Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We spread Valentine's Day out a bit this year and celebrated some the weekend before. They both opened their little gifts from Mommy and Daddy the day before Valentine's Day. For Luke, a small set of Lincoln Logs. For Mia, Violet the talking/singing dog. Plus a few little things: lollipops, stickers, hair clips, etc. They were both excited.


Luke and I also baked cookies for his class the weekend before. He was so proud as he helped me to assemble Valentines for all of his classmates and stuff little cellophane bags filled with red and pink sprinkle cookies. He also made (with the help of Day) a beautiful bouquet of heart shaped chocolate pops for Mommy and Daddy as well as some to give to his teachers. So it was especially disappointing when he came down with a cough and fever the Sunday afternoon before the big day. By the following morning I knew there was no way he could go to school ... so we ended up spending the morning at the pediatrician's office instead - only to find out that he had croup. We were able to head over to his school just before dismissal so that he could drop off his bag of goodies for his classmates. Thankfully Luke's sweet teachers had made sure to collect all of his Valentine's for him so he was able to bring those home to go through that afternoon. Despite how sick he was, he loved looking through all the Valentines from his friends.

I made the cutest Valentine's Day shirt for Luke and was disappointed that he didn't go to school that day to show it off :) ... but we wore it to the Dr.'s office!

And Mia looked just darling in her outfit and was such a great sport about tagging along with Mommy and Luke all morning.

May lots of LOVE fill your hearts and homes today!!!

XOXO,

The Saccentos

Good weather, great friends

We had a really fun day hanging out in San Francisco with some of our favorite friends, the Moores.

We met up with them at the Presidio where there was a nature program for kids and families taking place. Michael somehow was put in charge of helping the boys build a "habitat" out of supplies found in nature. He was most motivated by the fact that we would head out to lunch once it was completed!

Luke really enjoys hanging out with Aidan now - he's finally getting to an age where he can actually play with Aidan. And Mia, well she and Bailey are best friends of course :)!

Our little fish

I think I have mentioned in previous posts here what great improvement Luke has shown during swimming lessons. We've kept him enrolled throughout last fall and this winter because he really seems to love it and be improving all the time. He is only one skill away from moving up yet another level. So proud of him!

Getting ready to push off

Practicing glides with Mr. Anthony

High-fives for Mr. Derrick

Mia observes closely and cheers her brother on each week

February firsts

We've had an eventful month so far. Just wanted to make sure that I document these few things before I forget ... no pictures today, although I do have some videos and swim lesson photos to upload so hopefully I'll get those up this weekend.

1 - Luke knows all of his letter sounds and is spelling words! HUH!? I honestly cannot credit us with this. I don't know where it came from, but he now goes around the house naming objects and telling me what letters are in their name. Today, with a bit of my help sounding it out, he spelled the name "Piglet." I'm amazed. Is this normal? Love him, my brilliant little boy :)

2 - Mia is upright and getting around! It's funny, people ask, "is she walking yet?" as if just one day she will crawl and the next be walking. Thinking back, I remember it being a very slow progression over about a month for Luke. And I'm seeing the same with Mia. She's been taking steps here and there for several weeks now. Then, last week we were up to about 4 steps in a row. This week she's doing more like 6 at a time. I also see her attempting to walk first (before crawling) more often - nearly everytime she wants to get somewhere. I did take some short clips of her last night, so I'll post those. I'd say full-fledged walking is just around the corner!

More to come ...

Playtime

Luke wants absolutely nothing (NOTHING!) to do with Mommy taking pictures of him right now. Not sure what that's about, but he's basically hiding from the camera all the time.

Mia on the other hand, is pretty much a ham.

I grabbed the camera today while they were playing - just trying to capture those "normal," "everyday" moments....

...and then Mia does this. Reason #587 why I can't leave her alone for even a second. Safe? I think NOT!

Soccer Sister

and swim lessons sister,

and running to and from school sister,

and generally whatever brother or mommy needs to do sister.

Oh, the downfalls of being a 2nd child. Lucky for us, Mia is pretty tolerant and happy to be out and about most of the time. Here she is in her new soccer sister role. She seems to be enjoying it despite the cool evening breeze (read: whipping wind - Mommy was freezing).

And one from the trip to school this morning - mainly just because I can't take how cute the hat is!

Soccer fun

Our little soccer player is having so much fun on his new "team." Kidz Love Soccer is a great, introductory program that happens to run some classes through our local community center, so it is also really convenient (we can walk!).

