A happy belated Thanksgiving to all! We had another fun month with lots of activities. We visited Grandparents, went for a hike with a friend, had a visit from Mimi and Papa, celebrated Thanksgiving with the Powers clan, and so much more. Tim also went back to work the last week of the month, so Grandma has been helping watch the kids this past week. All the kids also reached some exciting milestones this month.
Cordelia has had a very fun month. Her stamina is improving and she did well on our hike. She is continuing to do great at preschool and at AWANA. She is really good at memorizing her verses and seems to be having fun. She also has been doing her ice skating class and continues to enjoy it and improve from week to week. Corrie’s major accomplishment this month was learning to ride her bike without training wheels. Papa did a great job helping her and after just a few days she is now riding easily and with confidence. She still has some falls but only when she’s trying to be fancy. Emotionally she has had a good month too. Even though she is a very emotional person, she has been doing a better job of not letting them get the better of her. Cordelia is a good big sister and really enjoys helping out with Lydia. Corrie and Anthony are also starting to do a better job of playing together, though they still have their times of fighting and arguments. Cordelia is also making great use of the desk we got her at the end of last month. The desk is fully inaugurated with crayon, marker, and glue!
Anthony continues his phase of negatory behavior about half the time. It’s a mixture of fun and bad behavior. He enjoys playing with his cars and fighting quotbad guysquot with his swords. A common game is for Cordelia to be the princess and Anthony rescues her from bad guys and monsters. Tony also got some more one-on-one time with Tim and Alicia while Cordelia was at AWANA, although with it getting dark so early the number of activities is pretty limited. Anthony’s big milestone for this month is riding his bike! Once Cordelia started practicing without her training wheels he wanted to start biking too. So for the past two weeks they have been doing lots of riding in the cul-de-sac.
Cordelia and Anthony also started swim class this month. Cordelia was very excited to start and did really well in her first lesson. Anthony took a bit more time to get comfortable but by the end of the month he was starting to do some floating and swimming. It feels like we are entering a new chapter of life with the kids, riding bikes in the cul-de-sac and doing more grown-up activities like ice skating and swim class.
Lydia had several transitions this month. She dropped all of her swaddles for bed time and nap. We also adjusted her to a new schedule in conjunction with the end of daylight savings time. Her new schedule started her on baby food, so she has been getting her face all messy with food three times a day. She seems to enjoy the fruits but (amazingly) did not appreciate the squash or carrots. With the transition to baby food she was getting less milk which resulted in her waking up hungry in the middle of each night for about a week until we figured out what was going on. Now we having her getting a bottle at night to make sure she is fully topped off before going to bed. She had her 4 month doctor appointment and she is still very tall for her age (99.6th percentile). At just under 27 inches, she’s taller now than Corrie or Tony were at 6 months. As a result of being so big she needs a lot of milk/food. Lydia is also working on her back and core muscles. While she is still far from crawling she does push off with her feet, burrowing her face into the floor, sometimes moving sideways in a break-dance style. Her new schedule and non-swaddling has improved her naptime and she goes down easily now.
Alicia has been back at work for almost two months now. She has mostly completed her first project, so now she’s down to quotjustquot three projects now. But one of the projects that was minimal effort now became high priority effort so her work load has continued to be high. It’s challenging work and is a good opportunity for Alicia to expand her skill set. Alicia also enjoyed the extra family time during this month with the extended Thanksgiving weekend. It has been fun watching the kids play together and doing more activities with them.
Tim enjoyed his weeks at home. He was able to spend some good quality time with the kids and do some small things around the house that have been waiting almost a year to get done. The last week of November he went back to work, and it has been harder than expected – he enjoyed being home with the kids a lot more than he thought he did, so it’s been a bit of a rough transition for him emotionally. He’s been busy back at work, though, stepping back in and largely picking up where he left off with his projects. He continues playing guitar at church, helping to lead worship around twice a month. He has been enjoying the opportunity to practice and play.
As we head into December we are looking forward to a couple of things. We have Christmas with the Russin side of the family in Arizona this year, which we are all looking forward to. The kids will all be in preschool two days a week in December, which will be a first for Lydia. We are continuing to video chat with our Au Pair who will arrive in January – the kids enjoy talking to her and getting to know her. The kids will continue swim class, working on getting their skills and comfort up for the summer ahead. Please pray for us as we get used to having Tim and Alicia both back at work.
