The Notelpats Life

The babies have been with their grandparents all weekend and I miss them like crazy. So I'm going to write a blog post about each of them and what they are doing in this stage of life. I'm going to try to remember to do this every few months so I can go back and read and not forget what it was like to have little ones in the house. Before you know it, they will be driving and dating and getting jobs and .... well I'll just stop there before I have a break down!

1. Colin - Colin is 4 years and 2 months. He is right on track for weight and height. I believe he is around the 50th% for weight and 75% for height for his age. I just can't believe he is 4! He started Pre-K at his school and he LOVES it! There have been no tears since he started. He loves his teacher and his friends and I am so happy for this. His teacher is really preparing those kids for kindergarten. Honestly, he is ready academically. He knows all letters and sounds, can read a few sight words, can count to 30, recognizes numbers and can make those sets, and even does a little addition/subtraction in real life problems (not on a worksheet). Like the other day he was eating mac n cheese. I told him to eat 5 more bites. He had eaten 2 bites and said, "Mommy I have 3 more bites left." However, I don't think he is ready for kindergarten when it comes to his maturity. He is not a behavior problem, but he is and always will be the youngest in his class. He is more sensitive, and cries LOUD when he doesn't get what he wants. Not like throwing a fit, just loud crying. We are working on that. He is a great kid though. He is going to start playing t-ball in the spring on my friends husband's team that he coaches. We are really excited about that and already practicing! He loves all sports, puzzles, race cars, and video games (which we have limited to 15 minutes a day...cause he is that kid that could play all day and get obsessive if we let him). He has gotten to wear he wants to say the prayer at the dinner table and I love hearing it. I love my quirky Colin man!



2. Carley - Carley is 14months old. She weighs about 19 pounds and is around the 10% for weight. She is a tiny little thing but is steadily growing. Think she'll just be a petite thing her whole life. She CAN walk but really hasn't done it much. Stinker. She is so different than Colin with this. Colin LOVED for us to help him walk around the house by holding our hands. When we try to make her walk she throws her legs up in the air and plops down. But she will take a few steps here and there when she thinks we are not looking. She took 3 steps from the coffee table to the couch the other day and I was so excited! Carley got moved to a new big girl class. However, she is the youngest one in there too and its full of 18ish month old veteran walkers. I'm hoping that will motivate her to get up and move before she gets trampled in there! Carley is so laid back and independent. Doesn't need or want alot of help or comfort or snuggling. That kind of makes me a little sad, but I just let her be who she is...this will be a wonderful attribute later. She does like to be held and snuggle right before bed, so I try to soak up that time as much as I can. Lets see...things Carley likes to do...She LOVES to climb on the furniture. We have to keep our eye on her. I think we are going to build her a tree house or a jungle gym or something! She loves to mess up her brother's puzzles...and then laugh about it while he is crying. :/ She loves to rip off her shoes and socks and rip out her ponytails and hair bows (as you will see in the picture below). She loves stuffed animals to squeeze and hold and has inherited her brothers stuffed "puppy" and "money" (aka monkey). She is saying other words too like, mama, daddy, bubba, up, uh-oh, more, and juice. She can talk well, but doesn't talk often. Again, different from Colin. I think she's just going to be a quieter girl. She is a sweet heart girl and I love my Lita Lou.



3. Jeff - I guess I'll do a little update about the big baby too while I'm at it! Jeff recently set a goal for the youth group. He told them that if they got 50 students at their back to school event they could do whatever they wanted to him. Well...they got 51 students and they decided to shave male pattern baldness on him. What a trooper. And he even waltzed right into the middle of prayer meeting to show the rest of the church. He'll do anything to make people laugh. Below in the pic is Jeff with the youth member that he let shave his head. Jeff is a worker to the max. He does SO much stuff and its always for other people. The only thing that saves him is that all that stuff he does for other people, he happens to enjoy too. He is a jack of all trades, is multi-talented and can do just about anything you need done. Here is a list of things he has been doing. He started the Masters program at ETBU, he has started over seeing the college department at church and has started teaching their sunday school class, he has taken on ETBU football photography on Saturdays, and Marshall high school football photography for the newspaper on Friday nights. In the midst of all the "new" stuff he has taken on, he still manages to take care of all technology issues at church that arise, he manages to give baths and change diapers and feed kids and practice some t-ball in the evenings, and he even manages to send me texts in the middle of the day that just say, "Love you." I think I've got a pretty great guy. Love that man.