Sutton's Last Day of Pre-K {2014-2015}

Today is Sutton's last day of pre-k for this year!

                         

And I had to do a first day/last day comparison. Crazy that he's wearing a hoodie at the end of May, but it's cold today!



This was how he first posed for me. Little stinker.

I told him he could do a silly one, because really this is more like the REAL Sutton than the normal ones.

He's so excited to be out of school for the summer! He has been waiting and waiting because about a month ago, we told him we were gonna do a family challenge. Mommy and Daddy weren't gonna drink pop til the end of school and he wasn't going to get any new toys. We all fell off the wagon a couple times, but mostly kept to it. He's so excited for a new toy today!

Sutton will be returning to pre-k in the fall. I'm having/have had a pretty hard time with this decision. Sutton is still 4...he doesn't turn 5 until the end of June. If we started him in kindergarten this fall, he would be very young for his class and could possibly have a difficult time due to immaturity both socially and academically. At this point, we have no idea if he will struggle with school or not, so we thought we would give him the gift of another year in preschool.

The reason it's been so hard is because everyone who had babies around the time I had Sutton are all sending their kiddos to Kindergarten in the fall. Even kids who are a month or so younger than Sutton are starting. I feel like we're the only ones taking an extra year. I'm confident in our decision for Sutton, but it's hard to see everyone else advancing while we keep Sutton back. I suppose in a few years it won't matter and he will have all kinds of friends in his own grade.

Ren {15 Months}

Ren is 15 months old today! I thought I'd do a little update to remember what he was up to at this age.

*You are so happy and always smiling. Sometimes you'll just laugh for no reason. I find that especially funny when we're in the car and you're in the backseat by yourself and you just let out a loud belly laugh. Your happiness is contagious, Ren! We smile so much because of you!

*We have your 15 month check up on Friday, so I will update this with stats then.

*You're in size 3 diapers still and wearing 12-18 month size clothes. You seem to get longer/taller but not bigger around. You seem skinny and tall to me.

These are some photos I took of the boys last week, playing outside at one of Daddy's friends' houses while Daddy was racing quadcopters. The image below is the one I used for last week's I Carry Your Heart.

*You are walking so well now. You have been choosing to walk without our prompting. You usually take a few steps, stop to get your balance, take a few more steps, stop to balance, and repeat. If you have a long ways to go, you will eventually give up and go back to crawling.

*You are obsessed with outdoors. You would spend the entire day out there if we let you. You don't need any toys. Just sticks, grass, sand, dirt, puddles...and you're happy. Except you try to drink out of the puddles. :/ You bend all the way down and stick out your tongue. You've eaten your fair share of dirt and sand and puddle-water. Whoops. (Second child syndrome right there.)

*If you see someone outside and you don't get to be out there with them, it's pretty much the end of the world.

You were eating your brother's leftover quesadilla in the next few photos, which made me laugh with the funny mouthful faces I caught. :)

*Even though you're mostly happy, you have become a professional fit-thrower. If something doesn't go how you want it to, or if we tell you no about something, you will either screw up your face and bust out crying, or throw yourself backwards and yell. If we're holding you and you do the latter, we always have to catch you before you fling yourself out of our arms.

*If you are frustrated, or sometimes when we tell you no, you put your hands on your head like we're ruining your life.

*You have this really weird quirk. Whenever you find something new...a toy, a piece of clothing, a sack...you raise it up with both arms and put it behind your head and around your neck. Like a scarf or something. It's really strange. Last night, in the car, we found that you had put necklaces on all by yourself by doing this. That's not because you know how necklaces are supposed to be worn, it's because you put everything around the back of your neck.

*You are obsessed with your brother and wish you could do everything he does. I had been watching one of Sutton's little friends two days a week, and if you weren't with them, doing big boy stuff, you would pitch a huge fit. If they went into Sutton's room and closed the door, you would stand outside the door and cry. If they went outside, you crawled as fast as you could to the door and if I closed it, you yelled and screamed. You really like Sutton's friend (Zane). One day when Sutton was in time-out, you and Zane were sitting on the couch together and you kept touching him and hugging him. It was really cute.

