An Update

Jonah is having a great fall! He started preschool at a church in town at the beginning of September. It is just Tuesdays and Thursday mornings for 2 hours. The church is about 6 blocks from our house. So, when the weather is nice enough, Silas, Lydia, and I walk to pick him up. He is also enjoying being back at Bible Study Fellowship (BSF), which we go into Omaha for on Wednesday mornings. Right now the highlight of his week is Awana on Wednesday nights. It meets at another church it town. Jonah knows a few of the kids in his Cubbies class from VBS this summer and has loved being with them weekly. He is learning verses each week and hiding them in his heart! About a week and a half ago, for a variety of reasons we decided to take a break from TV and videos for our kids. It has been a great thing for Jonah. His already lively imagination has grown. He spends a lot of time writing and drawing on his Magnadoodle. He just plays better. I'm sure we will start letting the boys have screen time again at some point, but for now it has been a good, peaceful time at our house. Oh, but he does get to watch Jeopardy. Lydia usually eats right around the time it is on. So, the boys, Lydia, and I sit on the couch and watch just about every afternoon. I don't know if he's gathering anything from it, but from the commercials Jonah knows about Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Bob Kerry (running for US Senate in NE), Aleve, Seabond, and the AARP. I guess you can tell what the demographic is that they are targeting during Jeopardy! Jonah turns 4 in about a week. He is growing up so fast!

Silas is growing up so much! There is nothing like having a new baby to make a sibling grow quickly. Silas also loves going to BSF on Wednesdays. He will often chant "Bible study! Bible study! Bible study!" And, many weeks he will immediately exclaim, "I had fun Bible study!" when I pick him up from his class. Silas' expressive language has really expanded since Lydia was born. It has been so fun to hear about the things going on in his little mind. One thing I love is that he has picked up on the word and use of "because" from Jonah, but he doesn't yet know how to complete a "because" statement. So, he will often say, "I don't want to because" or "I like it because" and then trail off. It is so cute! Silas loves to play outside and will spend much of his time with his toy lawn mower pretending to mow the lawn. I think Sy misses Jonah when he is at preschool and Awana as he will often talk about Jonah while he is gone and is always excited to go pick him up. Silas is our mischievous one. If we aren't watching too closely at home, he will make his way into our bedroom to play on my kindle. One day last week while I was feeding Lydia, Sy decided to explore the kitchen a bit. The picture below shows the result - a bowl full partially eaten pears.   

3 1/2 weeks

4 1/2 weeks

5 weeks

5 1/2 weeks

Lydia is just growing too fast. I can't believe that she is already 6 weeks old! She is finally moving out of the sleepy newborn stage that neither of our boys really had. Just in the past week she has become so much more interactive. She is smiley and coos quite a bit. I love how she coos. She often looks right at us and you can see the intentionality in her cooing. Lydia is really trying to talk to us and tell us things! I'm interested to see how it becomes part of her developing personality. Lydia still eats well and sleeps well at night. She seems to have gotten herself onto a schedule of waking up at 2:00am, sometimes even right on the dot, and then between 5:30 and 6:00am. She has been doing this since about 1 week old. I'm hoping she will start stretching those times out soon! Lydia wears mostly 0-3 or 3 month clothing and some of it is already getting tight. I don't know how much she weighs as we don't see her doctor again until 2 months old, but I know she is a big girl. Lydia loves to be held. I think she would be held all day and night if it was her choice. But, she also likes to be on her tummy and is getting fairly strong. I'm trying so hard to simply enjoy every moment of this stage of her life. I love the newborn phase and Lydia is growing out of it so quickly! 

That's our update for now, but there will be more blogs coming soon. I started this one before the weekend but never finished it as we had a very busy weekend. More blogs with pictures to come of our weekend of Halloween festivities!