Guess Who....?

It's kind of a question, I think you should be able to tell by the pictures who is who :) I just remembered having a picture of Nate in this shirt so I took one of Aaron and wanted to put the two beside each other to see how much they looked alike.

Greer

A little backwards, but here's some pictures from our recent trip up north!

Another digital scrapbooking design by Smilebox

It was so awesome to be in the cooler weather. The lodge we stayed at gave us access to fishing poles, kayaks and-Nate's favorite part-bikes! He rode a bike with training wheels for his first time and loved the bike mommy rode that hooked up to a trailer behind. We mostly hung out around the cabin walking around,fishing,feeding the ducks,biking and Josh took Nate on a hike close by. Just a little bummed we didn't see deer this time around, we usually do. There was a lot of preaching about Greer still being green-but boy you could tell that the wildfire there was VERY close. VERY. They lucked out.

Four Months

Aaron hit his four month birthday this week! Oh my. We saw the pediatrician yesterday and he's at the 60th percentile for about everything, higher than Nate was! At four months Aaron is...

-15 pds, 26.5 in long
-drooling a ton
-just started rice
-wearing 6 mo clothes
-loving to "eat" his blankets
-enjoying bathtime increasingly
-laughs at his big brother
-doesn't mind sitting in the booster seat in the kitchen

Those are a few things that stand out. It was also decided that Aaron will need to see a specialist for his head-the back is slightly flat so we are going to get it measured to see it it is severe enough to wear a helmet to help shape better. I'm suppose to get a call from the office on Monday and hopefully will have an appointment sometime next week. For now I'm on strict orders to have Aaron on his tummy whenever he is awake,whether he likes it or not!

Also just this week-Aaron and I have started sessions with a friend of mine who is a Sleep Coach-basically,someone who helps coach us on how to establish healthy eating/sleeping habits to have an end result of Aaron being able to sleep through the night (bottom line, through establishing a sleeping and eating schedule for Aaron it should help him sleep through the night!) We had our first session on Monday,so we've been trying to follow a set schedule. He's doing better in some ways but we still have some work to do. Kinda hard when Nate is also getting up during the night as well, I'm not feeling like I'm getting any additional rest yet. Aaron has been able to make it through the night longer without eating,but he still wakes up upset that his paci isn't in his mouth. I'm hoping to see more,even if small, changes in the next week.


Sitting with big brother-first visit to the zoo



Left the zoo with a little monkey




Circle time with new friends at Gymboree




Throughout the class he only had eyes for his new friend Emily. Oh my goodness.



Eating rice for the first time-not so crazy about it either.

Young Chef Academy

I got a great deal for a few cooking classes at a kids cooking school-today was Nate's first one! We both loved it (he loved doing it and I loved that he had a great time and it was such a cute place!) Thought we'd share some pictures from our time there!



Waiting patiently for class to begin


Stirring strawberries into his muffin mixture


Adding in a Hershey kiss


While Nate was in class, Aaron and I played out in the lobby-he loved his new Eric Carle teether!



Eating his creations


So happy we got copies of the recipes Nate made-he'll have to show mommy how to make them! ;)


Cool wall in the kitchen


A little blurry, but I LOVED the bright colors in the kitchen they were using!


Yum-"Sealed with a Kiss" muffin and a Chicken Crescent roll



Chef Nate is ready for his next class! :)

Silly Nate

Nate's been a funny boy this past week-here's some recent pictures!

We got this out for Aaron to use-Nate wanted to try it out first. Yeah, a little too big :)

The award winning chef-who apparently is getting ready to cook outside!

Nate is becoming a big Curious George fan-or as he calls him, "Monkey George"-he loves stickers! We went to one of our favorite events last week-Meet The Creature where we got to meet some new friends.

