremely active. When we went to Sherwood Park the other day, I was setting up our picnic and I looked over and she had walked up the stairs on one end of the equipment and went all the way through all the tunnels all the way up to the top of the very tallest slide on the other side of the equipment, and went right down it with no hesitation.


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Arizona trip, Gretta saying Potty, talking, virus, Gretta timeout

We are in Arizona right now, and Greta is now constantly saying the word potty, and wanting us to set her on it. It's crazy since she's just now 17 months. She seems genuinely interested and wants to be a big girl and go on the potty, but she totally doesn't understand actually going into the potty. She still has yet to actually tinkle or poop in it. It's really cute though, and sometimes almost annoying because we want to accommodate her and set her on the potty when she wants to, but she wants to so often that it gets a little repetitive. And it's not like just pulling down undies and pulling them back up, we have to take off her whole diaper let her sit on the potty and then lay her back down to put her diaper back on. Yesterday she was also trying to put Georgees undies on. It was so cute. I don't think she's really ready for potty training yet, but it's exciting that she's showing interest. Sheis also still just exploding with words and two and three word sentences. She says a sort of unrecognizable thank you now, and please and many other words. She'll say thank you daddy or thank you Paapu. Or all done mommy and things like that. She is truly a good talker for her age. She has A blister on her upper lip that appeared yesterday, that we think is a virus. She also had a small blister on her chest as well. Catherine Schnell and Dr. George really think that it's just a virus and it will go away. We're not really sure how she got it. other than that, and extreme teething and so therefore lots of grouchy Ness, she is doing good rash wise. I was so scared to come to Arizona this year in fears that she would break out and her eczema rash like last year. But she looks absolutely great so far and we've been here for over a week. She is totally at the age where she just gets hurt like literally every five minutes she's crying from tripping or barking her head etc. Dr. Price said this is totally normal, and she will push her limits because she watches Georgie and what he can do, and she's just not quite physically ready for some of the things that she tries to accomplish yet. So it's a little bit hard when she is crying so much during the day, but I know it's normal. She is also turning out to be more of a climber and Georgie. She has already tried to crawl into her pack and play from the outside a couple times now. She is definitely more of an escape he and George he ever was. It makes me nervous for when we transfer her into a toddler bed. She is as feisty as ever and Scowls at everyone she meets. almost everyone we see comments on it, and I just tell them to Scowl back at her and sometimes she'll smile. She's very expressive. She is also fairly clingy to me right now, which is hard but also very sweet. We have the kids in our room for this trip and I has been somewhat of a struggle with some very early mornings, we're making it work the best we can. we've also been starting to do more and more timeouts with her, as she will deliberately sometimes pull hair and thinks it's funny. She doesn't really hit, so that's good, but she does deliberately misbehave sometimes. And she always wants to do what we don't want her to do. We call her Greta Mary quite contrary! :) she is very independent, I think even more so than Georgie. I think George is pretty independent too, but boy is she seriously independent. I am getting quite nervous for when she turns two and three – I see some huge tantrums in our future! :( The other day I was tying my shoes, and Georgie said – mom are you doing that all by yourself? And I said yeah. And he said wow! That's incredible! So so cute. And yesterday he said mom, can you give me a hand please? It's just so cute because sometimes I don't know where he picks up these words. I'm sure it's probably all the videos let him watch. It's hard because I know we let him watch too much cartoons and videos, but sometimes it just seems so necessary. I feel guilty all the time that I don't play with my kids enough. It's hard for me and I'm trying to get better at it. I know that they both just truly love it when I play with them, especially Georgie. That's his love language :-) another Arizona development is that they have been eating us out of hotel and home! Both kids are so active here with walking and running and riding bikes around the hotel, and going to the playground, that they are just hungry all the time! I've been being more active here too, so I've been hungry or two. I feel like they're eating so so much! It's cute. Gretta is still fairly picky, although I've noticed if she's hungry enough she will eat some meat now, and she likes cucumbers which she calls 'come', which is kind of funny :) she has also started to eat tomatoes! I'm so excited! She still loves beans, cheese, Mac n cheese, and all fruit. Been giving her applesauce quite a bit, which she really likes. George is taking Georgie mountain biking for the first time right now. They and Dr. George and Janet went to south mountain while I stay at the hotel room with Gretta so she can nap. I wish I could be there to see it. It's not really going to be technically mountain biking but it will be on dirt. :-) it is all I can think of for right now, I although there's other things I think of all the time. I will try to block again when I get a chance.


