Monday, March 26, 2012

Week 159

Mar 14-20

So I promised some updates! The past couple of weeks have encompassed quite a few important family milestones in the Storch household. Jack turned 3, Abel turned 6 months, and Ed and I have been officially married for 6 years! Keep in mind this was our "legal marriage" and not our actual wedding. Most people who know us know the whole long story. It involves the military and having to get legally married so we could get stationed together...blah blah. Anyways, wow 6 years!! It also happened to be St. Patrick's Day this weekend.


I had lots of ideas for this weeks post, but I think I'm going to change it all around. I had saved a bunch of pictures of us doing our St. Patrick's Day crafts and then Ed and I had some pretty funny pictures from our weekend away. Yes, away from the kids. Completely away. For TWO whole nights! It was fun. We went to the beach and celebrated.

So instead of all that I want to switch gears and talk about the boys. I haven't done a milestone piece in awhile. I will start with Jack.

Jack is 3 years old. He is still the sweetest and smartest little boy I have ever met. He is very outgoing and loves to socialize with other kids. He can kind of roll with the punches and can hang in any situation. Whether it's older kids, kids his age, or babies he doesn't really care. He has tons of friends and knows all of their names. He is an awesome big brother and often takes time to show Abel things or give him toys. He loves to play with anything trains, trucks, cars, etc. He can seriously name any truck out on the highway or at a construction site. He will play with his toys by himself, but is also good at sharing with other kids. He also likes to read books. We try to read at least once a day, but typically will do much more than that. His new favorite place is the library.



Jack loves to explore and learn new things. He can sing his ABC's perfectly and he knows all of his letters. He counts to 12 accurately. Jack knows most of his colors red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, white, black, brown, pink (all the normal ones). He can easily complete a puzzle. He also loves to play games and is learning to have enough patience to sit still long enough to finish one. He has an amazing Memory. If he meets someone once he will remember them months later. It blows my mind. He also remembers directions when we are in the car if it's somewhere he has been before, he tells you which way to go.


He is very funny. He likes to do and say funny things to make people laugh. Physically he is very coordinated for his age. He can pedal his bike, run fast, jump up and down, kick a ball, catch a ball (a big one), and he has a killer throw. We are thinking he is left handed when it comes to sports. When he is drawing he seems to favor the right hand though. He can draw a circle and identify most basic shapes (square, triangle, circle, heart, star, moon, oval, rectangle, octagon...JK on the last one LOL!).




As far as food goes he is a very good eater. The whole "picky" toddler thing seems to have passed by him. He has pretty much always been a good eater. He eats 3 meals a day with a snack in the afternoon. He's a water drinker (thank goodness). He also drinks milk with chocolate in it (good enough for me, I hate milk!). He eats most anything, or at least tries things if you ask him to. He doesn't mind vegetables and could practically live off of fruit if you let him. Sometimes his appetite seems to be the same as that of a grown man. I've seen the kid pack away 3-4 slices of pizza in one sitting. Yet he remains thin. He is still in the 90-95th percentile for height and around 80th percentile for weight. Tall and skinny.



As far as sleep goes he is in bed by 7:00 pm and he tends to wake up anywhere from 6:30-7:00 am. He dropped naps around 6 months ago when Abel was born. He does do an hour of "quiet time" in his room. He is allowed to read books and play quietly. It's not his favorite time of day, but most of the time he complies.



The biggest accomplishment for 3 years old...he is completely potty trained! He hasn't had a single accident in over a month now. It was like once it clicked in his head he was fine with it. He still puts on a diaper at bedtime, but oftentimes it will be dry the next day and he will go on the potty by himself first thing in the morning.


Jack is still a "Daddy's Boy." He LOVES his Daddy and it shows. He is Ed's little mini me and idolizes him. It is super adorable. He will start preschool this fall and that is all he talks about. He LOVES school and playing with other kids. I am super excited for him because he will thrive on the morning of socializing and learning. I can't wait!





Abel is 6 months old! He is a happy, jolly little (err...big) baby. He smiles at anything and everything, but especially his big brother. He is fairly laid back, except when it comes to food. No patience in that category! His favorite time of day seems to be bath time. He loves it even more when he gets to take a bath with his big brother.



Abel can sit up all by himself and has rolled over once. Yes, once. He doesn't seem to mind being on his belly as much as he used to. He loves to pick up his arms and support the upper half of his body. Abel can reach for toys and will grab ahold of them. He can also spin his animal toy very well. He absolutely loves his jumperoo and seems to really play with the toys on it, including the ones up high. He will stretch and reach for them. His first word was spoken the other day and it was the same as Jack's...MaMa! I was super excited about that!



