Life's lessons

Mia watches Luke's every move these days, and tries to do everything that he does. Now, this isn't always beneficial, but on this particular night, Luke was teaching his little sister good oral hygiene.

I just love watching them together and seeing the way that she looks at him. Precious and priceless.

An afternoon with Luke and Mia

I realized recently that I haven't taken as many pictures of the kids as I usually do. Not sure why. So today I pulled out the camera and just snapped a few candid shots of them doing their thing.

Playing indoors before naptime

Playing outside after naps

I love the look on Linus' face in this one ... as if to say, "Oh, CRAP! She can walk now too!?"

Boys will be boys...

Is this standard in the world of boys? I mean, I don't remember ever wearing my underwear on my head and running around the house as a child.

Tented!

Why do I have super-climbing children? Many of you might remember Luke's tendencies towards climbing. He loved climbing anything and everything. And apparently Mia is following in her brother's footsteps. We thought Luke was young when leaped out of his crib at 20 months ... he had nothing on Mia!

So, the other morning I hear her over the monitor so I know she's awake. She sounds sort of happy, so I doze for a few more minutes. Shortly I hear a thud followed by yelling - not crying, but full out yelling, like she is angry. I jump out of bed and only make it halfway down the hallway before I know that there is a little person just on the other side of that door. I open the door to find an upset Mia - not because she has just fallen from her crib and bumped her head, but because she has made it that far and now can't reach the door handle. I mean, really ... what 13 month old (a small one at that!) can seriously climb out of their crib? Apparently ours!



So, the solution: a crib tent.


In hindsight we knew that we should have got one of these when Luke started climbing out of the crib instead of putting ourselves through the misery of trying to teach a not-even-2-year-old to stay in his toddler bed. I knew right away that we needed one for Mia. I ordered it and paid express shipping (only to later find out that I could have dashed down to Buy Buy Baby and picked one up - Babies R Us for some reason doesn't carry them and I didn't even think to try BBB). Mia actually seems to like it - it's cozy in there. And now that she can't reach out of her crib, I've been able to move the lamp back where it used to be, the wall hangings and video monitor are all now safely out of reach. Maybe we'll keep her in there till she's 9 or so :)!

Cake

Okay, this is the same girl who refused to even touch her birthday cake and had absolutely NO interest in digging into her cake at her 1 year old photo session with Anna Feccia (we could only get her to eat a banana!). Really?


Maybe she just likes to eat her cake in private?

Happy Birthday, Chloe!

Mia's good friend Chloe celebrated her first birthday party over the weekend.

What fun to dress up in my Valentine's outfit again (given that my "Love Bug" shirt fit perfectly into Chloe's ladybug birthday theme) and help Chloe celebrate the big 1!

Mia was absolutely the life of the party until she ran out of steam ... and then she just looked ready to go home. She LOVED walking around the party, eating sandwiches, watching Chloe open her gifts, and eating the yummy cupcakes.

I hope that this is just the first of many, many birthdays that these girls will celebrate together. We made serious attempts to take pictures of the girls together since we have a photo of Chloe's Mommy, Rachael, at MY 1st birthday party over 32 years ago!

Officially a walker!

I would say that today Mia is officially walking, meaning that she is walking across rooms, not just 5 or 6 steps at a time. She is also starting to choose to walk instead of crawl.

Will post video soon!

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!