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Gretta 2 word sentences

Greta is starting to use two word sentences more and more now. This morning she kept saying applesauce mama and cookies mama. So so cute! She is so good at talking and advanced for her age.


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Gretta Words, Georgie dropping nap, cute conversation, sleep schedules, teeth, videos, food dislikes, TBS dislike

Greta has been getting so many words. She is a good talker, and I would venture to say she picks up almost a new word every day. Of course they are not clear like she will say, for cup etc. Last night I said want to cookie and she said cuckoo – so cute! She is also such a night person and not a morning person. She is pretty grouchy in the mornings, and she is really really happy at night. It makes her it's hard to put her down to bed at night because she is being so cute. She is littleness independent and just walks around grinning with her cute little grin. She broke through The tooth to the left of her top left front tooth slightly before she broke through her top left very front tooth. Those two kind of came in around the same time, but her top front left tooth came in a little later than the one to the left of it. And then she broke through her bottom right tooth – the one immediately to the right of her bottom front right tooth. Hopefully that makes sense! So she has six or maybe seven teeth either completely through or broken through now. So thankful, as that really long stretch where she did not get any teeth was really hard because she was super fussy from teething. She is still doing two naps. She usually goes to bed anywhere between 730 and 830, and sleeps until around 7 o'clock, give or take. She has been waking up slightly earlier, and I think that could be a sign that she might be starting to be ready to wean to one nap. Georgie has been taking no nap occasionally, and I will let him. If he just really doesn't seem tired, and I put him down and he can't Pollis late, or if I put him down to late where he missed his window and it would make his nap too late anyway, I will let him get up. We've only done about three times now, but I expect it to happen more and more. it's really nice though, because I can make him do quiet time when he doesn't nap, and I just schedule that during grad a second nap, so I'm actually getting more time alone when he doesn't nap – it's crazy! he's been doing really good with the quiet time – I set a timer for anywhere between 30 to 60 minutes, and I give him some of his big books that have lots of pictures like the Richard scary books, and I just tell him he has to be quiet and read books during this time. It's so nice because I don't feel guilty like I do when I let him watch videos to get myself some quiet time. George he usually goes down for bed around between 730 and 815. A little earlier if he doesn't take a nap that day. And it's nice to when he doesn't make take a nap, because he goes right down for bed with no struggle. It makes me a little sad that he is starting the transition of not napping. :( greta is absolutely obsessed with bananas. She is a fairly picky eater and it is a struggle. We give her a banana almost every single day first thing in the morning, to ease some of her irritability due to hunger I guess. She probably eats 2 to 3 bananas a day – well maybe not that much but at least 1 to 2. She really doesn't like meat. She likes a few vegetables including you cumbers, sometimes tomatoes occasionally carrots. Sometimes she'll eat green beans but not always. She likes almost all fruit though so that is good. Although she does seem to sometimes almost stick her nose up at apples and pears. She absolutely loves cheese still, and it is always a go to. She seems to like eggs pretty well so that is good. She'll eat toast to with jelly on it. She's drinking orange juice now to – we started giving it to her a few months ago watered down with water just for the calcium. She calls it Jew or ah-Jew - really cute. She really likes rubber ducky's too. She calls them something that's kind of sounds like daddy. George he said something the other day that was so cute we were on our way to Chucky cheese to celebrate grandma's birthday. I was reiterating how Christmas is all about the birth of Jesus and we celebrate Jesus birthday for the whole month, and he said where is Jesus? And I said well, he's up in heaven with God – we can't see him but he watches over us and protect us and feet and we can feel his presence. and then he said I think heaven is a town. And I said oh really? Where do you think that town is? And he said I think it's by Australia! It was so completely adorable. I just died of cuteness! He is just in that cute curious stage where he is just so smart and asking questions about everything, and starting to really understand the world a lot more. He is just a little man at this point. I absolutely love this age. And Greta is getting more and more fun as well. She's really starting to understand everything we say. We have a peekaboo book with lots of animals, and I will ask her where is the sheet or where is