Preschool…a success!!

Liam had his first day of preschool two weeks ago this Tuesday.  Long story short, he loves every minute.  His first day, it was all I could do to not take him, but we decided if me, Nora and Jeremy went all the attention might spark some separation anxiety, so Jeremy just took him (which is going to be the norm).  Jeremy said he wanted him to come into his classroom for a little bit so Jeremy went in and watched for a couple of minutes, then he told him bye, and Liam didn’t care one bit he was leaving!  Of course he was playing with glue at the time .  Nora and I went to pick him up that afternoon and he ran up to me and gave me a hug, but then was upset because he wanted to stay longer. Ha!

Quite often (when it is not a preschool day), he brings me his backpack and says, “Mommy my backpack is all ready for school!”.  So I have to repeatedly tell him, we only go to school on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s.  This morning I told him that, and he said “and Saturday’s too!”  Ha ha.  He loves his teacher, Mrs. Yost and talks about her a lot.  Mrs. Buster is the other teacher that helps in his room and he talks about both of them a lot.

Potty training has been going awesome!  I guess its really not “potty training” anymore, since he is potty trained.  He hasn’t had an accident at school (or at home for that matter, in a very long time), which is awesome.  He has had a little anxiety about going to the bathroom at school for some reason so he will just hold it until he gets home, which means he holds it for about 4.5 hours!  So we are trying to talk to him about how its okay to go at school, and trying to get him over that .  He has gone a few times, but it takes quite a bit of coaxing from Mrs. Yost.

There has only been one bad thing about preschool…Liam got the 2nd round of the stomach flu.  I’m sure its because he is in more of a group setting now, that he has never been in before and is exposed to grimy, nasty kids…eh, germs, I mean .

 

 

 

A big step…

(Disclaimer: Please excuse the pictures, they are from my cell phone…don’t you worry, better pictures will be coming )
Well, I think its official.  Liam is going to start preschool.  I know some of you might think its a little early, but we think he is ready!  He craves social interaction, and daily asks to go to “so and so’s” house to play.  I know he is just going to love being in a class with other kids his age.  And now that he is potty trained, preschool can be an option!

We have decided to enroll him in the preschool at First United Methodist Church.  That is where Jeremy works, and it is going to be very convenient for us to take him there.  (Unfortunately there is no sort of discount ).  We have heard nothing but excellent things from people about their experiences here, and after Jeremy and I visited about a month ago, we were very impressed.  They are a nationally accredited preschool, which means their teacher/student ratio is required (among other requirements) to be lower.  If they get more than 5 children in a class they are required to add a teacher.  I thought 5:1 was pretty impressive.  They have a 2.5 year old classroom, which is where Liam will be.  He will make the 5th child in his class!  There will be 3 boys, and 2 girls.  We are just going to have him go Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9:15-12:00.  Jeremy will take him when he goes to work, and Nora and I will go and pick him up!  Each classroom has so many cool things, one of them being a class pet.  The 2.5 year old class’ is a guinea pig named Snickers.  Which Liam is going to love.  He didn’t see it when we were there today, but he will think that’s pretty cool.  (Side story….when we were at the pet store the other day getting fish for his tank, we saw the guinea pigs.  On the way home, Jeremy was talking to Liam about seeing the hamsters.  Liam said, “No dad, they are guinea pigs”. Ha!)

We went there today to visit with Liam this time.  We wanted him to get a chance to see the classroom and facilities and make sure he liked it.  He loved it.  He wants to go to school now.  Sad for mommy, but happy for him .  When we got to his classroom, the kids were just picking up toys so they could sit down and have their “circle time”.  Liam got to participate in that, which he really enjoyed.  I was really proud of him, he just jumped right in and didn’t hesitate to participate at all!  After circle time they went to the “muscle room”.  Basically a big play room where they go, when they don’t have outdoor recess.  I think the muscle room was his favorite .  They always end preschool, with all the classes (all ages combined) joining in their little chapel and singing songs and doing a little story.  It was fun to get to participate in that as well!  Liam of course loved that, since there was singing involved.  Its absolutely adorable to watch all of those little kids.  They have miniature pews and everything for them to sit in .  When he left he said “go to school and play with kids!”  Then when we were almost home, he said “I want to build towers with the other kids.”  I told him that he could next week when he went to school, and he said “Maybe after my nap?”  Ha!  He has become quite the negotiater.  Jeremy was going to get all of the enrollment stuff today, and we are hoping he can get started next week!  I feel like this is a really huge step to take with him, but we really think he is ready.  I’m not sure sure if I am ready, but I know that Liam is.  I suppose that is the most important part .

