Trick or Treat!

We had such a FUN Halloween Weekend! Daddy had to go out of town, but the Grandparents were still here, so we went with our friends, the Linleys, to Haunt the Zoo. Stephen was Jake from the Never Land Pirates (it's a show on the Disney Channel, if you aren't familiar with it), and Jarrett was Venom (or Black Spiderman as he called it). Stephen liked his costume so much that he didn't want to wear his jacket and cover up his costume, even though it was a little chilly that evening. The two boys waited very patiently in line before we were able to go in. I don't have a lot of pictures because it was very dark and crowded once we got inside the zoo.


Stephen discovered that night that our zoo has a carousel, and I was not able to convince him that we didn't need to ride it then. So, we did, and he naturally enjoyed every minute of it! Stephen was a superstar, and walked probably 2/3 of a mile on the route before he wanted to be picked up. Of course, he only wanted Mommy to carry him, and most of the rest of the route was uphill. I had a VERY sore back that next morning - 41 lbs is NOT a light load!

On Monday, we went to a few houses on the street, of course. The skeleton hand with a bag was from the grandparents. It said "Trick or Treat!" and then, "Thank You," and then "Happy Halloween!" It was a great alternative to taking the iPad with us so he could use his talker. Stephen VERY quickly got the hang of pressing the button all 3 times at each stop.

Like our pumpkin? Stephen helped with it. He picked out the picture, and re-scooped pumpkin guts for me - I'd scraped out the pumpkin, and put some of the innards back in for him to work on. I was surprised at how much he enjoyed scooping! I wish I'd put more back in for him to work on.

Fall fun!

Whew! We had a whirlwind Fall Break weekend. On Friday, we met some friends at a local farm for some good play. At the farm, there was a nice little playground, and Stephen shocked me by going on the play structure on his own. Usually he gets a little timid in unfamiliar settings, so this was a BIG DEAL! And he went up and down multiple times, only coming to get me when he wanted to try to climb a ladder.

These are the friends we went with - Baby Korbin, Abby, and Audrey (and of course, their mommy!!)

Stephen has a little crush on Audrey - and really enjoyed watching her jump. Stephen didn't want to try the jumping pillows, but he had fun watching. We enjoyed a nice carousel ride too...

And picked out a pumpkin!

I love this picture, because none of the kids are looking at the camera - there was a tractor rolling by that had caught the attention of the two boys.

My little sweetie let me take a few pictures of him in a nice little photo area...

And of course, Stephen and Audrey had to hug and kiss goodbye. *my heart* I love these kids!

On Saturday, we took Stephen over to a home improvement store to build a monster truck.

And then on Sunday, we headed over to Frontier City with Grandma and Granddaddy, who are here for a visit! Stephen really LOVES "little houses" and there were several in the kid area at the park, and he had to go in all of them to look around.

Another carousel, but this time with Grandma!

The park wasn't very crowded on Sunday afternoon, so Stephen enjoyed "free ranging" and not holding hands. He was very good about staying with us, for the most part, and did a LOT of running and walking, with very little carrying. We took Stephen on a LOT of rides, and a great time was had by all.

All Better!

Stephen had his staples removed on Friday, and he was a SUPERSTAR! We had been concerned about how he would do, given that he had 4 adults holding him down to have the staples put in, but he didn't get upset at all. He got a flu shot afterwards, though, and he was more upset about that.

We spent some time playing outside this weekend. Stephen has discovered a love of running, and always loves his red ball. He's pretty good at kicking it, since it makes a large target.

And really, there's just nothing better than being chased by your Daddy!!

Stephen wasn't hatching the ball - he was about to try a somersault over the top of it.

Stephen was able to go back to the pool on Sunday, and resumes swim lessons tomorrow, and is back to his normal, crazy self!

Almost Five Years...

Stephen's Wednesday this week started out with drawing this at school (I'm sure he had help, but I know he put a lot of effort in to writing Pig, and he wasn't upset about doing this according to his teacher). They are learning about farms and pumpkin life cycles in anticipation of heading to a Pumpkin Farm this week for a field Trip.


Wednesday ended with this:

Yes, those are staples in Stephen's head. We made it almost 5 years in between ER visits for our boy, who last went to the Emergency room at 10 days old - he was having trouble breathing, likely due to aspirating some spit-up. Wednesday, after dinner, Stephen injured himself as a result of a high-speed backwards header in to the leg of one of our dining room chairs. He split his scalp all the way through, but we were all very tough (ESPECIALLY Stephen), and no one passed out or threw up. He had 3 staples put in, which will come out on Friday. Unfortunately, this means no swim lessons this week, but I'll find other fun things to occupy him on those days.

