Monthly Summary – July

July was a wonderfully fun month and here’s a little recap of somethings I didn’t get a chance to blog about!

Wild Adventures: We’ve used our season passes enough to make it worth getting them again next year! It’s wonderful to have a fun thing to do so close to us! We went just the three of us one Saturday morning and had a great time together.

Kye loved touching the snake

Zach enjoyed taking turtle porn pictures? haha

and Daddy enjoyed taking Kye to the “big kid” splash park!

he LOVED it

Park: Our neighborhood park has been neglected by us this summer. It’s SO hot outside!!! Why would I want to sweat when I can swim in the pool and stay cool instead? I have literally taken Kye on ONE walk this entire summer and we didn’t last long as the park as the slides are scorching hot. So hot that we are considering putting in our own playground next summer at our house with an inclosed slide! I did snap some pics so here’s Kye enjoying our short park visit:

this is as high as he climbed 😉

Big Boy Cups: Kye really enjoys drinking from a straw and it makes life a little easier especially when he drinks thicker stuff that won’t fit through his sippy lid.

milkshake!

his cup from the GA Aquarium

I did let him try a legit big boy cup and it didn’t go so great. If I’d known back then that he’d have to be able to drink from one for school then I would have worked a little harder with him on it, but I figured why teach him how to do it when all it will do is cause a mess?!?! Here’s a video of his attempt and you can tell he doesn’t like getting wet haha.

Drawing: Kye asks to color/draw at least once a day. Often more than that. He will concentrate and focus for long periods of time on his “artwork” and will gladly tell you all the things he’s creating. Of course to me they look like scribbles but I’m no artist myself 😉 Here’s a video of Kye drawing and sharing with us what he’s drawing (and letting me know that Blitzen is a boy) and another video of him coloring and using his stamps.

Dress up: My brother and I LOVED dress up when we were kids and Santa got Kye a ton of stuff for Christmas thinking he’d be an age where he’d enjoy it. Nope. We get the box down from his closet every once in awhile but he never wants to put on any of the clothes. The closest I can get him to “dressing up” is playing with hats, jewelry, and silly glasses. Hey – it’s a start right? We had fun playing with lots of my old toys and here’s a video.

Sleep Issues: Kye had a few rough patches in July with sleep problems. He’s always been a rough teether and he doesn’t have his molars in yet so I think the sleep problems were to do with that. We actually started putting him to bed earlier at night (7-715 instead of 730-745) and we’d let him sleep in most mornings until 7:30. He’s gotten where he doesn’t take the 4 hour naps like he used to when he’s tired but instead needs more night rest. He’ll still nap from 1-3:30 but he often wakes up at 3 and doesn’t fall back to sleep. On this day we had just gotten back from the Zoo/Aquarium trip and he said “Mommy I’m sleepy” and layed down on the floor with his friends to go to sleep!

Toy Rotation: I went through toys recently to see what needs new batteries, what needs to be cleaned, and what needs to be stored. I came across this ball toy that shoots them up in the air and I thought for sure he was well beyond that toy. Um, I was wrong. He became hardcore about it and played with it non-stop for his entire 25 min long roomtime! Good reminded to rotate toys!

Swimming in Tub: Our little water baby 😉 I love it! He is so silly in the water now and has ZERO fear (thanks again to Tiny Bubbles!). He enjoys swimming throughout his bath and especially laying on his back to do starfish. He thinks it’s so funny to have his ears under the water and pretend like he can’t hear us. It works out well because it’s a good way to rinse his hair 😉 I attempted to take this video of him swimming but he totally slipped and busted it so I’m cracking up instead haha.

Magazine: I have this old, ratty, Toys R Us Christmas Catalog left over from December and it’s become Kye’s “magazine.” Every time he poops (which is daily at 12:50 haha) he wants to read his magazine. He started to do the whole “I want this” thing but I nipped it by telling him that he can ask Santa so now he says “ask Santa this…ask Santa this…” I love Santa!

In these pictures he pulled out all the magazines in our bathroom to read. He was content for long enough for me to get ready so I was happy! I took this video because you can hear him whispering “find somethin'” over and over again. I don’t know what he was looking for but I don’t think he ever found it. Must be used to hearing me say that when I’m looking for house decoration stuff!

