Arabelle

Arabelle does so much to help me out in our day to day activities. She is so sweet to play with Zeke or help Mae get her shoes on.

I thought we needed a little one on one time the other day, so we snuck out for dinner and some looking at Belks.

She even talked me into dessert to 'share', but there wasn't a whole lot of sharing going on. Ha!

We walked around Belks and tried on hats and sunglasses too.

We had a great time together and enjoyed one another without the distractions of the other kids. :)

Strawberry Patch

Mae's preschool class took their annual trip to the strawberry patch a couple of weeks ago. It was fun to go with just the little two.

Mae loved the playground.

She really enjoyed the strawberries!! They were supposed to pick 10 strawberries and put them in their bucket, but she probably ATE 10 and put 5 in the bucket. Ha!

Zeke had a couple of strawberries also. This picture was so funny to me. He saw an ant and watched him pretty closely for a couple of minutes.

An attempted picture of Mae and Zeke:

Ha!

Mae's first trip to the strawberry patch, when she was 11 months old and now at almost 3 years old! 

Zeke is 11 months old!

I can not believe Zeke is already 11 months old! Why am I always surprised when the baby is close to a year old? It goes by so quickly!

• Zeke is still on the same routine as last month. He is sometimes sleeping all night from bedtime until morning and sometimes he will wake around 3. He naps around 9 for 1.5h and again at 1:30 for 1.5h. We've had a couple of short nap days, but he doesn't seem to cranky afterwards. 
• He wakes in the morning around 6:30 if he sleeps all night and 7-7:30 if he woke during the night. Bedtime is dependent on naps, but usually 7:30ish. He is still in our closet at night, but I've just moved him upstairs to the boys' room for naps and that went fine. 
• He is nursing in the morning, after the 2nd nap, bedtime, and during the night if he wakes. I dropped the after 1st nap session just a week ago and have started giving him a sippy of almond milk and a small snack in place of the nursing. He isn't crazy about the almond milk, but will usually drink a couple of ounces. 
• Zeke is eating great still. Breakfast is usually 1/2 banana and either cheerios or part of a waffle with peanut butter. For lunch he either has leftovers from the night before, a small PB sandwich, or a black bean and cheese quesadilla with fruit of some kind. Supper is whatever we are having. Depending on what time we will be eating supper, he may have another fruit in the late afternoon. If we eat supper early, I will usually give him some bites of greek yogurt before bed. He is a great eater! I've noticed he is drinking a lot of water since we've been outside more too. 

• He loves to wave to people and that is one of my favorite things he does! Those little fingers opening and closing are so sweet. He will wave on command and sometimes just when someone new comes into the room or we are leaving somewhere. 
• Zeke is so active! He is all over the place and getting to be a fast walker. He loves to walk and squeal at the same time. I'm glad we've got carpet in the bedrooms because he gets silly sometimes and just falls over. He also does a funny wiggle where he shakes his head side to side. He started doing it when I would change his diaper and was trying to keep him distracted from trying to roll over. Now he will try to walk and wiggle. Here's the video! 
• He loves to mimic us and will stick out his tongue if we do and he tries to make the sounds we make. So far he can pretty clearly say "bye bye" and says "dada" all the time and when Jared comes in the room. 

• As you can see, still no teeth for Zeke! His bottom left one is right there, so it should be in soon! 
• His hair is also getting crazy. I know it needs to be cut. I just haven't taken the time to make an appointment! 

• Zeke LOVES to be outside. He is so content to just wander around and explore and is so easy going! He always seems to have a stick in his hand. 

• Zeke loves to play ball! Here's a fun video of him.
• He still does fine in the play pen for independent play time a couple of times a day.
• He is such a joy to us and I can't believe he will be ONE soon!

Here they all are at 11 months old. 

Mini Moments

Things have gotten busy at our house! Arabelle has started softball games and a swim stroke class (for summer swim team), so we are on the go more than we are used to.

Jacob and Caleb were visiting Papaw and Mamaw a few days early last week and came to Arabelle's first game!

And then we went out for pizza. We had some happy kids!

We all LOVE the warm weather. We've been spending so much time outside.

While Arabelle has her swim stroke class, we play outside.

Mae calls these poles "Mama and Daddy!!!!" Ha!

Last Wednesday we attended a class at the state park in Waycross about plants. It included a nature walk, which they all loved.

A trip to the creek:

Growing Up

Bo's bottom teeth have been barely loose for a little while. I heard Arabelle telling him about getting $1 from the tooth fairy last week and knew he was looking forward to that. He went to bed Monday was a week ago and 1.5 hours later, he came downstairs with blood all over his hands, chin, and chest and had the tooth dangling. I never knew he had so much determination! Jared got the tooth out in one pull and he was so happy!

Jared asked him why he did it and he said, "because I wanted a dollar". :)

I'm sure he will have the other bottom one out pretty soon. He's growing up! 

Chehaw Park

A couple of weeks ago, we made an impromptu trip to Chehaw park. It was the week that all the schools here had Spring Break and since we took a week off when we moved, I planned for us to have school each week. By Wednesday afternoon, we were all going a little stir crazy for some reason, so I decided to take us somewhere fun! We packed a picnic and met Mamaw at the Chehaw zoo.

Arabelle used my old camera and took a lot of pictures, but somehow deleted every single picture on the card (like 250+ pictures!!!), so we're left with a few cell phone pictures. 

Zeke LOVED the little meerkats! He watched them through the glass and one just ran back and forth for a while. 

ALLIGATORS!!! They were laying all over the place. I was pretty ready to get out of that area!

After the zoo, we had our picnic lunch and played on the play ground.

It's hard to see, but Mamaw, Arabelle, and Bo played a little disc golf on their course. It was pretty fun!

Arabelle and Mae wanted to go through the zoo again, so the boys and I stayed at the playground while Mamaw took the girls through the zoo.

Zeke is looking SO big these days in his shorts and t-shirt!

The pictures are all out of order....the top ones were off my phone and these are off Mamaw's. They enjoyed the excavator beside the meerkat exhibit.

We had a great time and enjoyed the break from school for our little field trip!