*You still eat a lot of baby food, but you eat a lot of normal food now too. Favorites are bananas, strawberries, mashed potatoes, veggie sticks, sweet potatoes, yogurt. You have always been like a garbage disposal, eating whatever we put in front of you. But just in the past few days, you've started refusing things. Like Chic-fil-a nuggets and fries last night. Who would refuse that?!

*I've started putting you in shoes a lot more since you're walking more now. You're getting used to them.

*You still like to sit like the photo below. One leg out, one leg bent back.

*You still take a morning and afternoon nap and go to bed around 8pm. Yesterday you only napped a total of 1 hour and 15 minutes between both naps, but then you slept in this morning which was nice.

*USUALLY you get up sometime between 6 and 6:30am. If it's earlier, I make you stay in your bed til it's 6. Then I come get you out of your crib, you hand me your blankie before I pick you up. We go out to the living room. I lay down with your blankie on my chest and you lay down on it. We lay there and cuddle for a long time. Sometimes up to an hour. Sometimes we fall asleep. Usually we don't. Once it's 7am or later, we get up and have breakfast together while Daddy and Sutton still sleep. It's a nice little time that you and I have together that I want to remember.

*Your brother is almost FIVE. That's a milestone. This beautiful big boy has been so challenging lately. But he has finally been giving me some glimmers of the sweet boy I know he can be, so there is hope for us after all.

*You love bath time and your Papa Ed. You love all your grandparents, but Papa Ed is special to you, which is so sweet. You love to empty cabinets and explore new places. You love climbing onto shelves if they're ground level. I have so many photos of you sitting in shelves (like at the UPS Store and Daddy's school). You love Diesel and are always feeding him your snacks. You love being tickled. You love silly noises and kisses. You love when I put you on my bed to wake Daddy up...you always go give him a hug and smile at him until he acknowledges you.

*At bedtime, I sing you Amazing Grace and Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. Well, I usually just hum them. And if I stop, you start humming to try to get me to start again.

*You say Dada, Sutton, Grandma (ga-ga), more (guh! guh!), puppy (woof woof). You sign "all done" and you love waving bye-bye. When I tell you it's time for nigh-night, you crawl over to your room and wait for me. We think that some of your other noises are actually words that we haven't deciphered yet. We're wondering if you're on the verge of getting frustrated with us not understanding you all the time.

*And you love wrestling and cuddling with your big bro. He's your fave.

This was my ICYH image from the week before last. 

The Piercing of the Nose

I have wanted to pierce my nose for 10 years. I remember that I first wanted to do it during college, but I asked the photographer who I second-shot for what she thought about it and she said it kind of seemed unprofessional. So that was that.

I kept thinking about it and kept thinking about it, but after the professional aspect didn't bother me anymore, I began to worry that it would leave a big scar on my nose, as I feel like I'm prone to scarring. That was the excuse that really kept me from doing it for a long time.

I almost went on New Year's Day this year to get it done. I even called the place to make an appointment, but they were closed for the holiday.

Finally last Saturday, May 9th, I was ready. I'm about to turn 30...I've wanted this for 10 years. It needed to happen. My friend Montana who has many tattoos said she would go with me.

Here's my "before" photo outside the Elektrik Chair tattoo parlor.



I chose my jewelry right away and waited only about 5-10 minutes before they called me back. It all went so fast, haha. This was before the painful part:

                

And from the furrowed brow, you can tell that now it hurts. It hurt a lot worse than I thought it would.

                

I (obviously) had my eyes closed but Montana took these photos and holy cow! Look at that giant needle sticking through my nostril.