Watching a fox get his bath-poor little guy, ten years old and blind :(

Petting a big lizard Nate had a great time with my parents in Greer. Good thing, because we're going up there the end of this week! :) We are FINALLY taking our trip there that we were suppose to have taken a few months ago but didn't because of a wildfire. This will be our first long trip with both boys. I'm so excited to get away from our heat and enjoy high 60's/low 70's for a few days! For about the last two-three weeks we have been proud leasers of a Nissan Leaf! They aren't typically on the leasing program for employees but because Nissan wanted to do some studies with it, they offered a limited amount to employees who had to apply for them. Somehow employees got picked and Josh was chosen! We have a charging station in our garage and Josh obviously uses one at work too. We love it-it's nice to know we're not using gas (and saving $$ and the environment while we're at it!) It's going to be a busy and fast week-time to turn in!

Staycation

We had an "ok" staycation this past weekend-long story short, we had disappointments with a restaurant we ate at, we had a hole in the roof of our room and sadly I was pretty tired so I was pooping out of a lot of fun. But, the boys had a great time swimming :) I'm glad that at least the pools didn't disappoint. Nate loved the "boat" ride down the lazy river.


If you look in the center, you can see Josh and Nate heading towards the waterfall. Nate loves those too!

Next week Nate gets to go on another little vacation-this time with my parents up to Greer (then he gets to go back with us two weeks after that!) Busy boy. It's a win-win: he should have fun and we'll get to enjoy quality time with Aaron. I have a feeling I'll just be spending a lot of time at home, chill-axing. I'm looking forward to getting a break from entertaining a toddler :)

Today was Nate's last day of preschool for three weeks (before he starts back up again). I'm so happy to report that he has been accident free with the potty during school, woohoo! What a relief. We're holding steady with it. Below are some pictures from his Athletes (PE)class that he has twice a week-which he'll start back up once school starts again. I love having him go to school and then jump into something busy where he moves around.












The look of "glee" on Nate's face :)

And lastly...




Can't get enough of my boys!

Three Months

Would you look at my chunky monkey now :) Not trying to be mean, but the last month I'd say he for sure has grown! He won't go back to the pediatrician until next month so I'm not sure his weight or other stats, but he's growing like a weed now!

It's still fun to read how my boys compared at this age. Here are some similarities and differences for the month:

--both boys drooling,making bubbles, discovering their hands and feet. Aaron hasn't been "eating" his feet like Nate was, but you'd think Aaron's hands were filet mignon to him! :) In some ways I hope he finds comfort in doing that rather than using a paci.

--generally the both of them are sleeping the same-Aaron goes down for about 4-5 hrs initially at night, then sleeps for another 4ish hours before starting to coo and act excited between 5 and 6am (I blame this on the light coming in the room at that time!) By 7/7:30am he's ready for his first nap of the day-usually one of three or four he has. I'm happy that he's a good napper-unfortunately the swing is still his favorite place to do it, but some naps can be a few hours long! Nate supposedly only slept an hour a day, according to old blog posts. Oh I sure hope Aaron continues to be a better sleeper!

--Aaron can lift his head some, doesn't roll over yet. I've been trying to decide when I should transition him to his crib for naps and maybe nighttime too. Naps first for sure, nighttime I think I may put off a bit until he goes a bit longer at night.

--both boys smile,"talk" and Aaron can laugh a little bit. So cute. I'm so glad to repeat those again!



I think it's been really nice to have had Nate to know the things I do and don't want to repeat this time around with Aaron-for starters, I'm trying to get into a routine with Aaron of eating,playing and then sleeping. Trying not to let him go right to sleep when he eats so that he hopefully learns (of course this doesn't help much with the swing)to soothe himself to sleep. In another month I think he would possibly be old enough to sort of start a "schedule" of trying to get down when he eats and sleeps. I feel sorry for the poor lad as I find that I have to wake him up sometimes to take/pick Nate up from school or do something else...




It truly warms my heart and makes me happy that Nate still loves his brother, has had no envious/jealous feelings (done bad things,said bad things) about Aaron. He gives him kisses goodnight,likes to have him in his room while he plays with his train...he's very good with him.

We're leaving Aaron on Saturday with my parents to take Nate on a little staycation-a family friendly resort that has some cool pools. I'm looking forward to swimming fun and some solid zzzz's, hopefully!