Games: Another Christmas gift just now starting to get used! Hasbro had a MASSIVE sale on all their preschooler games over Christmas and I got tons of them for $2 each. We’ve just started to pull them out and play with them and the easiest for Kye to understand is Don’t Break the Ice. We tried Cootie and he can’t grasp all the different instructions, with Don’t Break the Ice he really only has to learn to take turns and it’s a great skill to practice…especially since he started preschool in August!

he’s so intense

Peanut Butter: My favorite food is peanut butter. I eat it probably on average once a day. Kye’s followed in my footsteps (probably enjoyed it in the womb!) and will beg for it. He and Stevie enjoyed digging in with their spoons 😉

Nemo: July was the month of Finding Nemo. He watched it a couple times when he was younger (at least parts of it) but it scared him so we put it up for awhile then he started asking for it again so I let him watch it (he gets 30 min of tv time a day after roomtime). He is obsessed with it. He talks about Nemo alllll the time so I was excited when we found a Nemoish looking pool toy in the clearance section at Target 😉 He will even make his toy cars pretend to be in the movie and will have one of his firetrucks be the daddy and one be Nemo and will have the daddy say to other cars “I lost my son! I lost my son!”

Holding his “Nemo” toy and totally content b/c he fell asleep on the way home!!!

Texting: I’ll be honest – I truly appreciate all that is texting. I cannot stand to talk on the phone and who has time to with a toddler running around? I also am not very good at sitting down at the computer and replying to stuff on facebook and in emails…I’m trying to get better but I’m BAD about reading stuff, keeping it as new, then forgetting about it (which is why I have 15 new messages in my facebook and over 1,000 emails…). If you need to reach me – TEXT ME! Zach captured this moment…guess I’m influencing my son huh? When he picks up his toy phone his first instinct is to type on the keys rather than put it to his head and talk. Hey – texting is healthier for you b/c less radiation 😉 He may use his phone for texting, but he uses his toy remote for phone calls. In this video (sorry it’s dark) he calls Daddy, Stevie and Crissy to ask them about going to Chick-Fil-A and playing golf.

reminder: I’m PREGNANT not fat!

Other Things Kye was up to in July:

• His cars now have conversations with each other and he’s more involved in pretend play (like making them act out Nemo as I mentioned earlier). He’ll often have Mater ask Lightnin’ McQueen “what you doin’?” then will have McQueen respond “I talkin my friend.”
• He sings NON-STOP! It’s so funny because he makes up his own songs all the time and will repeat them for days. In this video he’s singing one of his favorites we call “Do Be” but his favorite song is one where he sings “just a minute…in four minutes” Random!
• Kye can now (finally) jump with both feet coming off the ground
• He LOVES his Crocs and can put them on all by himself
• Since he turned two I cut back a lot of his milk intake so he can have other varieties of dairy in his diet (cottage cheese, string cheese, yogurt, etc). I will fill up his cup 1/3 of the way full then he’ll ask for more and I’ll always tell him “last one” then fill it up a little under 1/4 of the way. He is in the habit of asking for that second bit of milk and telling me that it’s the “last one,” as you can see in this video.
• Ever since we got home from St Augustine Kye will constantly ask us to “make a fork” and by that he means “make a fort” Typically this is on our bed with ALL our pillows! Why make the bed in the morning when it’ll be a disaster zone by lunch?
• He’s at the age where he is starting to copy things we say and we need to step up our game a little in the vocab department. We do NOT cuss but still say things we don’t want our own child to repeat. He dropped a toy car and let out a “oh crap!!!” so I knew that the time has come for us to be careful!
• Everyone has their own pet peeves and one of mine is “I neeeeed ___” You don’t need it, you want it. I worked with Kye on this A LOT during July and once he got down saying “I want ___” I then started requiring him to also say “please.” You can tell he’s learning to say “I want” in this video. It’s still whiney and annoying, but it’s better than need and a good step in the right direction for “please” 😉
• Daddy is Kye’s hero and can fix everything with his tools. When Kye gets a boo-boo he says “Daddy will fix it.” 
• Kye now has developed his own opinions on things and I love hearing him say “fun” and “cute.” We went to the bookstore one day and he kept taking books off the shelf (and putting them back) then saying “this Bible (every adult book is a Bible to Kye!) is so cute.” 
• Kye started to get more loving in June, but in July he really became that sweet son who adores his mama! When he wakes up from his nap he’ll say “Mommy come cuddle” and it’s hard to resist running to him right away 🙂 He enjoys having me rub on his back and will want to hold my hand all the time. While he poops…while he eats…it’s sweet and he even rubs my hand with his fingers! Here’s a video of his hand holding while eating. 
• The best thing to happen in July was that Kye told me for the first time EVER that he loves me!!! We were cuddling in his bed after nap and he climbed up on me then looked down on me with this sweet look on his face and said “I love you” and then hugged me tight. It was a moment I’ll never forget!!!!