The Brown Brick Road

Happenings

June 5, 2015

What’s been going on around here the past week or so? Lots!

Poor Samantha is learning the realities of having 2 older brothers and that it means having to wear things like boy pjs…

pjs

and a boy sleep sack. At least she’s surrounded by pink lovies! 🙂

sleep sack

Thanks to the space in our new driveway, the boys have been loving getting out the fire truck! It’s even reignited Maxwell’s love of all things firemen and he’s been wearing his firetruck t-shirts all week! Hooray!

fire truck

Last weekend we went over to Jessica and Watson’s house for a little bbq with friends. It was great – good food, a sprinkler for the kids, and popsicles for all!

brothers

babies

bbq

sprinkler

spirnkler

jack

popsicles

bbq

The boys have been thoroughly enjoying the nice weather and playing outside. As I mentioned last week, we got Maxwell a new orange scooter. It was a 2 wheel one and, while he was doing pretty good with it, it was a little difficult for him to ride so I got him another one with 3 wheels and he’s been zipping all around on that thing! Well, Spencer decided he needed a scooter too and kept trying to take Maxwell’s so I went over to Wal-Mart and got him one of his own – a RadioFlyer “My First Scooter”…

scooter

He was happy with that for about 5 minutes then just wanted Maxwell’s scooter again. Lesson learned – I should have just gotten them the same thing from the beginning. So, after asking Spencer over and over that he was sure he wanted “geen” and not orange like Maxwell, I ordered him his own big boy scooter.

scooter

He could not be happier! It came on Wednesday afternoon and they immediately took off on those things…

scooter

and were back at it by 8:00 Friday morning!

scooter

I have to say, it was the right decision. These scooters are great and after just one day of practice, Spencer is zipping around on that thing with no problems. Maxwell is a speed demon on his! The scooters are these – Micro Mini. Highly recommend!

Finally, Robert had to travel for work this week which meant dinner at the Mexaurant for me and the kids…

mexaurant

and nightly pj pics to send to Dad!

pjs

and, yes, I bought that baby girl some girl pjs! 🙂

girl pjs

Have a great weekend!

Rolling almost over

June 4, 2015

Every time I put Samantha down on her back, she ends up like this…

rolling over

She’s almost rolling over but that bottom arm just gets stuck and she can’t get over the hump!

rolling over

I give her a little push though and she rolls over on to her belly and then she’s just as happy as can be!

rolling over

Happy, sweet baby girl!

rolling over

Swim Lessons

June 3, 2015

The Sunday that we got back from New Orleans, the boys had their first of 5 swim lessons. We’ve been taking a break from our other swim lessons for the past few months and decided to take advantage of an opportunity to do 1 week of lessons at our friend’s house with a great instructor. There were 10 kids in the class and each kid takes a 3-4 minute turn in the pool over and over. It’s a quick in and out but good focus on the skills they need.

Unfortunately, the sprinkles came when we got to our first lesson!

swim lessons

It eventually stopped and everyone was able to start taking a turn in the pool. My boys were SO excited to get in on their first turn and loved it!

swim lessons

However, by that time their second turn came around, Spencer had NO interest in getting back in! Not sure what happened but I had to drag him in kicking and screaming and it continued like that for the rest of the lesson. He’s always LOVED getting in the pool and I was so afraid I was ruining his love of the pool! But, we stuck it out and came back the next day. By their second turn on the second day, there were smiles all around! I think they just had to get used to Mrs. Laura…well, that and the fact that I started to talk to them about what animal they wanted to be in the pool! They both couldn’t wait to get in and swim like tiger sharks! ha!

swim lessons

The only downside? Having to sit outside in the not so hot weather in between turns! brrrr!

swim lessons

Don’t they look like they’re having fun?! ha!

swim lessons

By Tuesday, the boys continued to progress and were screaming when they had to get OUT of the pool! We also figured out a better way to lay out in the sun and keep warm between turns!

swim lessons

By the 3rd day, everyone was loving swim lesson and starting to show some good progress in the pool!

swim lessons

Laura was teaching Maxwell how to swim and take a breath without stopping swimming. By the end of the week, he was just about able to swim the entire length of the pool while sticking his head up to take a breath while swimming. He needs to work on keeping his breath short and kicking his legs while he sticks his head up so his body doesn’t sink down. For Spencer, she was working on getting him to keep his head down and looking at the bottom of the pool so his kicks will be out of the water and more productive. We’re just trying to keep him from running standing up underwater basically.

We skipped the lesson on Thursday. It was really chilly outside and the boys (and me!) were all exhausted from a week of summer school and daily swimming. Everyone needed a long nap more than another swim lesson. The last lesson was on Friday morning and I couldn’t convince Maxwell to go but I did get Spencer up there and he did great!

swim lessons

He even got a special treat when the lesson was over! He was a happy little tiger shark!

donut

It was a good week of lessons and they are becoming better swimmers all the time! I’m going to post a few videos of the week below if you’re interested…

Morning Greeting

June 2, 2015

Last week Samantha got quite the morning greeting in her crib!

morning

So sweet. With 2 older brothers, she better get used to chaos from the first minute of the day!

morning

Funny – the day after I took these pictures, my Timehop app pulled up this picture…

morning

No better way to start the day!

4 months!

June 1, 2015

My baby is 4 months old! She is the sweetest little baby that ever was. Seriously.

skb 4 months

Maxwell at 4 months…

mbb 4 months

and Spencer at 4 months….

spencer 4 months

Several people have commented that she looks like Spencer but I say, no way. She looks so much like Maxwell at this age. Whoever she looks like, she sure is cute!

skb 4 months

She wasn’t much into smiling for our photoshoot. Both of her big brothers were in the room too and I think she was just trying to keep up with them…and maybe a little scared by their rambunctious behavior! ha!

skb 4 months

Case in point…brother photo bomb! 🙂

skb 4 months

Samantha is loving her hands these days and chews on them a lot. We recently got out the jumperoo and she has a blast rocking back and forth. She’s trying hard to roll over but can’t quite get past her side yet – that bottom arm just gets stuck!

skb 4 motnhs

4 months old

Sleeping is going good. She takes 2 or 3 naps a day – one at 9am, one around 1:30 and then sometimes a (very) short one around 5:30. I feed her and get her into bed around 7:30 every night. I’m still swaddling her at nap time but recently stopped swaddling her at night. Just a few nights ago, we sort of let her “cry it out” and she screamed for about an hour. That was no fun but she’s cried less and less each night and I’m sure will be down to no crying soon. While she has slept through the night a few times, she more often gets up once somewhere between 2 and 4am. I feed her and then put her right back to bed where she will snooze away until around 6:30 or 7:00. It’s very manageable and I’m grateful for that!

4 months