I will not give up!

I used to be so good at blogging.  Several years ago, I would post up to 20+ times in a single month.  I guess that's what happens when you only have 1 or 2 kids.  I can't use that as an excuse, though.  I know several people who have 3+ kids that blog way more than I do.  Where they find the brain energy for that, is what I want to know.  I WANT to blog much more often, since I use this as a record for my memory and it basically serves as my kids' scrapbook, but I don't know why I feel so unmotivated.  Today, I decided I was just going to sit down and do some typing, even if it is a big jumbled mess.  These babies are growing and changing so much... I need to record it or I certainly will not remember the little things.

A few updates on each kid:

Camden is loving and doing so well at school!  He's learning all about presidents right now, and comes home telling me all kinds of facts he learned.  Not only about presidents, but about all sorts of things.  It's very informative, for sure.  A lot of the things he tells me are things I'd forgotten.  It looks like Camden's best subject is math.  I am so proud of him!  Those know me know that I canNOT take any credit for his math brain.  I wish I could say the opposite.  He's doing really well with reading, too.  I'll often find him laying in either my bed or his with a good book.  I love it.  

This weekend Camden has baseball tryouts!  It's time for another season.  I can't believe it's already here.  The tryouts at this age are just for the purpose of placing kids on teams.  He'll make a team regardless of how he does at the tryout.  He and David have been working hard the past couple weekends on batting, throwing and catching.  He's loving it!  I've noticed that he's starting to say a lot of things lately that would come out of an adults mouth.  Nothing inappropriate, just mature phrases and sayings.  Things like, "well, that's just my opinion".  He'll also use words like unfortunately, apparently, evidently, etc.  He's very helpful to his siblings and is always willing to help me if I need him to get me something or do something for someone.  He's great a cleaning up a room when I ask and he is just so sweet (most of the time). I love this age.

Anderson.  Oh, Anderson.  I always tell people that he's our little rascal.  I've mentioned it before on the blog, I know.  But it's the first thing I think of when I think of our middle child.  He's such a loving, goofy boy.  He does things Camden never did, but he does them with such a fun-spiritedness (is that a word?  it is now.) that it's often hard to really get upset with him.  Believe me, we have serious talks about what he should and shouldn't do, but I often have to stifle the laughter during these conversations.  I'll give you an example from a few weeks ago:  I often put Vaseline on Anderson's face (his cheeks and around his mouth) at night because his skin gets really dry.  During quiet time one day, he found the Vaseline that was sitting on his dresser from the previous night.  Instead of just spotting the Vaseline and thinking, "oh look, there's the Vaseline" and continuing on with what he was doing, he proceeds to get the vaseline, open it, scoop out a large chunk and rub it ALL OVER his window and the hermit crab cage.  I don't even realize it till later that night and of course I say, "ANDERSON! WHY in the world would you do that?" He gets the biggest grin on his face, showing off that insanely adorable dimple, and that's where my anger starts to dissolve.  He knows that if he does it again that he'll be very sorry, but it's just one of those things I have to laugh at.  He's the kid that we're going to have all the stories about when he's grown.  When all the kids are grown and at my house for Christmas with their kids, we'll be telling stories starting with "Do you remember when Anderson..." 

On a different note, he's loving preschool and is doing really well.  Surprisingly, he's extremely well behaved at school and follows directions very well.  We just had a conference this week about his progress, and they assured me that he's wonderful at school.  SO great for this Mama to hear.

He's still our picky eater and we don't know how he eats enough to survive.  I'm hoping one day this will change.  He loves super heroes, coloring, and playing with his baby sister.

Evelyn is getting SO big.  She's already wearing 24 month clothes and has gotten much more confident with her mobility.  She's able to get on and off the couch by herself, and yesterday I found her sitting on the coffee table.  I can't promise she didn't have help from one of her brothers with that one, but who knows.  She's starting to talk more, though still not very much.  She's full of sounds, but very few of them are words we can understand.  The things we do understand are "thank you"(that she says without prompting EVERY single time someone gives her something - amazing!), Dada, wow, uh-oh, baby, diaper, all done, bye bye.  I may be forgetting a few.

She's in a picky eating stage right now, also.  I don't know if its her age or due to four teeth she's been working on for MONTHS and will NOT pop through, but either way, it can be annoying.  I don't let it stress me out though, because one thing I've learned after having three children is that they WILL eat when they're hungry, and eating only three bites of dinner does not mean they will wake up at night because they're starving.  So, you don't want to eat dinner?  Suit yourself!  She does love any kind of carb, strawberries, bananas, broccoli, carrots, yogurt, casseroles (believe it or not) and she adores her milk.

Ever since Evelyn was born, people have asked me if I can tell a difference between her and the boys, and just recently have I really been able to say yes.  I can tell that she's much daintier much more gentle with her toys.  She will place a baby (or a stuffed animal) in her little stroller and stroll it around the house 20 times.  She'll sit down and read a book for a while.  She LOVES to read and be read to.  She adores her big brothers and she's most definitely a daddy's girl.  She prefers him over me 75% of the time, I'd say... and I LOVE it.

A blog post isn't a good post without at least a couple of pictures...

I will not let another month go by before I post again.  I will NOT!