February 11, 2013: What I love about you...

Liam and Bryn!  This is such a fun stage for you both.  You are both so much more independent, helpful, curious, imaginative, smart, and loving.  (warning-I'm about to do some shameless bragging about my kids :)

INDEPENDENT
Life is so good right now.  Liam and Bryn are such great playmates at this age, and don't require as much adult involvement.  They are usually off playing board games together or playing some game they have made up for themselves.  Two kids who sleep through the night, are pretty much independent in the bathroom, dress themselves (almost Brynnie!).  She puts on her underwear, pants, socks and shoes, and needs just a little help with her shirt...

Liam can even get his own food (yogurt) out in the morning...

and Bryn has learned to work the water from the fridge...

Liam does the whole routine in the morning (potty, dress, brush teeth, yogurt, coat and shoes on, and opens the car door and straps himself into his carseat)...it's amazing and so helpful, especially on school days!  Liam also now gets to do mouthwash which he is very proud of...

Liam gets the mail for me each day, knows how to turn on the TV, pause or record shows for himself and Bryn, and both are great at helping me remember things during my pregnancy-brain phase :)

HELPFUL
And speaking of, they are so helpful to each other and around the house.  Even though Bryn can put on her own shoes now and Liam knows how to do buttons (where Bryn only pretends), she likes to ask him to help with her shoes and he lets her "help" with his button :)

The do a wonderful job with their chores: putting their own clothes away after I do laundry, putting dirty clothes in the hamper, putting shoes in the cubby and hanging up coats, clearing their dishes from the table after meals, setting the table (silverware and napkins), picking up all their toys after playing, helping me prepare meals (Liam)...and so much more!  Even though three kids is a little scary to think about, I'm so grateful to have such good little helpers around when baby Trey gets here :)

CURIOUS
Lately Liam has ALOT of questions for us.  And he's not the type to ask 'why, why, why' for no reason.  He wants to understand how things work and why things are the way they are.  So Nick and I are usually stumped daily by things like "How is wind made?"  "If God stood on a chair how tall would he be?"  "Why do cars all have red lights on the back?"  "How do machines work?" "If we leave Earth, what planet will we live on?"  "How does the light turn on?" "If it rains on the snow what happens?"  "How does the baby get out of your tummy?"  (Ha, I had an out on this since I explained how they cut Bryn out of my tummy and stitched me back up) and finally "How did baby Trey get in your tummy?"  Hmm, there was a little stumbling around, but we finally settled on 'babies come from Heaven'.  End of story for now :)

One day Liam also asked about the blue parking spots and why we don't park there.  I explained they were for handicapped people, meaning someone who might not feel well or needs help to move around.  A few weeks later, Liam asked me to play soccer with him one afternoon.  I told him I was just too tired and it was harder for me to play because of baby Trey in my belly.  He innocently asked if that meant I needed to start parking in the blue parking spots now :)

IMAGINATIVE
Liam and Bryn have their own imaginary games, stories, words, and songs which I love.  Since they watched Milo and Otis (a movie from my childhood about a cat and a dog with voice-overs) with Dallie a few weeks ago, this is one of their favorite games.  Bryn is Milo the cat and Liam is Otis the dog.  They crawl around the house together making animal appropriate noises.

They protect each other from the big hungry bear in the movie (usually played by mommy).  They have a pet home between the chair and couch and pretend to eat feed each other.

They 'meow' and 'woof' in response to my questions :)  Liam is not consistent to playing Otis as he also likes to pretend to be Air Bud (dog from the movie), Monet (a dolphin that Nick and I got to swim with on our honeymoon-he loves that story), or Dunstin (monkey from another movie).  Yes we have now seen quite a few movies with Dallie in the 'movie room', interestingly all from the 80s or 90s so mostly ones that I grew up with too :)  Bryn however does not waiver, in fact she takes Milo to a whole new level.  Usually she wakes up reminding me "no, my name Milo mommy" and her teachers met Milo as she told them that was her name at school now too :)

Liam kicks his soft soccer ball all over the downstairs 'scrimmaging' himself.  He will ask me "do you want man united or liverpool to win?"  I'll choose a team and then he plays for both sides letting me know after a few minutes that "man united beat liverpool 9-1".  Lately his teams have become really silly and I'll have to choose from the "fishing poles vs. the slow pokes" or "the hotwheels vs. the angry birds".

SMART
I could go on too long here, so I'm just going to highlight some of my favorite milestones.  At 4.5 yrs, Liam is reading his early readers (about 2 a week) and writes a book report synopsis on each of them.

He is getting so good at sounding words out and his handwriting (when he concentrates) is wonderful!

He did a worksheet where he wrote out the numbers 1-300 and was so proud to tell us it only took him 2 days :)  He is doing simple fractions at school, and when we had only 2 biscuits one morning for the kids and I he said, "I know how to make 4, cut each biscuit in half to make 1/2.  Then we'll have 4 pieces to share for all of us."  He loves science and comes home telling us how tornadoes work, or the parts of a flower, or how the Earth rotates around the sun.  He still loves geography and is fairly good at recognizing 20 or so countries, their capitals, and what continent they are on.  He was also so proud to come home and tell us that he was the only one in class who could name all 7 continents one day.  Here is the race course he set up one day telling me the red cape was lava from a volcano, the highchair was a mountain, the white paper was glaciers, the pirate ship was in the ocean...and so on!

I love how inquisitive he remains and how is such a sponge for knowledge!

Bryn keeps up quite well for 27 months old.  Liam is often explaining things to her and her favorite reply is "oh" after his (sometimes) long-winded rambles :)  She is great with puzzles and memorizing song lyrics from the radio (favorite right now is Rhianna's 'Shine Bright Like a Diamond').  She can play Sorry, Princess Yatzee, Candyland, Chutes N Ladders, Go Fish against any family member and usually win :)  She is big on her routines and will definitely call you out if you forget something "Dada, you forgot to brush my hair"  "Mama, you forgot my vitamin".  I heard her talking over the monitor one night and asked her who she was talking to.  She responded "I talking to Bear.  Bear's mouth doesn't open so he can't talk.  Only I can talk."  Her little brain is just incredible as she seems like such a big kid to me, especially in keeping up with Liam.  Her latest accomplishment, for which she's very proud, is spelling her name.

LOVING
Last weekend I took Bryn with me and Nick took Liam seperately to run some errands.  Bryn had Bear with her (of course) and turned to look at Liam's empty seat.  She then announced "I have no one to talk to."  I answered, 'you can still talk to me Brynnie' to which she replied "I not talking to you, I talking to Bear."  Needless to say, she loves her best friend Liam and def prefers when he's around :)
They love to snuggle each other and share in silly games or silly words.  They share so many excitements, struggles, and giggles each day and I could not ask for more...this is why I wanted siblings, for all these memories they are creating together...

Liam and Bryn, you make us so proud and happy.  Sure you are normal siblings and while you bicker fiercely with each other at times, you also love each other fiercely :)  No matter what, I hope you always remember your strong bond and count on each other for the rest of your lives.  Can't wait for baby Trey to be a part of all this as well!