Alex has Mastered the Mouse

Alex has had a few colds this month, so we’ve been playing more computer games than usual to keep ourselves entertained. He loves playing on his Nexus tablet and my phone and can play all the games without any help. The one place he still needed help was with my laptop. Well, that all changed yesterday! He’s been clicking the button on the touchpad for months, but finally figured out how to use the touch pad to control the mouse. I’m both relieved and in trouble! He can play Curious George on his own, but now he always wants to play on my computer! This is a fun video to watch (and to tell the truth, he does better with the touchpad than several of my teachers did when I was their trainer!)

If you want to watch Alex playing the same games a year ago, click here.

Army Crawling & ABCs

Spencer figured out how to army crawl over the weekend! He has been getting up on his hands and knees and rocking like crazy and he has been turning in circles, but he couldn’t move himself forward until Friday of last week. I guess the hard wood floors at my parents’ house did the trick. Watch the video below … Spencer started sitting up on the mat in front of the brown chair, and followed his block all the way across the room! AND, as a bonus, Alex decided to sing his ABCs all the way thru “P” while I had the camera on Spencer, so turn up your volume! (Turns out he can sing all the way thru “Z”, but he didn’t do that til the next day.

Love My Boys!

We held an impromptu photo shoot on my bed the other day, and I got some beautiful pictures of my boys. I hope they always love each other this much!

Alex has become such a good helper with Spencer and loves to bring him toys and show him how to do things. Here is a quick video of Alex showing Spencer how to “blow it up.” Thanks, Bob, for teaching this to Alex!

Dancing Cheese

Alex LOVES to dance! He will dance to pretty much any song anywhere. He dances in his car seat, in the buggy at the grocery store, in the bath tub … he just loves dancing. The most impressive part is … he’s got some really good moves! We don’t watch much dancing on tv, and he certainly didn’t learn any good moves from me. I finally caught a clip of him working on a line dance while we were cleaning over the weekend. Please don’t judge me on his mis-matched pajamas he is still wearing!

Spencer is 6 months!

It’s amazing how time flies when you aren’t sleeping! Spencer is 6 months already! My happy, smiley baby is obsessed with Alex and eating, and always wants both at the same time. He’s become quite a snacker because he is always distracted by trying to watch and play with Alex. We’ve tried a few solid foods: rice cereal, bananas, and sweet potatoes, but he isn’t getting them every day yet. I plan on trying avocados next! Spencer is definitely ready to crawl, preferring to always be on his belly so he can push up and rock or squirm over to a toy or Alex. He’s a busy baby! We finally have his bedtime at the same time as Alex, and he’s sleeping until around 9:00 in the morning. He usually wakes one or two times to eat, and lately, try to play.

Spencer’s 6 month well baby check-up was today. He had to get 4 vaccinations, along with the usual measurements. Here are the stats:

Height: 28 inches … 94th %ile (he’s grown 1.5 inches in 2 months)

Weight: 18 pounds … 58th %ile (he’s gained 2 pounds in 2 months)

Head: 45 cm … 90th %ile (his head grew 2 cm in 2 months)

This video clip shows Aunt Kelsey cracking up Spencer and Spencer trying out some new sounds while helping me make dinner:

Alex, 6 months

Spencer, 6 months

Nummers

“Mommy, come here. I made nummers,” I was really curious what Alex had used to make numbers when he called me from the living room into the play room. I knew he had been playing with the Duplo, but couldn’t imagine how he’d make numbers with them. Man was I impressed when I saw he had DRAWN a 6, 1, and 3. We haven’t worked on writing/drawing anything other than a line and a truck!

Sweet Potatoes

Well, it looks like Spencer is going to love sweet potatoes just as much as his big brother! Last week, we sat him down with some pureed sweet potatoes mixed with some breast milk, and he really seemed to enjoy it! Of course, I think his favorite part of the whole meal was grabbing the spoon away from Daddy and chewing on it. He sure is tricky to feed! He gets so excited when he sees the spoon, but doesn’t always do a good job of swallowing the food. I guess practice will make perfect!

I feel like Spencer is asking Alex, “What are they going to do to me?”

He’s not really sure what he’s supposed to do with his full mouth.

Alex loves taking pictures with “his” camera. He’s actually taken some really good ones!

Thanks, Daddy, I can take it from here.

Spencer’s 1st Christmas

Spencer was super excited to try on his Christmas clothes and a Santa hat for the camera:

Christmas Morning 2013

Turn up your volume, because here is a cute video of Alex finding his presents and wondering why Santa isn’t still in our living room:

 

Alex came into our room around 8:00, his usual wake-up time. Tim went to “check” to see if Santa came, and when he reported that he had, Alex was sooo excited, he couldn’t get downstairs fast enough! Spencer slept until sometime after 9:00, which was very thoughtful of him. It was fun just spending Alex’s first truly excited Christmas morning with just him. Alex was very excited for Spencer to wake and loved helping him open his presents almost as much as opening his own.

“Whoa, tools!” Alex got just what he told Santa he wanted!

More presents in the stocking!!

I wasn’t even finished changing Spencer’s diaper when Alex started “helping” open presents.

Santa brought tools for Spencer, too!

Alex got right to work after opening his presents. Check out that Strunck tongue!

Spencer was so impressed by the lights in the tree.

Alex’s Christmas present from Kovu – he finally cuddled up with him. Alex was soo happy!

Christmas Eve 2013

We had a great Christmas! We’ve been so busy that we are only now getting back into a semi-normal routine, which is a big reason why I’m so far behind! Tim was off December 20th – January 2nd, so he was home for 2 weeks, which was really nice. He held “bottle boot camp” for Spencer and was very successful! He will now take bottles and formula … yay Daddy!

Now back to Christmas Eve, well actually, let’s go all the way back to Christmas Eve Eve (the night before Christmas Eve). We took the boys to see the lights at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. They put on a pretty cool show! We got to drive under the race track and on the race track by pit row. Alex was very impressed by the lights – Tim and I were mostly impressed by the steep grade of the turns on the race track. We had no idea it was so steep!

Driving under the race track!

On Christmas Eve, Alex and I decorated cookies for Santa before bed time. He actually went to sleep without any problems, but I’m sure that will be different next year. He was definitely excited about Santa coming, even though I don’t think he really had any clue what we were talking about.

Cant you tell which cookies were decorated by Alex?

I asked Alex to write his name for Santa, but he decided to draw a picture of a rocket ship crashing down into the water during a storm (one of his favorite things to draw).

Merry Christmas to Alex and Spencer!