Luke is pretty excited that he is now a "real" soccer player and gets to wear shin guards. Can't wait till the weather is a little warmer so he can show those off with some shorts :)

I love watching his little face as he stands and listens to coach's instructions ... you can see that Luke thinks Coach Javier is a pretty funny guy!

Little Ragamuffin

Mia refuses to wear a clip in her hair :(

I can't believe this day is finally here. I really hoped that she would just be one of those girls who loved to wear cute things on her head ... or who just didn't notice that she had something in her hair. No such luck.

And so, with her current hair-do, she looks a bit like a (cute!) ragamuffin most of the time at home ... and when we're out, I'm that mom who is constantly trying to replace her child's hair clip. Sigh...

Two front teeth!

Mia finally has them - and she looks so cute, and so grown up!

Of course, none of these pictures really show them all that well, but we'll try again soon.

Sleeping with a "few" things?

Luke's nightly ritual

Three and a half

Our little guy is three and a half. Time is flying. He is growing like a weed. His imagination and vocabulary are out of control. His naps are sparse. And we're more and more in love with him and feel so grateful to be able to watch him grow. Here's the mid-year recap on Luke:

The first half of 3 was "challenging," as many told me it would be. Several mommy friends warned me. I wasn't sure that I needed to worry ... I did. I can't put my finger on exactly what was the challenge. I guess because it was just EVERYTHING. Luke spent several months testing all of the limits and just being difficult in general. The good news is that we seem to have come through it and for the past few weeks he has been the most pleasant, agreeable, patient, kind boy. I hope that boy hangs around for a while :)!

Imagination and make-believe are the main parts of Luke's days. He LOVES to pretend. He has all sorts of scenarios playing out at all hours of the day. Some involve real people and real things, others involve things and characters that are most definitely not real (the pack of 10 dogs and 10 cats, for instance, who apparently live in our storage loft). Sam, Luke's pillow pet, is also a main player in all of the make believe. It is pretty cute and amazing to hear some of the stories that he comes up with ... then again, I don't find it quite so "cute" when he blames the shove that he just gave his sister on Sam.

After meeting with the social worker at Luke's school in November, we have completely figured out the potty situation. We basically gave the potty power back to Luke (since he had it all the time anyways) and it essentially "fixed" the accidents that he was still having. So, I can now say with complete confidence that he is potty trained and hasn't had an accident in 2 months! Woo hoo!

He's still the pickiest eater I know. In fact, things that he used to like have started to fall of the list - leaving an even shorter list of Luke-approved foods than before. I've decided that I'm giving Luke the power back on this one also (after all, he's in control - I can't force him to eat anything). So, I cater most meals to his tastes, adding in a non-approved food from time to time just to expose him to it. I sneak vegetables into fruit dishes and juices. Whatever ... hopefully he'll grow out of it. In the meantime, his growth is right on track....

Speaking of which, he seems to have grown a tremendous amount in the past month or two. I have no idea how tall he is, but I took one look at him a few weeks back and was shocked to notice that his 3T shirts are no longer fitting. They are all too short in the torso and arms. Amazing! 3T pants still seem to fit well. As of this month Luke weighs 34lbs.

Napping has been slowly dwindling down. For a while he was "resting" and falling asleep on most days, but we're down to a real nap about 1-2 days a week now. He takes a "rest" everyday from about 2/2:30 - 4:00, which means he's in his bed during that time with some books. The nice part of him not actually sleeping is that (after a short period of complete insanity before bedtime) he is 100% ready for bed at 7pm. He doesn't complain and there are no late-night antics. He just passes out immediately. :)

In terms of health - he's been relatively healthy this winter. Only one ear infection! One tube is out (right ear) and the other is still in. We'll just see how he does, but we are optimistic. Luke's speech sounds to us like it has improved dramatically. Most people seem to understand what he says the majority of the time. We'll double check with his teachers next month during our conference, but I'm hoping that he has made some progress and will continue to do so until he has caught up with his peers. He's at no loss for vocabulary! Some of the stuff to comes out of his mouth amazes me. This month his teachers at school did notice Luke having some trouble focusing his eyes and one of them wandering a bit, so he will be seeing a pediatric opthamologist in a few weeks to have them looked at.

At 3 and a 1/2 Luke has a full schedule - school 3 mornings a week, a pre-soccer class/program on Tuesday evenings, and swimming lessons on Thursdays. Although there are times when he tells me that he doesn't want to go (his favorite thing to do is to stay in his pjs all day long!), he really loves all of his activities once we get there. He's becoming more social at school, but overall is still pretty quiet in a group setting and takes a while to warm up. I say he saves all of his talking for Mommy and Daddys' ears!!!

