Almost 9 Month Comparison Pics

Wright top, Spencer bottom

What The Boys Have Been Up To

Wright - almost 3!

• Loves puzzles, definitely his favorite thing to do at home. He does them over and over and over and can do ones with 15-20 pieces by himself (or with little help).
• Recently really loves Play-Doh. He can sit for 45 minutes playing with it and making different creations.
• He's a climber. He tries so hard to climb the tree in our backyard but it is a Japenese Maple with smooth limbs and high branches. He never gets very far. But today at school, he went missing on the playground and his teacher found him in the tree! A big No No but funny regardless.
• As I have previously mentioned, he loves school. He walks around like he owns the place and runs to his room in the morning, sitting right down to do his work. Since he is a teacher's son, all the other teachers and aides know him and give him lots of attention which he soaks up.
• He likes to make up songs all the time and sometimes they are very impressive. The other day at lunch he was singing to a made-up tune "Jesus is God, Jesus is a man, Jesus is God and I am glad."
• He has started telling stories at dinner especially. They are made up and probably a mixture of real life things and things from books or tv. We think he does it mostly so that we will talk to him, but it is hysterical regardless. We also have taught him how to say "excuse me" when other people are talking if he has something important to say. He learned this very quickly but missed the "important to say" part. So now its just "excuse me, excuse me" and when we acknowledge him, he has nothing to say so he just talks jibberish.

Spencer - 8 1/2 months

• He is still so happy all the time and smiles a ton, especially at mom, dad and Wright.
• He will go to anyone but has started reaching for me if I am near.
• Since school has started, he gets virtually no morning nap. As a result, he takes a long afternoon nap and still takes a nap in the evening! He seems way too old to do that but he needs it. He has also started waking up at 6:30 :( I'm convinced its all related to not enough day time sleep.
• He started crawling today!
• He pulls up in his crib and looks out through the bars like he is in jail. He also gets stuck a lot sitting in his crib and can't get his legs out from under him. I find him sleeping on his legs out in front of him a lot (after much crying).
• He does not talk a whole lot but when he does, it is mostly Ma Ma, Da Da or GAH, GAH.
• Probably as a result of being in childcare a lot, he really likes to be held. If he is ever fussy, its nothing my holding him will not put an end to.

8 1/2 Months and We Have A Crawler!

Spencer has been scooting for a few weeks, but today he crawled all the way across the kitchen floor to none other than his brother! It was so cute. :) Wright was loving every minute of it and saying "Come on buddy, come on Spencer, you can do it!" I was lucky enough to capture the moment on video and will try and post the footage soon. Interesting note - he is almost exactly 5 weeks older than Wright was when he started crawling and he was born 5 weeks early.

Spencer's Baptism

Today was a very special day for our family because Spencer was baptized. We had family in town and everyone over to our house afterward to celebrate. Poor Spencer developed a bad cough (maybe allergies ?) literally on the way to church. He was coughing non stop the entire car ride and on and off throughout the service. As you can see, he is not too happy in this first pic. :( But he did great when he the ceremony was being performed. He just stared at the pastor very intently and smiled. The pastor, Pete, married Brendan and me and baptized Wright. He was good friends with my dad, and has always been special to our family. So that part was really neat too. What a wonderful day celebrating God's promise and faithfulness to his children.

Spencer is so sad here.

Now Spencer is happy but of course, Wright turned away!

Another attempt - still not great.

Brother Pics

Wright and Spencer don't wear a lot of matching outfits, but the other day for school they looked so cute in their red gingham. Had to get some pics...

Quote of the Day

Me: "Wright I just had to tell you to do that FOUR times. How many times should I have to tell you before you do something?"

Wright: "Um, Six."

Wright is still loving school

On Fridays we wear our school tee shirts for spirit day, and today I came to wake Wright up wearing mine and he goes "Mom, you got a shirt just like Miss Gibbons. It's Claire's Day School". On the way to school he said "Mom I really wanna go to chapel today and read David goes to school". After school he came out and said in a serious tone "Mom, I got a lot of work to do." When I asked what work, he answered "I no know". :) When we got home, I pulled out his letter of the week page from his take home bag and asked what it is, and he proudly said "I is for ice cream!" Now he is in his room (supposed to be napping) but I am watching him on the video monitor jump around his bed, waving and saying "Goodbye, bye everyone! See you tomorrow! Bye!" That about sums up how much he loves school.

Harmonica

I found this video on my phone last night and had to post it. When Kim was in town in the spring, she brought Wright a harmonica that he loves. This was her reading to him as he played his harmonica between every page. Not rehearsed at all!

Our Little Princess

The other day we got out the family christening gown to make sure it fits our little chunker before the big day in a few weeks. In the bag, I found a bonnet that matches and put it on him as a joke. Wright saw his brother and said in a high sweet voice "Oh, Spencer you like just like Cinderalla!"

