Fun Together

Adrian

I can't believe how fast time has passed and that Adrian is 11 months old. Pretty soon he will be 1 and I don't know what to do with myself! Still learning some things aren't completely baby-proof because of his exploring but some of my boundaries are successful. He had the first practice with going up the stairs today with daddy watching over behind him. He is fascinated watching me work out while he plays in the open area upstairs, and I have learned which doors need to be closed. Now I have to teach the girls to keep their bedroom and bathroom doors closed when we are upstairs. I'm having fun seeing what foods he likes and which ones he is tired of so I have to skip them for a little while. He loves juice though and now I need more cups that won't spill when he throws them overboard.

Claire

We have had another week of fun here in the Bell home. We are glad Daddy is back home and took advantage of him being back this weekend to go out to dinner last night. The girls loved to go out to eat at restaurants and liked our waitress because her hair was pink. It was a place we hadn't tried before and we think it will be a repeat because they have coloring activities for kids and good food. Claire was super excited about a play date with a friend from school but it had to be postponed, hopefully, we can do it this week when they have a day off of school. I've been brainstorming more chores that I can't trust them with on Saturdays so they can start earning money. They have been slowly becoming more independent so I should reward them with money now that Claire learned what the coins are worth at school. 

Shay

I know she resisted it for a while but loves riding her bike independently without training wheels. Even though she is mad when Claire passes her, I just remind her that everyone is good at different things and she is still new to riding a bike. The weather has been so beautiful and we all went to the park yesterday to enjoy the sunshine, Claire had to use the bathroom before we left so Shay got the head start. Luckily she forgets about her anger pretty fast when we get to the park and retrain Buttercup to go down the slide. She thought it was a good idea to work out yesterday when I was busy with their desk sewing and caught a cute picture of Adrian trying to work out with them. They usually have fun games to play with him and he just babbles along.

Another January Week

 Adrian

His movement has exponentially increased this week and he is all over the place! I also have fun communicating with him; we play 'shake' with our heads, he claps, he signs milk when he is hungry, and playing is so fun. Chris was gone all weekend and I made him suffer by sending videos of how cute he is, even though he got a little sick and has a runny nose now. If I lay or sit on the floor with him he constantly attacks me so I'm helping him practice pulling himself up by sitting on chairs and couchs. As much as I love to hear his giggles and smiles I miss his newborn stage and wish he would cuddle more. He is eating more normal food and already weaning down to short feedings.

Shay

I am so glad she is excelling in school! They had a spelling bee this last week and Shay came in the top 3 in her class then when all the kindergarten finalists got together she was runner-up and only tripped up when they started doing the first-grade words. When we were practicing the page at home, she was doing so great and I wish we could have gone over the first-grade words more, but she was very proud to get a certificate. It's now on our fridge for display and we used her techniques to help Claire practice her spelling now. She is also so much better at reading than Claire was back in her kindergarten class, it was torture to get her to read with me back in Utah. I remember having to bribe her with candy! I also found some pictures from her Christmas on the account that her teacher uploads things to you can enjoy!

Claire

I can see she is catching up with her math skills now that I'm having her do a page every day, I think it mostly has to do with how well she is focusing when she is working. We are almost done with her first Chapter book and since we started practicing quiet reading time because Shay's teacher sent home a homework page to increase stamina for quiet reading, I hope she keeps getting better. We picked out all the books that I knew they could read on their own because they knew the story or could read 90% of the words. Then they sit in our black and white chairs and read until they are bored of the books and eventually, they should get to 30 minutes of being able to just sit and read. I also found a video from Christmas time on Shay's website that got both of my girls! 