the dog etc., and not always, but sometimes she will point to the correct animal. So she understands what I'm asking, and she's learning her animals too. She really does understand everything we say. I'll ask her to take something to daddy and she will. Or to go get mommy something, and she will. I am waiting for her hair to get just a little bit longer so it will start to stay out of her face more. It is in this awkward length where it's really long in her eyes, but not quite long enough to stay behind her ear. And then I will cut her some bangs – I'm so excited! Occasionally I will put her halo hair in pigtails – it's totally long enough, it just takes me a little longer so I don't usually have time to do it. But when I do, it is so so so cute! She looks even more like a little girl rather than a baby. She is a full on toddler. Sometimes when she gets tired, or just fussy, she will just start tripping on nothing, and she gets a little clumsy. It's really cute. Georgie is really a pretty good eater overall. I think we're pretty blessed with him. He definitely has things he doesn't like, but usually we can almost always get him to try at least one bite of something with bribery, and he almost always will. And a lot of times he likes it. he helps me bake quite a bit, and he enjoys that. We still let him watch videos in the morning because he wakes up earlier than us – he wakes up usually between 615 and 645, and we are just not ready to get up yet. Plus, we need him to stay quiet because credit usually sleeps a little later and we don't want him to wake her up. So he really really likes his videos, for better or worse. Probably for worse. He also really likes watching cartoons, which we probably let him do too much. He really likes Mickey Mouse club. Also likes Daniel Tigers neighborhood and handy Manny. For videos he also likes Cayou and curious George and police car videos. he started not liking Thursday Bible school again a few weeks ago when George started taking him because I started a small group on Thursday mornings. It has gone downhill from there. I think it's harder for him and George takes him because Greta is with them too, and he just wants to stay home with daddy on his first day off. He didn't perform in the Thanksgiving program, and had a meltdown when we tried to take him this past . So I think we are going to take December off and then we go to Arizona next month, and then we might try to start him back up in February, with me taking him again. I will just be late to small group.Georgie is absolutely obsessed with his train under the Christmas tree. He absolutely loves it! He lets it run for hours on end and just sits there and watches it. Greta likes it too. He enjoyed helping me put the ornaments on the tree as well. And he really likes wrapping presents for Christmas and birthdays. He can drop himself halfway into the carseat, just really helpful for me. I opened his door and then walk around and get Greta loaded and he can get in the car in his seat and half wait buckled in by the time I get around to finish buckling him in. It really is so nice! I feel like we are through the really really hard time with the kids, I will probably laugh that I just said that someday. But I mean like the newborn stage and the helpless stage. Greta is getting more and more independent every day, and George and I are loving it. She still sleeps in the pack n play in the front room right behind the door that goes into our front room between our bedroom and the front room. It's not totally ideal, but it works for us so were sticking with it. We're just too nervous to put them in the same room together, because we think that George he would wake her up in the mornings, and they don't always go to bed at the same time. So I think we decided to just keep it like this until we move and they have their own rooms. I know a lot of people have their kids share rooms, and we could definitely force it, but we just don't feel like our kids would sleep is good, and their sleep is very very important to us. I'm kind of a nap and sleep naughty! To a fault – it can really make or break me. It's something I struggle with, and I really try to let it go. Georgie does take a nap, it is usually fairly early – around 1130-ish. So usually goes down right after Greta wakes up from her morning nap, and then we all eat lunch after George's nap – usually. Of course there's always exceptions. But I usually do half an hour or two of time and they're both awake in the early afternoon where I can run errands. Then got a naps again around 3 o'clock give or take she usually does about an hour and 5 to 10 minutes, although early occasionally she will do a long nap like two hours or even over two hours. George he never really did that, but she does. I am very nervous to transition her to one nap, as I'm afraid she will still keep doing the approximately hour nap and not make it longer. we'll see! I'll definitely blog about it I'm sure. That's all I can think of for now – I think of things all the time and I will try to just blog about them even if it's a short blog post.


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