What a sweet, sensitive, energetic, curious, loving, imaginative, silly, cute boy we have ... so lucky!

'Tis the Season....

...for birthday parties, apparently!

We have been to a few recently and we have several coming up in the next few weeks.

Luke was happy to attend buddy V's jump party at Pump It Up to help him celebrate, but to be completely honest, the main draw for Luke was seeing the lovely Jadyn.

Although Jadyn and her family have moved about an hour north, Luke has not forgotten about her - he talks about her frequently and jumps (literally, in this case!) at any opportunity to see her.

Here's hoping that we'll have a repeat Jadyn sighting at A's birthday party in early February. Luke's hoping ... and so are we actually, they are such sweet friends.

Mmmm ...

Lovin' her spaghetti

Mia at 1

What's going on in Mia's world at ONE year old?

First off, we headed out to the pediatrician this week for her 1-year-old well check. Everything looked great, her development is right on track, and her growth ... well, that is just fine too, even though she's still SUCH a peanut.

Mia's 1 year old stats

Weight: 17 lbs, 9 oz (right around 5th percentile)

Height: 27.75 inches - although this is up for debate since three different people measured her after the first measurement showed no growth since her last visit, but we'll go with it (between 5th and 10th percentile)

Head circumference: 17 inches (5th percentile)

She is still wearing 6-12 month (or 9 month, depending on brand) clothing, size 3 diapers, and size 3 shoes.

Mia has a few words now, but her new thing is that she talks ALL the time. She loves to talk. She's got a ton of consonant and vowel sounds and her voice has inflection like she's having a real conversation, except the sounds aren't really in an order that any of us can understand. It is super cute to listen to, though. She does say "hi" all the time, often to complete strangers. She also says "bye," "Daddy," and "kitty" consistently. Not so consistently, but I've definitely heard them are "Momma" (go figure!), some form of "Brooklyn," and "milk." She is also starting to use signs. Her sign for "all done" is used after nearly every meal. She also knows the sign for "milk." We are working on "more," "please," "thank you," "eat," and "drink."

She seems dangerously close to walking. Dr. Dugoni said on Monday that her guess would be that it will happen within the next couple of weeks. She stands without support or holding on to anything all the time now. It seems impossible for such a little thing to be standing on her own - so cute!

Oh, the teeth, the teeth. She's got such a funny mouth right now! She officially has 6 teeth now with the 7th (the top left) pushing through as I type. The new ones in the past month are the top right front tooth and one on the bottom to the left of her middle teeth. She looks like a little jack-o-lantern.

Sleeping continues to go well at night. We consistently get somewhere between 11.5 and 12.5 hours! There were a few nights last week that she woke up at 5:30am, but I am chalking those up to teething. She naps twice a day, and after about a week of rocky morning naps we are back on schedule. She wakes up for the day sometime between 7 and 8, goes down for a nap between 10 and 10:30, I wake her from that nap by noon (to preserve the pm nap), she naps again from 2:30ish to 4:30ish, and then is in bed between 7 and 7:30.

In the world of eating Mia continues to outshine her brother! Although, I must say that she is getting a bit more picky, which is starting to really worry me. Please, God, I canNOT deal with two non-eaters. What are her favorites? Well, the girl can down a banana faster than anything. She LOVES carbs (mmmm ... me too!) - crackers, pretzels, bread, toast, waffles, cereal - loves it all. Italian food is also popular: ravioli, spaghetti, lasagna, as are refried beans and lentil soup. She was eating all veggies for a while, but lately has definitely preferred sweet potatoes, squash, and carrots and not as many greens. Strangely, she doesn't seem to like cheese. This is something that I just cannot bring myself to understand. I transitioned her to whole milk the week of her birthday and she did great. She had her first sip at Aqui's on the evening of her birthday and hasn't looked back. We also took the bottle away at the same time (she was getting a couple of bottles a day during the past 6 weeks or so while I weaned her from breastfeeding), so she's drinking her milk from a sippy cup during the day. I am still nursing her twice a day: upon waking in the morning and at bedtime.

Think that's it for now ... will update more soon on Mia and also on our big 3 and 1/2 (officially in a few days!) year old.

Papa's girls

First birthday girls Julie (in September 1979) and Mia (in January 2011) spending time with their beloved Papa