Don't worry - Stephen is really just fine. He doesn't seem to be bothered by it too much, and he is enjoying his showers (no baths). He'll be none the worse for wear, thanks to his mop of hair!

Guess who?

Guess who has been holding his breath to put his face in the water at the pool?

Yep - THIS guy! He did it once at swim lessons last Thursday, and his teacher was very proud of him, and then we went swimming again on Sunday, and he did it about half a dozen more times. We are very excited!!
In other exciting news, Stephen has made some huge progress in the speech department! Now, I don't know what he is doing at school in Speech, but at home, we are hearing a lot more spontaneous verbalizing, and twice, he has called me Mama, with no prompts. In fact today, I was telling him our plans to go run an errand, and he said, very clearly, "Mama Mama Mama!" When I asked him who Mama was, he rolled his eyes (yes, the almost-five year old attitude is very much present in our house!), and pointed at me, and I could almost hear him thinking, "Jeez woman, YOU are my mother - I KNOW that!" He has also been making motor noises when playing with his cars, and when we took the wagon out for a long walk yesterday. Awesome.

Stephen has always shown such an interest in reading and letters, but I was having trouble engaging him with flash cards (but I know we'll use those again down the road), so I found a free Sight Word App for the iPad. He is doing really well with that! Given the choice of two different words, he will select the correct word about 90% of the time. I'm not sure if he really recognizes the word, or if he puts it together based on the beginning sounds, but either way, it's wonderful!

Eel

At the YMCA, they use various fish/aquatic mammal names for their various swim class levels. The beginners are Pikes, and Stephen has now graduated from being a Pike, and is now an Eel. His teacher said that they generally expect that the kids in the Eel class are able to go underwater by themselves, but she understands that Stephen has a really hard time with the whole breath-holding/bubble-blowing skill set, so they are passing him based on his swimming skills alone. And since she is the Eel teacher as well, I'm not to concerned.

When we started Stephen in swim lessons in February, we were worried because he wasn't making any progress, and his teacher was very crabby and impatient with him. We worried that maybe this wasn't the right thing for him... but the next month, he had a different teacher, who was the picture of niceness and patience, and he started to make a little bit of progress. By the time summer rolled around, and we went to Tucson, he had been in 4 sessions of swim lessons, and was starting to get the hang of it. Of course, daily swimming in Tucson cemented his skills, and upon our return to swimming this month, Stephen was at the top of his class, and able to swim with only the assistance of a back float. His teacher this month has been amazing - she does not believe that there is a cookie-cutter approach to teaching these children how to swim,, and she really plays to their strengths, while challenging them at the same time. She is just awesome.

So, here are some fun swimming pictures! There are some photos where it looks like the teacher is touching him, but she is just trying to get him to bring his legs up closer to the surface.

In the photo below, Stephen swam about 30 feet on his own!
I know this one is a little fuzzy, but I just loved his goofy face. He is not very good at holding on to the kickboard, and after this picture, he let go, so the teacher had him CHASE the kickboard instead.

We also had a cool snap last week, and I managed to snap this pretty good picture of our little GQ model. It was during those 2 days, though, that we realized that our little boy is not so little anymore, and has outgrown almost all of his cool weather clothing. Luckily, it's warmed up for a few more weeks!

Silly Stephen

School has been trucking along for our big boy. He is making HUGE gains almost every day! We did some work on sight words this weekend, and even though he didn't really want to work on it, he humored me, and correctly identified the word "car." If I could get him to work on it for longer than a couple of minutes, I'm sure he would be able to identify many more words - Erik and have long suspected that Stephen can read a good number of words.

We went to a building event at one of the large home improvement stores this weekend, and Stephen was SO excited to make his police car, and then walked all over the store in his apron, just as proud as could be!

We started back with swim lessons last week, and Stephen was awesome! He even floated on his back (with support) longer than any of the other kids in his class! This weekend, we went to the pool to practice, and I got him to float completely on his own for a few seconds.

Last week, Stephen's teacher had mentioned that he had been very sleepy in class. We attributed this primarily to Stephen waking too early most mornings, but we've made some adjustments, and he is sleeping a bit longer, and he eats a good energy snack before he gets on the bus. He makes it through school with a good amount of energy, but he's pretty tired when he gets home...

This picture was from this afternoon - he didn't even want to sit up to have a snack after school!

And then after that, the silly boy went upstairs to play with his flashlight in bed. And no, he didn't fall asleep in there.