catching up…

I’m trying to catch up on getting some videos put on the blog. This one I think is about the cutest one I have. Liam loves to help feed Nora her baby food. Its not terribly effective, but they both enjoy it! And it is fun to watch, that’s for sure!
http://player.vimeo.com/video/18568540

Liam feeding Nora from Kellie Fredin on Vimeo.

Here is another one of Liam making Nora laugh!
http://player.vimeo.com/video/18577365

Liam making Nora laugh from Kellie Fredin on Vimeo.

Oh, Liam

I just love my little guy…I can’t get enough of him.  This past week has been pretty rough for him though!  Which in turn, means it has been rough on mama too .  He had the stomach flu, for the first time in his life this week.  The vomit itself, doesn’t bother me, but having to watch him hurt…oh man, that was rough.  I kept saying, “I’m so sorry Liam, I’m so sorry Liam”.  In turn, he would reply, “its okay mommy!  Its okay mommy!”  Ah, broke my heart.  Every once and a while I would say, “Are you okay Liam?”, and he would say, “I AM okay!” (With an emphasis on the “am” for some reason).  He was so brave…I wasn’t so much.  He is feeling much better now, and is getting back to his normal self, which we are very grateful for .  I caught the stomach bug for about 4 hours that night after Liam went to bed, but it was short-lived and praise the Lord, no one else in the house got it.

Well I just wanted to share a cute video of Liam.  This was taken a few months ago…he had a sinus infection at the time, so I have subtitles on the video so you can understand him .  He went through a phase where all he ever wanted to read was this one particular book “Baby Things That Go”.  After reading it every day (multiple times a day) for a few weeks, he could read it by himself .  I’m glad I caught a video of it.
http://player.vimeo.com/video/18567582

Liam reading “Baby Things That Go” from Kellie Fredin on Vimeo.

To Resolute

So I feel like I go through phases with blog updating…I will do really well for about 6 months and then, go on a hiatus for about 6 months…so the only new years resolution I made is to be more consistent updating my blog. (I actually made a couple more, but no one knows about those…they are between me and myself ).
So…the holidays were crazy and I am still trying to organize everything, but I will soon do an update on that!  But for now…here are some of the professional pictures that we have had taken of our family in the past few months.  We had been keeping them a secret until Christmas since they were part of Christmas presents…which I will probably never do again, because that was HARD!!  When I get new pictures I always show them to everybody right away…it was all I had to not show them to everyone!  Another post will be coming soon!

Sneak Peek

Here is a sneak peek of some pictures we have had taken of the kids recently.  We aren’t showing the rest, due to Christmas being right around the corner!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a quick update on both the kiddos!
-Nora is now 5 months old, and I swear she is bigger every morning!  She is quite a lazy baby and isn’t rolling over yet, so we are working on that .  Liam rolled her over yesterday, but she didn’t really appreciate that .
-Nora’s smiles are constant right now, which is AWESOME, and it is pretty easy to get a good chuckle out of her.  I love her laughs.
-She tried rice cereal about a month ago, and did well with it, but we haven’t continued with it.  Mainly because we are lazy.  It is so much easier to just do a bottle, until she has to start taking solids at 6 months .  (I find is hilarious that when Liam was her age I was rushing every stage and doing the next thing as soon as I could, and with her I am putting every new stage off as long as possible.)
-Nora sleeps usually around 11 hours at night!  The feeding schedule we have her on now is amazing.  She eats at 8, 12, 4 and 8.  Which means her and Liam go to bed at the same time which is wonderful.  We are very happy to have her feedings spread out to every 4 hours.  It doesn’t seem like she is eating ALL the time anymore, which is nice.