Montana thought I was joking when I said I wanted to hold her hand, but whoa, I'm glad I did. I probably squeezed almost as hard as I squeeze Adam's hands when I was birthing his babies. No, it did not hurt as bad as childbirth but it still hurt. :)

Brett was my awesome piercer guy and answered all my dumb questions.

Final product. You can probably barely see it, but it's there! And I love it!



Woohoo! So excited! :)

Ren Walks!

At 14 months (just like his big bro), Ren started walking yesterday! He's taken steps here and there for awhile, but yesterday he started choosing to do it himself and taking several steps in a row. So exciting!

I think we can officially say as of yesterday we have a walker! Only took 14 months...

A video posted by Gina Dreher (@ginadreher) on May 8, 2015 at 12:11pm PDT

And then just because I learned how to embed Instagram videos, here's another funny video from about 2 months ago...

Well... 😞

A video posted by Gina Dreher (@ginadreher) on Mar 13, 2015 at 10:14am PDT

A Few Goings On and ICYH

We've been having some great weather lately...warm, sunny days. So we've been spending a lot of time outside. I'm so thankful that both our backyard and front yard are places our boys can enjoy. Often times with these two, playing outside = dirt. Ren moreso than Sutton usually. But the particular day above, Sutton was busy digging trenches in our bare patches so he could bury helicopter seeds that would grow into trees. I love this photo of him and try to look at it and his sweetness in it when he has given me a challenging day. (Like today.)

Our poor Ren-a-roo struggled a lot with a fever last week. It lasted for quite a few days, and got up to 103.4 one of the days. The first day he woke up from his nap with it, I gave him some ibuprofen and once that kicked in, he was back to his normal self so we proceeded with our evening plans of visiting family. Bad idea. He slowly declined during the evening and ended up puking all over me. Like, a ton of puke. So much. More than I knew could fit in his tiny body. My mom helped me get him in the bath tub and rinse out my clothes and his before we made the 45 minute drive home. Luckily that drive was uneventful other than some sad crying.

The next day was when his temp spiked to over 103. I ended up taking him to Immediate Care, but of course by the time they saw him, the ibuprofen had kicked in and his temp was down to 99 and he was acting completely normal. They said his ears and mouth looked fine, and his breathing sounded normal so it was probably viral. We just kept up with the ibuprofen until the fever went away for good by Saturday. Phew. I hate when my babies are sick.

The I Carry Your Heart blog I contribute to had a special extra post this week where the moms were to be in the photos. So I had Adam snap this quick shot of me and my precious babe before I headed out to work one evening. Even though he was just wanting to be put down so he could play, I still love this moment with him.

Ren {14 Months} and ICYH

Look at the efficiency here of combining posts! :)

Ren turned 14 months old yesterday, and while I didn't do an official 14 month photo shoot with him, I thought I'd accompany some recent I Carry Your Heart photos with some Ren updates.

I asked Sutton to wipe Ren's nose one day and it was so cute (probably only to me) so I made them do it again for a picture. I absolutely love the relationship developing between them. It gets better by the day.

And Sutton is my one-of-a-kind big guy.

Okay, so Ren is 14 months old! We are doing a LOT of this these days:

*Standing holding on to things. Standing without holding onto things. Walking along everything...the furniture, the cabinets, the walls. But he still refuses to walk or even try to walk without holding onto something. He walks so well when he is holding onto things or to our hands. There was one day that he grabbed a fistful of my pants and started walking so I kinda had to hobble after him so he wouldn't fall.

*He started sleeping through the night just before he hit 13 months (during Adam's spring break) but then he regressed due to teething pain...I gave in and nursed him...which ruined everything. He started waking up at night again, so we had to go through the process all over. It took about 3 nights again, but now we're back to sleeping through the night.

*He gets up anywhere between 6 and 7am. If it's on the early side, he and I are the first ones up, so we go cuddle on the couch for awhile. Sometimes we fall back asleep together, sometimes we just hang out. I used to get him to watch Color Crew on Netflix for awhile, but he's really not interested in TV.

