Little Elyse

Hard to believe that our little Elyse has only been with us two months. The details of life without her have definitely become blurred. In many ways, it really has been a long two months of adjustments. Today, not without some hesitancy, I took her in for her two month check up. I knew that Elyse probably wasn't on the weight chart and while I'm not all that concerned (we had similar issues with Matthew), I doubted that her doctor would share my view. So, here's her stats:

Weight: 7lbs, 10 oz
Height: 22 inches
Head Circumference: 38 cm

So, while I'm confident that she's fine and that she'll turn out fine (Matthew did), her weight/feeding is definitely a stress to us once again. I'm bracing myself for added feedings, less rest, more tv for Seth, and in general, lowered expectations. Wish us luck!

PS - If your interested in seeing all of Elyse's "newborn" shots you can check them out here. "Enter" the site and click on "clients." The password is sister.

Lil' Kickers

Last Spring when soccer sign-ups for Matthew came up, I decided to hold off. I wasn't sure how much we'd be able to commit to with a newborn and if Matthew was going to play on a team, I wanted him to be on a team with kids from his school. Of course, after Elyse arrived and I determined that soccer might be manageable, all the leagues were full. So, we opted to give Lil' Kickers a try. After a little perusing, I realized that I could sign both boys up of classes that happened at the same time. Two birds with one stone, awesome!

Last Thursday was their first day. Apparently 3:30pm is a bit early for most school aged kids and not very popular with the 3-4 yr old crowd, because both boys were the only ones in their classes. While I do hope for the sake of scrimmage (in Matthew's case at least) that more kids sign up, it was pretty nice for both boys to have some much appreciated/needed one-on-one time.
Both boys warmed up with stretches and drills,

Okay, there was another girl in Sethie's class, but she didn't even last 10 minutes.

practiced some shots, played a few games,

Matthew loved that he "won" all the races and games that he played; his coaches were nice guys!

and finally combined for a little bit of scrimmage.

When Seth was actually trying to NOT touch the ball he kept them behind his back or in his pockets.

True to form Seth found some ways to be mischievious. When kicking balls from one goal to the other, Seth enjoyed, while his coach was not looking, picking up the balls and moving them closer to the goal before kicking them in. Similarly, when standing up knocked over cones with his feet, he loved try to sneakily use his hands instead. Each time he purposely used his hands, he laughed his big belly laugh, laughing especially hard when he was caught. He even found a way to subtly cheat in warmup . . . notice the hand on the wall with every left foot tap.

I'm superthrilled with the classes, the coaches, and the facility (not to be a pansy, but it gets cold standing outside in the rain at November soccer games). Yeah for Lil' Kickers!

Elyse liked Lil' Kickers too!

Back to school, back to school . . .

On Wednesday Matthew started 1st grade. By now, he (and we) feels like school is old hat. I even almost forgot to even take a picture. But we are super exciting for Matthew to be in the language immersion program and I'm looking forward to helping out in his classroom after the initial moratorium on parent classroom volunteers (teachers like the kids to be settled into the classroom routine before having parent volunteers).

Preview

Special thanks to Tysha, who braved the utter chaos of our home to capture some "newborn" (eight weeks still counts as newborn, right?) pictures. I foolishly believed that the boys would behave while Elyse was photographed! Between fighting, tantrums, timeouts, and constant requests/interruptions from the boys, not to mention a very uncooperative baby, it's a major miracle that she got anything useable. What a talented photographer!
http://littleredwagonphotography.blogspot.com/2011/09/sneak-peek-sweet-elyse.html

Map my run?!

Matthew has taken to trying to make patterns on his walks, runs, or even paddle boat rides.

This was his attempt at an S, for Seth.