Surprisingly, up until about a week ago his diet included only breast milk. Yeah, I know that's surprising. Some people might not even believe me. LOL. We tried to feed him food a handful of times earlier than 6 months, but he really just wasn't into it. Now he is suddenly a pro. The kid loves anything to eat and is good at taking solids. He has tried sweet potatoes, apples, squash, and some baby yogurt. He definitely shows interest in food and goes crazy when we are all eating. He sits up in his high chair with the family at meals. He still breast feeds for his main nutrition source. He eats about every 4-5 hours. When I'm at work he takes 5 oz bottles for Ed and wakes up to eat 1-2 times in the night.





He goes to bed between 6:30-7:00 pm along with big brother Jack. Abel will typically wake up to eat around 11:00 pm and then either sleep through until 6:00 am or wake up again at 4:00 am. He seems to be at an in-between stage and I'm hoping that he will soon sleep through the night. When he does wake to eat he goes right back to sleep after his tummy is full.



Abel pretty much idolizes his big brother. He tries desperately to do anything to get Jack's attention. Jack is sweet to him, and anytime he takes a moment to give Abel a hug or a toy Abel gets super happy. He is trying to stand up and play, I think any day now he will be able to pull up to stand. We need to work on getting him to crawl. He now weighs around 20.5 lbs and is literally off the chart for his weight.

I have two amazing kids and I'm so grateful for that! :)


Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Week 158

Mar 7-13

Jack's 3rd Birthday Party!

My baby turned the big 3 this week! My how the time has flown by! This post is going to be quite picture heavy. I just couldn't help myself. We had such a nice day and coincidentally got tons of great shots. Honestly there were easily 20+ more pictures that I wanted to put in, but didn't want to make it too ridiculous. I will upload to FB one day when I get time This party reminded me a lot of Jack's 1st birthday party. There were tons of friends and family ready to celebrate! We probably had more fun than we should at a 3 year old's birthday party, but hey that's how we roll.

A typical family picture. Hilarious. *love*

Although we invited some of Jack's little people friends, they all seemed to fall through due to illness, unexpected events, and other obligations. Oh well. He really didn't care. He had a huge crowd of people who all love him to pieces. I don't even think he noticed there weren't kids there. This was our first kid birthday party we have thrown since returning home to SC. Honestly I didn't realize how much family we actually have until I started my list of invites. Jack and Abel are two very lucky little boys to have so many people who love them.







The night before the party Aunt Caroline and I did our usual ritual of making and decorating a million awesome cookies to match the party theme. We are really starting to get good at these cookies. We made sure all of Jack's presents were wrapped and ready to go. Saturday morning the whole house got up early to make sure everything was clean. We proceeded with decorations. I promised that I would let you guys know how I saved money on my party since we are still on our budget, I know you all are wondering, so here goes the breakdown.



I found a bunch of card stock random scraps of paper I had used to make Jack's 1st birthday banner. A few nights before the party Ed and I stayed up late to make Jack a birthday banner. It turned out very cute with a dump truck, backhoe, and construction cones. This was free since I already had the supplies.



I had shopped before we went on our budget for a few things...I hit up the dollar store and got balloons, streamers, and the cute construction hats that you see. I think the total purchase for these items were $6.00. The yellow and black plates, cups, napkins, etc. were saved from Ed's 30th birthday Steeler's themed party. As far as the pull apart dump cake I had all supplies except for the cake mix and two bags of powdered sugar (oh and some butter) so total cost $8.00. We made some dips for people to snack on. We also purchased some beer and wine. This is where we accrued most of our cost. Probably groceries were around $75.00. Some friends pitched in more beer so that helped a lot.




We had already purchased Jack a bunch of presents in the months before his birthday. When we would find something on sale or something special we would buy it and put it away. Since we didn't buy anything after we set our budget, I have no idea how much we spent, but it wasn't much. Total cost for a birthday party I would say under $150.00.



Okay back to the actual party. Since it was mostly family and friends we did the usual kids birthday party sequence of events. Snack on food/drinks, mingle, open presents, sing Happy Birthday, eat cake, and then proceed to drink more and hang out. :) Jack got so many nice presents. I want to thank everyone for his presents, even those of you who couldn't make it. He loved everything he got and even now after a couple of weeks he is still playing with all of his new things.







Jack got so much attention on his birthday. He just ate it all up. I think he practically passed out standing up by the end of the day. He was so excited the morning before the party. He kept saying, "Today is my Happy Birthday!!!" I think this was the first year that he really understood the concept. We had gone to his friend London's birthday party a couple of weeks prior and Jack had a blast. Enjoy all of the pictures of Jack's special day!

Here are some pictures of all the special couples who came. Decked out in their construction hats! ;)







Coming soon an update on Jack.