-Liam is officially 2.5 years old, and is more fun than ever!!  We are loving the stage he is at.  I am going to start writing down some of the hilarious things he says, to put on the blog .
-He is really enjoying the Christmas season this year!  Almost every day he tells me “Mommy, I’m ready for Christmas”.
-Today he helped me set up the Christmas tree and get all the decorations up.  He was SO excited to be getting the tree up.  He keeps looking at it and saying “That tree looks beautiful”.  We got it set up in the morning, and then the rest of the day he was anxiously awaiting Jeremy getting home.  He kept saying “show Daddy my Christmas tree”.
-His favorite things to do are play with his race track, grandma and papa Kenny’s train track, and really anything that “goes”.  (Airplanes, cars, trains, etc…).  I can’t wait to see his face on Christmas morning, when he sees that we got him a train table and railway set for Christmas!!
-We are in the midst of potty training with Liam, and it is going really well!  I think we are close!  He is wearing pull-ups now, and is usually dry all day!  He is always waking up from his naps dry, and is going much longer periods during the day before he has to go.  We usually take him, but when we forget, he is starting to tell us!

Okay, well there is a very quick update on both of them.  I am going to start trying to do a better job of gradually putting things on the blog, so I’m not trying to go back and remember the cute things they do .

2 Liam videos :)

I just HAVE to share these two videos of Liam. I finally got them edited (so that you can understand what he is saying). This first one is one mom took at her place a few months ago. He was “playing” the piano and just singing away, and didn’t know mom was recording him (until part way into the video). Jesus Loves Me, is one of his favorite songs to sing…and combined with one of his favorite TV shows, it makes for a fun surprise ending!
http://player.vimeo.com/video/16860459

Liam singing Jesus Loves Me from Kellie Fredin on Vimeo.

In this second one, he is practicing Away in a Manger. We have been teaching him this one, because his Sunday school class is going to be singing it in front of the church in December . So he was holding the microphone and trying to do the actions at the same time. It didn’t work too well for him, but it was sure fun watching him try! I love how he is just belting this one out. Singing his Sunday school songs is by far, one of his favorite things to do!
http://player.vimeo.com/video/16861775

Liam singing Away in a Manger from Kellie Fredin on Vimeo.

Nora & Liam 4 months old

Are they even related?? I struggle to see much resemblance. Besides both being absolutely adorable

Mini Erika

After looking through a couple of Erika’s baby pictures, it is funny how similar she and Nora look!  I haven’t found a good pic of Nora to compare with, but this is the best I have. (I feel like it doesn’t show their similarities very much).  I think it might have something to do with their awesome double chins .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope Nora grows up to be as beautiful ad Erika!!

Fall is here!!

This post is going to be a massive amount of pictures, but this fall has been so fun for our family already!!  We are really enjoying Liam this year.  He is at the age where he can really take in everything there is to enjoy about fall, Halloween and the beautiful weather!!  He is at such an amazing age!!  Despite the tantrums, and other annoying 2 year old things, we are really enjoying this stage with him!  I will have to do a seperate post about everything he is up to, and into lately .  Liam has chosen to be The Cat in the Hat for Halloween, which he is pretty excited about .

Nora is also taking this season with stride and is so much fun right now!  She is constantly giving us HUGE smiles and starting to laugh more and more.  If I had to pick one word to describe her, it would be “joyful”.  We just can’t get enough of her, and her big sweet smiles.  She just went in for her 4 month check up and she is 15 pounds!!  That puts her in the 82nd percentile for her weight.  For starting at 6 pounds she has made quite a jump!  They aren’t supposed to triple their birth weight until 1 year, and she is pretty darn close at 4 months .  The doctor, nicely said “maybe you should start trying to get her to eat every 4 hours instead of every 3″.  You think she was trying to tell us she is a little big? Ha ha.

Enjoy the fall pictures!