August 4, 2011...

...marks an important day in the Kucenski household-the day that Nate "officially" decided he wanted to be a big boy! What ended up being a blessing in disguise, we had gotten reprimanded at Nate's preschool the day before because I had him in a pull up. I was basically told Nate had to wear underwear to his class or else we needed to drop out. Fortunately that message sent shock waves to the both of us. It was a good thing I had sent Nate to the first few days of class so that he got a chance to enjoy it and realize that it was too fun to be missing :) So, on Thursday morning as we were getting him ready, we told him he had to wear underwear to school or he couldn't go. I'm so happy to say that he voluntarily put underwear on AND kept them dry during class! When we got home, he used the potty all day long and stayed dry! We've been putting him in diapers at night yet but he will right away change himself in the morning. For the few slip-ups we've had, Nate has immediately changed his shorts/underwear and put the wet clothes in his hamper. I'm so proud of him for being a responsible little boy. We still have some other stages to work through, but this is a really good start. I hate to admit it...I've been sort of eye rolling at friends whenever they have said this...but it was an "all of a sudden he was ready to go" action. It was like all of a sudden a light switched on and Nate was serious about it. I can only hope it was all due to school and maybe seeing other kids using the potty there. We go back and forth between reminding him and Nate just saying that he needs to go. We went and bought bigger size underwear and Nate was into picking out what he wanted. I hope our luck continues!

On a different note, I have a few more pictures of what we've been up to within the last week.



Nate and I went on a date to Jambo Park!-an inside amusement park with games and rides. He wasn't interested in the rides at all-he just cared about the soft play area and playing games!




Another Meet the Creature event-again I was proud of Nate because this was the first time he wasn't tied to me that he was interested in seeing and petting the different animals. This animal belong to the same group as the llama, I forgot the name!



So soft!



Petting a large bunny


Duck and guinea pigs


Beaver

First Day of Preschool!

Well, as the title reads, today was Nate's first day of preschool! We have been preparing him for months, ever since Vacation Bible School a few months ago. Over the last month we got a bunch of "first day of school" books, some directly related to starting preschool. We practiced dropping him off for extended periods of time without having us present.

So...Nate did wonderful and loved his big first day of school! I had no issues at all with dropping him off and leaving him there on his own, despite not having friends in his class or knowing anyone. He was excited to wear his "big boy backpack" and hung it up in the classroom and then imemediately sat at a table and began to color (each little group table had a different activity set up). When I told him that Aaron and I were leaving, he gave me a kiss and hug and off we went.

Parents take turns bringing snack/water/cups for each class. The kids get a folder that they bring each time that will carry their activities done for the day-like today, for example, was a worksheet that taught the color blue that they colored. Nate also made a door hanger. The kids also get an "optional" homework assignment each week (ours for this week is connecting dots on a zebra). The folder also has a calendar that outlines what they will be doing each class-for tomorrow, Nate is going to be having show and tell and doing a worksheet learning about the color brown. Thursday they have PE. On the same sheet, the teachers will be using stamps/stickers using the colors green,yellow and red. Green means they were great in class, yellow meaning they maybe didn't listen or were mean to a friend and red would mean that I would have gotten called. They didn't stamp today though.

Nate was so excited to see me and tell me all about his day that he ran to the door as soon as he saw me (they have the kids sitting down with their backpacks and we each take a turn going to get our child). He had to sit back down until it was my turn :) Now that Nate is speaking so much more, it was fun for him to rattle off everything he did and what he had for snack,etc. He excitedly opened his folder and showed me what he had done. As soon as we got home, he wanted to call his daddy and Nana to tell them about his day! :)

After preschool we met with a few friends to get cupcakes at a new place. Not only were the cupcakes delicious but Nate got to frost/decorate his own. We got a strawberry cupcake and chose sprinkles, M & M's and gummy bears to go on top. Nate was mostly interested in the toppings so I took care of the cupcake ;) We had a great morning!

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