Wright LOVES School

Today as we were walking to the car after school, Wright said "Thank you. Thank you Mommy for taking me to my school!" He loves it so much! This year he is in preschool, so he gets to do lots of fun stuff like Kid Fit, Chapel, Music and Spanish. So far he has loved Kid Fit and Music the best. He also loves his "projects" which I think means anything consisting of markers or paint. Crayons do not constitute projects (I have been corrected many times).

He comes home every day with all these stories about his day. Yesterday it was all about how Junior pushed Etta (aka Julietta) down and walked all over her. Then she could not go outside and play cause she was crying. So funny because I asked his teacher about that today and she said that did not happen. I swear, kids create their own stories. Shows why it is so important for parents to not always believe everything their kids tell them about what goes on at school!

Today was fun because I saw Wright in Chapel which we do together as a school. He saw me sitting with my class and walked up to me and said "Hi mom, I gonna sit with you." I had to gently tell him it was time to sit with his class. So he walked off and sat with his friends with no arguments. He acts like such a big boy, but still asks me to kiss him before I leave him everyday which I cherish. He really loves to learn and listens so intently to everything the teachers are saying. Today his music teacher told me that he was so serious about learning the songs and participating and when the other kids were acting up, he would look at them like "Hey people, its time to sing and listen. What are you doing?" :) I am more convinced than ever that he is going to have a really great year.

Back to School

Today was all of our first day back to school. Overall it was a great day! Wright loves his new teacher (and I do too). She is British and just so sweet, always calling him "dahling". Most of his friends from last year are not in his class, but a few of his friends from the summer are, so he felt very comfortable. One of his buddies' parents went to college with me and his mom was president of my sorority. So funny how things turn out like that. The best part is that his room is right by the bathroom, so when I take my kids for bathroom breaks, I can peek in on him. One time they were reviewing colors, and he was shouting out all the answers. One time they were reading a story, and he was listening intently right up front. And one time I saw him walking around with his hand down his pants - gross! ;) Spencer had a great day too from what I could tell. He only took a short morning nap, but that is no different than at home :) The timing worked out well for me too because they both eat their lunch before we leave around 12:30 and when we get home, its time for long naps! I am looking forward to a great year!

I think this is probably the best picture I have ever gotten of Wright, and Spencer is smiling to boot.

Cousins!

We had a great time with Kim's kids in town. Here is a pic of the 7 cousins - ALL boys! Getting Wright to smile is virtually impossible...

Wright's Prayer for Daddy

Brendan is in Las Vegas this weekend on his annual guys' fantasy football draft, golf, college buddies get-together trip. We took him to the airport Thursday morning and when he got out of the car, I said "Ok let's say a prayer for Daddy." and I started to pray. Wright quickly interrupted me and said, "No! No! I want to pray for Daddy by myself!" (everything is BY MYSELF these days ;) So, he proceeded in a mumbling voice...

Dear God, thank you for Daddy, help him be good, help him be safe, help him be better. AMEN!

I was very impressed at how well he nailed the prayer and especially loved the "help him be better" part considering these trips in the past have yielded mistakes such as lost wallets, no sleep and other not-so-great choices :)

On a related topic, the other day we were driving and passed a bad car wreck where an SUV was upside down and people were crawling out the windows. It really freaked me out and I said, "Buddy we need to pray for these people right now, ok?" and I started to pray for them out loud. When I was done, Wright said "Um, I already do that every night!" LOL - guess we need to work on the fact that prayer can and should be any time of day.

7 month comparison

Wright (top), Spencer (bottom)

The Wiggles

Wright has had probably the best week of his life so far. His cousins from Atlanta have been in town so he has gotten to spend tons of time with all the big kids. We have done one fun activity after another including swimming at Melanie's house, swimming at Brookhollow, going to the water park, eating lunch and dinner out, etc. It has been a whirlwind thus far and we have a whole week to go...

Friday night, Kim, Brendan and I took Wright, Cannon and Porter to the Wiggles concert and all the kids had a blast! Wright was a bit star struck the first half and kept yelling (literally) at Brendan and me when we would try to sing and dance with him. The second half he went out and danced in the aisle with a little girl his age who was wearing a Wags the Dog hat. After he met her, he got really into it and danced and sang the rest of the time.

He had to have a souvenier of his favorite band.

The three boys before the show.

Wright kept asking when it was going to start.

The Wiggles in their big red car - this was a highlight.

This is Wright being very serious at the beginning.

Porter was super into all the sing-along songs.

Captain Feathersword came right by our seat to say hi.

Wright dancing with his new friends.

Taking a break from dancing...