Happy May!

Happy May! Praying the nice weather is here to stay!!! It’s hard to plan all the things we want to do outside for the one nice day we have every couple of weeks, especially with work schedules needing to be figured in. The kids and I did make it to the zoo last week, and they have finally been getting outside to play most days!

The last month has been a big one for Kellen. He is now 14 months old! He’s been very slow to start walking, but has finally started taking more steps. He’s spending a lot more time standing unsupported.  I’m thinking we will have an “official” walker soon! It will definitely make things easier if we don’t have to carry him everywhere. He’s also starting to say more words – car, uh oh, and “tickle tickle tickle” are his newest ones. He will also copy sounds Ellison makes sometimes, which is pretty funny, unless it’s happening when they’re supposed to be eating!

We have been so lucky to be able to slowly transition Kellen to whole milk. We are on our last gallon bag of pumped milk now, but at 14 months he is still getting some breast milk in every sippy cup! Very proud we were able to keep it up this long!

Ellison seems to be enjoying her new “school” (daycare). She gets to do art every day and play outside, so she is happy! It sounds like she is also making some new little friends. I’m happy it is working out so far, and I hope we have finally found a place they will stay until they are in school full-time!

Still working with both kids on 1000 Books Before Kindergarten. Ellison just passed the 500 book mark; Kellen is hanging out around 150. He only likes to sit still for Little Blue Truck books, and even though it’s ok according the program, we don’t double count when we read the same book more than once. I also don’t count a book unless they sit through the whole thing. Kellen’s got a long way to go before kindergarten and I’m hoping he will start to like being read to soon! We’ve been making lots of library trips and finding tons of good books. I recently discovered that I can request books online and have them held for me at whatever library I want, so that made this bookworm very happy. Looking forward to doing a summer reading program with them this year, too!

Ells is finishing up gymnastics in the next couple of weeks. We plan to enroll her at a different gym if she decides she wants to keep going with it – we haven’t been overly thrilled with the staff at the one she’s at now. We are planning to have her skip the summer session so she can do dance and possibly swimming lessons, and we’ll see what she wants to keep doing once fall gets closer. Hoping to get Kellen into swimming very soon too, he absolutely loves to be in the water! Between all of that and zoo class every month for Ellison, the kids are keeping busy!!!

We celebrated Jay’s 30^th birthday with a surprise party a couple weekends ago. He really had no idea it was coming, and it was so awesome to have so many people come together for the party! We had the Millers over before, and everyone "left" so we could go have cake with my mom and Ron...and then surprise, they were all over there when we arrived (plus about 30 more people). It was a great time - my mom and Ron are great party hosts!

That's what's new with us! Excited for a long stretch of days off coming up after these next few nights of work - hopefully lots of nice weather while I'm not working!!!