*I nursed him for the last time last night (April 19th). So sad, but so happy. I'll never nurse a baby again, but now I can have my body back! We had been down to one feeding (right before bedtime) for awhile, and finally I picked the day that he would turn 14 months to be his last. So hopefully he will be ok with just drinking some milk out of a sippy cup tonight at bed time like he does at nap time.

*Crawling is the best form of transportation right now. He is so fast. Our upstairs is all hardwood, so when he really wants to get somewhere, it's *slap slap slap* all the way across the house. I love it.

*He loves Diesel so much. Too much. He can even SAY Diesel. Not clearly, but we can tell. (He's chasing Diesel in the pic below.) He can also say Sutton (Nuh nuh) and he still calls both me and Adam Da-da. I *think* he's started trying to say Grandma. It comes out more as Ga! or Gaaaaagaaaa!

*This picture makes me laugh. Those thunder thighs are huge and squishy and awesome! And the best tickle-spot.

*At 13 months, he got his top two teeth in finally. So now we have 4 total teeth (top middle and bottom middle). I felt around in there yesterday and didn't feel any more trying to come through.

*This child is OBSESSED with the outdoors. On nice days, we often just let him play out there for hours. He doesn't need toys. All he needs is a pacifier to keep him from putting all the dirt, sticks, leaves, etc. in his mouth. He ate his first dirt last week. So gross. He will just crawl up and down our front steps, into our little mulched area, around the driveway. He even crawled all the way under the Jeep the other day and came out on the other side (don't worry, this was closely monitored and laughed at). I even stripped him down and let him play in a puddle at the end of our driveway in his diaper the other day. That was a muddy mess but he loved it.

*Sharing snacks with his brother. Ren LOVES Sutton and thinks he is hilarious. He laughs and laughs at Sutton and looks at him with such admiration.

*We switched Ren to a big boy car seat last weekend - April 11 or 12. He has a hard time keeping his head up when he falls asleep since this seat isn't as reclined, but I think he likes it ok. We just gave him Sutton's seat and bought Sutton a booster.

Big bro trying to lift Momma's weights. He thinks it's so fun to "exercise" but usually only lasts a few minutes.

I think I will really love looking back at these photos in a few years. They're so ordinary to me now, but they depict our every-day which (I'm sure) will look much different soon!

Ren playing airplanes. He loves making airplane noises and flying them around.

*Ren has developed an obsession with food. He yells about it all the time. If we have food, he immediately crawls *slap, slap, slap* over to us to mooch. If we don't feed him, he grunts and tries to get it himself. Favorites are cereal, goldfish, and anything sweet (ice cream, cookies, cake). He always tries to share Sutton's afternoon snack of goldfish and usually Sutton is pretty good about it.

*Ren is also very into sharing his food with other people. He's always grabbing goldfish or puffs and trying to put them in our mouths. They're usually soggy and gross so we always say "No thank you!" but he insists. :)

*He has discovered a deep and intense love of bananas and strawberries. He will eat an entire large banana in one sitting. And 5 whole strawberries. And want more! We're feeding him more 'real' food and less baby food these days. Though, those pouches are so convenient that we still eat those a lot.

*He's still napping twice a day, still in size 3 diapers and 12-18 month size clothes. Loves baths and tries to get in the bath tub all the time. He loves emptying our cabinets. He's into everything and he is ORNERY. The other day, I had to tell him to stop chewing on the couch, stop eating out of the trash can, stop throwing legos in the toilet, and stop taking the dog food out of Diesel's mouth. All in one day. Sutton never did that stuff.

We are definitely learning the difference between our two boys. Sutton is very high-strung, moody, needs to be in control. But he's so goofy and loving too. Ren is a daredevil, always trying new things, and super-laid back. Unless you don't give him your food or you take him inside when he wants to be outside. Then he will yell at you. :)

These boys are such a blessing!

Sutton's Video

Sutton wanted to make a video, so here it is. :)