Dylan update, 9 years!

Baseball has been a big part of Dylan's 9th year of life.  He tried out in January for the kid-pitch division (AA little league) and made it onto the Yankees in the spring learning a lot from the older kids on his team.  In the fall, Dylan played AA again, this time being one of the older kids on the Cubs.  He got to pitch his first full inning and did a lot of catching too.  Dylan has a great attitude about playing baseball.  He really loves the game and loves playing and doesn't get too upset when he loses.  We've had a number of parents come up to us and tell us they love watching Dylan play because he is so enthusiastic and you can tell he loves playing.  This is especially true when he gets to pitch.  Someone said he was "moxie."

Now Dylan even has longer hair like the major league players.  Now that fall ball is over Dylan still
enjoys playing inside baseball/handball with Daddy in the family room.  Can't get enough.

Between baseball seasons, Dylan swam with our pool's swim team again this year.  He earned "place" ribbons (as opposed to participation ribbons) this year including a second place in breast stroke at the B meet.  This was especially noteworthy since the first two meets in which he swan the breast stroke he DQed (disqualified).

Dylan also has gotten into Pokemon this year and like to go with his friend Jonathan to the Pokemon league time at our library.  He's still more interested in collecting the cards rather than actually playing the game.

Academically, Dylan entered his first science fair this year and got some good compliments on his demonstration of static electricity using a spoon and a Cheerio.  Dylan continues to read a ton, often having 3-4 books or series going at once.  He finished all the magic tree house books and has started reading non-fiction (mostly biographies) now.  Dylan continues to do well in school although the sitting still can still be challenging.  He sat on an exercise ball in class this year to help with that.  

Musically, Dylan graduated from the Musicmakers at the keyboard program and began partner lessons this year.  Practicing as become a little less painful for mommy and more challenging as I tried to help him with more complicated things like constant tempo and correct dynamics.

Dylan has achieved a lot with scouts this year too.  He went from a Wolf to a Bear scout and earned a number of belt loops and academic pins working with Daddy to complete the achievements.  He attended scout summer camp for the first time this year - first time at camp without a parent there with him.

For his birthday, Dylan had a sleepover with 4 friends from school.  They watched a movie and built a fort to sleep in.  Most of the boys took their shirts off to be like Dylan because he doesn't sleep with a shirt.  I had to come down at 2:30 to tell them to be quiet.  Lots of fun though.

At his check up, Dylan weighed 54 lbs (12th percentile) and was 49 inches tall (7th percentile).  That's a 5 lb and inch and a half gain from last year.

Dylan continues to be very social (befriending the new kid in the class even before school started) and a leader (e.g. the no shirt thing).  He has a lot of self-confidence and can focus on the one good thing his coach says to him among 5 other corrections.  We are starting to see a lot more maturity come through (save for the weird frantic aversion to his sister's feet.)  Dylan is a great big brother and both Lydia and Levi admire him.  He's a fun kid to have to watch grow up because he's so good at so many things.  He's still our biggest challenge parenting-wise but maybe just such is the life of the first born.  Dylan amazes us with his biblical knowledge and understanding on a weekly basis and it's because of all this that we keep telling him he'd make a great campus minister.  



 

Levi Update, 15 months!

It's been a busy three months for Levi!  After taking his first steps around 12 months, it was only about three weeks later that he was walking as his major mode of transportation and had dropped crawling for the most part.  Now he is running.  In the picture above he was putting Dylan's baseball hat on and thinking it was super funny.  At 15 months, he is playing on the playground and going down the small slides by himself.  I was actually dreading the toddler years but now that we're here I'm remembering the fun parts about this age - watching Levi learn and accomplish so many new things and actually communicating back and forth with him (other than responding to his cries which of course we've done from birth).  Now he calmly tells us something that he's thinking about.  Levi learned how to say "ball" pretty quickly and loves throwing balls.  He has a pretty good arm already.  He moves his hand back and forth (like he's playing with his toy car) and says "vroom vroom" when he sees a car.  (We were at a raceway the first time he did that back in August.)  We think he has other words for things that we haven't figured out yet.  For example, we think he is saying some combination of Dylan and Lydia - Da-EE-A.  And he makes the same sound every day when he wakes up from his nap and looks out the window and points.  Maybe we'll figure that one out in the next three months.  Another thing that happens when he wakes up from his nap is that Martin or I will give him a hug and he hugs us back by tapping us on the back.  It's super cute and feels like he is returning our love.  I feel like Levi mimics us a lot.  Like more than the other kids did.  In the picture below he is taking a marker and trying to write a new event on the calendar just like Mommy had just done (October has been a busy month!)
  

Levi has seemed to instantly (right at 15 months) get into books.  He gets books from the shelf and brings them over to us for us to read to him.  If we are sitting on the floor he plops down in our laps.  His current favorite is The Little Blue Truck.  He stops on one page and does his vroom vroom sound and car motion.

At his 15 month appointment, Levi weighed 23 lbs 9 oz (40th percentile) and was 31.5 inches tall (70th percentile) and was in the 75th percentile for head circumference.

Levi is still eating a lot and eating more and more table food.  His favorite is yogurt.  Probably because he won't drink milk from a sippy cup.  He takes the sippy cup and turns it upside down and pounds it on the high chair tray.  So needless to say I'm still nursing.  The plan has been to try to wean at around 17 months which is when Dylan and Lydia quit.  But that's around Christmas and he's the baby so I'm saying 19 months is the absolute end.  I'll be going on the women's retreat then so that will be a good stopping point.

New Car!

Today we said goodbye to the car that Martin and I went on our first date in.  After 14 years, it was time to replace the Maxima.

We got a used 2015 Mazda6.  Martin (who hates spending money even on a new car) seems pretty pleased.  

I think it looks pretty slick.  I would have definitely gone out with Martin if was driving this when we started dating.

The big kids like the big trunk.

When Daddy gets home from work, they say "see ya, we're going to go read in the trunk of the Mazda."

Levi hasn't gotten to ride in it yet since we haven't put his car seat in.  (Never put his car seat in the Maxima either.)  But he likes to make the "Vroom vroom" noise when we talk about cars.  We have to teach him "zoom zoom" since we own a Mazda now.