Head Bobs

It's only taken a year of swim lessons, but Stephen finally is comfortable enough putting his head in the water to do head bobs. Well, sort of... he won't dunk himself under completely, but he is perfectly happy putting his face in to the water. The ability to hold his breath has been a very difficult skill for Stephen to develop - it's one of those oral motor skills that challenges him. But he has figured it out, finally, and we are SO PROUD!!

The little fish

Stephen has been making a lot of progress with his swim lessons lately, and actually spends more time withOUT a float belt in lessons than with one.

This picture is Stephen in his new swim trunks. He really likes them, and I caught him dancing in the locker room before his class.


He's been doing better with holding on to the kick board, and it helps him to get his feet out behind him to kick.


He also swims quite a distance with just the pool noodle for support.

Back floats? Well, we're still working on those. Today, however, he did manage to do it with just one hand under his back, and no float belt (obviously, not this picture).

But this... THIS is the most exciting thing - look at that little fish SWIMMING without a float! AND his head is under the water!!!

I think that there is a possibility that Stephen might just pass to the next swim level in the next few months if he keeps this up!

Where did February go?

Where did February go? It went to swimming (look - no float belt!)...


to eating popcorn and watching videos on the iPad...

to doing art at home...

This month also found Stephen with a cold that led to bronchitis and an ear infection, and he spent a lot of time like this last week.

In other news, we started Stephen on a gluten-free diet at the beginning of the month, and we've seen a lot of improvement in his behavior since making that change. He is paying attention better, and attending to tasks for longer periods of time. His teacher at school has noticed a big improvement there as well, which was what we were hoping for, so I guess we're going to stick with it! Once we found a bread that Stephen liked, he hasn't had any problems with the switch, so it ended up being a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Build-a-saurus!!

This past weekend, we went off to the home improvement store to build a dinosaur. Stephen was very excited about this project, and worked very hard to build his dinosaur.


Stephen was not excited about putting the stickers on, so his mom did that, but he did paint and color the base.


Later in the day, Stephen and his dad spent some quality time watching soccer together.The next day, Stephen started to feel a little under the weather with a cold, and spent Sunday and Monday resting up, but is back close to full strength now!

Rollin', rollin', rollin'

Guess who's rollin' now?!? Well, for short distances, anyways...

Stephen can PEDAL his big boy bike!!! I have to make some more modifications to his toe clips (which are basically to remind him not to take his feet off the pedals), but they are working well, and he LOVES to go out and work on his bike.
Ha! I was pretty excited - Stephen pedaled and turned right in to the grass, all on his own.

Not a lot to report from Casa Heine right now, except that we got new kitchen countertops - I'll post pictures of those after I have the kitchen put back together. I'm just doing a little bit at a time, and taking the opportunity to really deep clean under the cabinets, and get rid of some stuff. But so far, we LOVE it!

Christmas, Football, and an Eye Exam

We had a great Christmas holiday over here! I was so busy having fun, though, that I didn't take very many pictures... My dad managed to get this one of Stephen and Grandma before we went to church. Stephen managed to sit nicely through an entire 50 minute church service that night! We were so proud of him.



Stephen got some very cute Christmas monster pajamas this year...


And channeled Pa Rick with his sweater vest on Christmas Day.


Stephen was very excited about his floor puzzle (really, he was - don't let the look on his face fool you!).

And he got Bumblebee too!!!

Stephen sat with Grandma and watched a little bit of Cars...

And we also played some football outside!

This picture was taken directly after I heard the words, "Get Mommy!!!"

Football is serious business here...

We also painted with marbles...

And went to the park (note the alternating feet going up the steps- that was a hard-fought battle!!!)

Today, Stephen went to see the pediatric eye doctor for a check-up, and despite my mommy-anxieties, his eyes look perfect. The doctor even said that it doesn't look like he has any vision issues at all! We were anticipating a need for glasses, as both parents, and 3 out of 4 grandparents are all glasses wearers from an early age. But fortunately, that is not an issue right now for our Stephen. He did, however, have to get his eyes dilated, so we've been spending a lot of time in dimly lit rooms today, just hanging out. Since Stephen has a tendency towards being clumsy anyways, we're trying to just keep him still so he doesn't fall. But in spite of this, he's in a great mood, and it was a good visit.

Our week in pictures

Stephen has been working diligently with his new bike. I think he'll be able to pedal soon... He really LOVES his bike, though!!


We've talked about the Christmas Story... we had temporarily lost Joseph, so we had to bring in his understudy.

Stephen likes to wear Granddaddy's clothes.

And his teacher's poured some sugar down his throat at their holiday party on Wednesday. The picture doesn't really do it justice... he was COVERED in frosting. And yes, we did switch him over to a booster seat this past weekend, and he's doing very well with it!

As for me? Well, I've been painting. This has been my project while Stephen has been at school. "Classic Taupe" is the new color for our walls!