Preschool Year 2

Since there is no JK in the states, Benjamin is going to pre-k for 1 more year. We are sending him to the same school (Bethany Learning Center) and he just loves it! They had a "Welcome to my world" 1 Friday morning where the parents could come in and stay in the classroom so I left Mae with the neighbors and went to school with my boy. I had a wonderful time seeing him play with his friends he talks about all the time, and following the teachers rules and instructions so well!

Our Little Imp

Mae has discovered the doggy door. So now we have to keep it shut at all times as if she ever sees it open she beelines for it so she can go outside to eat rocks or climb up on Ben's water table.
We also have to keep her car seat against a wall as she loves to climb up on it and stand and has flipped it over on herself once (which didn't stop her from repeating the action!).
I have given up hanging up laundry while she is awake as she just sits under the drying racks and pulls off everything I put up :)
She loves anything to do with water - sprinklers, splash pads, the pool, the shower, she even laughs at Benjamin spraying her directly in the face with his spray bottle.

Mae - 11 Months

Our little girl is getting big! She barely crawls anymore and if she's not walking it's because she's climbing. One of her favorite activities is climbing onto our fire ledge - and then jumping off it! Her other favorite activity is making a mess - especially if she thinks she's not allowed :) She'll amuse herself for an hour or 2 going through the house finding things to destroy (pulling books off the bookcase, spreading the newspaper over the kitchen, or emptying the tupperware cupboard) or she'll get her hands on 1 of Ben's toys and just walk around holding it. She also now has 3 molars in and says 'dada' for Sam, 'da' for the dog and 'mama' for me!

Soccer

Benjamin has started his 1st season of soccer practice and is LOVING it. Although his team is all 4 year olds, I have to say it's pretty serious. We have 1 hour practices every week (with real drills!) and then the games on Saturdays. The 1st game Benjamin just did a lot of running - he would wait at 1 end till we would shout to him the ball was at the other end and he'd just speed run over there and catch up to the player with it!) . The 2nd week he scored a goal (which I have on video if I can figure out how to put that on here!), the 3rd week he scored 4 goals...and this past week he had to stop and cheer for himself every time he kicked the ball so by the time he was finished doing that the ball was usually at the other side of the field :) It is just so much fun to watch these games!
Mae also goes to all the games and most of the practices. She screams/cheers just as loudly as the parents at the game and when she gets bored she walks around on the grass kicking and holding Ben's soccer ball.

Mae - 10 Months

Mae's 10 month photos were not overly successful as she did not want to look at the camera or sit still. She is turning out to be even more active we think then her brother was! She learned to walk shortly before 10 months (did some of her 1st steps in Tahoe). She never cruised along furniture but would stand holding a toy she was playing with, and then see something else she wanted so just take a step towards it. Usually that other item she wanted was something her brother was holding as she always wants whatever he has :) So far she has her 4 top teeth in, 2 bottom - and 1 top molar!

Tahoe part 3: Grandparents

Tahoe part 2

There was a small but wonderful community pond a 5 min walk from Uncle Ken & Aunt Barbara's house. We spent a lot of our time there playing on the grass and sand with mostly just Benjamin braving the cold water.
Mae spent most of her time on the grass, not the sand as she just wanted to eat the sand.

Tahoe part 1 - Aug 2011

In August we spent a week in Tahoe at Sam's Aunt Barbara and Uncle Ken's house. Nana, Grandpa and Babushka met us there as well and we had a wonderful time. Benjamin went horseback riding (on a real trail - 1st led by me, then a 2nd time by Sam)
and wading in Lake Tahoe,
we went swimming in a really cold pool at the top of a mountain
(the grandparents were smart and watched from the pool edge),Ben went trampoline jumping at the base of the mountain,
I think Benjamin played a bazillion games of sequence,
and we all just had a wonderful time hanging out as a family.
The flight home our camera was packed so the following was taken with the iphone. The kids were great entertainment for each other!

July Playdates

Ben is only gone to school/daycare 3 days of the week for the summer so we've been trying to get in lots of playdates the days he is home for July. Schools in Arizona start back up in August and most of his friends will be starting Kindergarten so we will be losing our playdate friends. Nearly all of our playdates have involved swimming. I LOVE having a pool with the kids - especially now that Ben can pretty much swim solo (with an adult supervising). We took him to 1 week of lessons this summer to work on learning strokes but he still prefers to swim under water and just using his legs. When we don't have friends over to swim with us, he will spend almost the entire time racing Maully back and forth across the pool or swimming along the bottom collecting toys. I usually have my hands full holding Mae while swimming (who also adores the pool, and loves for me to dunk her) so I haven't been taking pictures. In fact the pool pictures in this post are thanks to my friend taking pictures on a weekend playdate.
We met up with friends at Amazing Jakes and this time Ben got bored of the rides after 2 hrs and just wanted to play the games. I'm blaming it on him experiencing heart stopping rides at Disneyland making these ones too tame :)
This weekend he is off on 1 of his "Dads and Kids" camping weekend but Sam didn't bring the camera so I'm not expecting pictures. However, it's the reason I finally got to catch up on my blog (hence ALL the posts today). While Mae slept I did Enermodal work (my life these days) and while she was awake and happily playing by herself on the floor, I got caught up on the blog!!

Mae - 9 Months

Mae weighed in at 15lbs-10oz (<5%)and 28.5" tall (75%). After seeing the percentile for her weight, the doctor made us go reweigh her as, while she does feel super light (as long as not wearing a cloth diaper!), she doesn't look super underweight. But the scale didn't change so we've been told to increase her calorie intake. She is a fantastic eater but we haven't given her much besides veggies/fruit/tofu so she now gets lots of carbs with jam/butter and 1 formula bottle/day (with a higher ratio of formula) to try to put some weight on her.

In some ways Mae is very much like Ben - SUPER active (she never wants to sit still, already walking slightly when pushing a chair if it doesn't goo too fast on her), loves to make a mess, and very stubborn (I can remove her to the opposite side of the house from her brothers room and she'll just instantly crawl back to it). However, in other ways she is very different (besides being so petite and a girl). You have to work harder to get an out loud laugh from her. When strangers approach she just stares at them, while Ben would have been doing whatever he could already to make them laugh. She is more content and prefers to just watch and be happy. She also will fall asleep in a car (without screaming!!) or in the stroller when we are out. I know people say going from 1 to 2 is more then double the work, but I haven't found that the case as so far this little 1 is just easy (except when teething) and willing to go with the flow.