A Beautiful Week of 2025

 Adrian

It is wonderful to have him sleeping regularly and getting good naps now that his sickness is completely gone and we have a normal schedule with the girls back in school. He is a lot more mobile but it isn't always intentional because I see him going from belly to sitting and reaching for things and ending up in new positions all the time. He just doesn't see something and crawls straight for it like I'm sure he will. He does end up close to things that I have to move him away from like cords and the short coffee table we have with hard edges. He also gets his feet stuck under the couch because he is good at backing up on his belly. We got to enjoy the outside for a little bit this week because the weather was so night Adrian kept reaching for the door. It wasn't cold at all and was even so bright I got to use our new shade tent. 

Claire

School is going good and we are still reading through her Christmas chapter book and getting more practice with sounding out words. I don't know how to get her to catch up to the 2nd-grade reading level except to make her read more and she already thinks it is hard. I've been looking for books she will like and can read with less help so she gains confidence and doesn't dread reading them. During the summer I will at least triple the amount of reading they have to do and maybe she will read books on her own and be caught up by 3rd grade. I have Chris as backup, but he also thinks reading is torture so I need our attitude as a family to change and everyone to want to read as their fun activity! Right now it is just a way for her to earn playing on the computer or at a friend's house. 

Shay

She has been earning new toys this week by going 10 full days without having an accident at night. We were sure she was ready and she proved us right, today was the last day and she got a kitty, a puppy, and a kitty purse as a prize. I had bought them and had them sitting on her tally marking page so she could see the prizes she gets when she is clean at night. Chris and I got to go to the temple yesterday and the girls played with a babysitter, I heard all about how she was the older sister of their church best friends. It is nice to know they act so well when we have a babysitter, and the girls have been good at helping play with Adrian too. 

Happy New Years 2025!

 New Years Eve

Since this is also special to our family because it is Chris's and my anniversary, I went to pick up sushi as a special dinner while Daddy and the girls made the table all pretty for us. I remember long game nights with friends when I was growing up so I wanted a little bit of that this year. The girls stayed up with us until 10pm, we each picked a board game to play as a family starting with the girls' choices. Then they started drawing a cat play house for some reason while I was putting Adrian to bed so when we started my game they were distracted but Daddy picked Uno so we got to teach them one new game. We got ready for bed and then watched the Times Square ball drop in NYC so we could have a countdown. I almost felt like we should have done something else because I didn't love showing all the crazy people partying, but they were busy coloring on the table and didn't pay attention until about 30 seconds beforehand. Then seeing people kiss reminded me that people actually do that so I kissed Chris and we blew our party horns then sent them to bed!

Parks

Since break started I've been making sure we get out for a walk once a day and finding new parks around the neighborhoods. We are within walking distance and have enough sidewalks for 4 different parks and the girls have been naming them. Starting with 'park we eat at' because of the summer lunches and 'park we don't eat at' which is now 'the workout park'. We now have the 'orange park' where Buttercup tried her first slide but it was huge, the 'slide park' where she wasn't interested because of her past experience, and the 'blue park' where she overcame her fear and had fun going down the slides. We had heavy enough snow on the 1st to stick to the ground which was enough to stop our daily walk, but made a fun day playing in the snow. It was a new experience for both Adrian and Buttercup, but I bundled them up enough and had to handle the aftermath when everyone wanted to bring the snow inside.

More

Finished my first 2000-piece puzzle that I've been wanting to start wince my party when I began sorting the edges and some of the colors. I could never find a surface to do it on until last week and set up the back of a large mirror in my sewing room. I was working on it for so long off and on throughout the week that my family and dog got used to me hiding away and kept finding me in there. Chris may say its an addiction, but only when I have a puzzle that I really like and this one was very fun with all the colors and textures. The girls stole Adrian during one of the meals and it was funny that they wanted him to sit next to them so I had to catch a picture. His favorite meal is breakfast when I do bananas, eggs, and toast because he goggles it up so fast! He also is now really good at holding his own cup and drinking through the straw, I'm pretty sure our weaning is on track but who knows with this little one because when he was sick a week ago I felt like we hadn't made any progress! Now that he is feeling better and sleeping better he its is back to the old schedule and thankfully that means getting the girls to the bus stop on time should be possible.