Chaos on Curtis: February 2014

Leading up to the day the kids and I have been focusing on memorizing John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only son." I had decided it was a good time to start having Rilyn memorizing some verses from the bible, and none seemed so perfect for February as this one.

With Valentine's being a commercial holiday and all I want to add something genuine to it. Something more the kids can grasp as they get older because although, it is just a made up holiday, it's a holiday focused on LOVE and we can all use more love these days! Teaching the kids about the indescribable, incomprehensible, and overwhelming love of God keeps a better perspective on the holiday for us.

We of course also did our fair share heart crafts and had lots of fun with red, pink, and purple the last couple of weeks.

We started the day off with heart balloons to wake up too and mommy getting to sleep in. We spent the morning with our mom's group Valentine's party. The kids handed out valentines and ate lots of pink and red sugary foods.

Then it was a relaxing afternoon filled with napping just to get ready for our feast of Chinese takeout while watching the movie. Tyler and I ordered Chinese food on our first Valentine's together and have kept the tradition going.

We hope you had a day filled with love!

We finally got around to getting Rilyn in for her 3 year old well-visit so I thought I would finish up our 3 year old posts with some stats and of course a little description of Rilyn at 3.

Rilyn was pretty excited to go to the doctor yesterday since she still really likes playing doctor and is very interested in check-ups since she gets to go to the birth center with us for my check-ups. She was very cooperative and talkative. She is doing everything she should be doing at her age and is super healthy. She really liked getting her blood pressure taken for the first time. She is still huge...37 3/4 lbs for weight which puts her in the 96% and 38 1/4 inches tall (75%). The doctor did call her stocky, which I wasn't a big fan of :) I knew she would measure and weigh big for her age because she towers over her friends that are her age, but I was kind of surprised at her percentile for weight. She really has none of her baby rolls left so I'm not quite sure where she is hiding it. But, she is never sick and to this day has not even had an antibiotic (knock on wood) so she can be in the 100% for all I care as long as she keeps being healthy!

Rilyn is still a great eater. She doesn't eat tons of food at every meal, but she eats a variety of foods. She eats most of what we put in front of her. She refuses to eat mushrooms or onions and there is definitely no hiding them. Her favorite things to eat are sweets (of course), cereal, waffles, edamame, nachos, cucumbers, sour cream, and olives. The girl loves sour cream, actually she loves any condiments.

She sleeps well. She goes to bed before 7:30 and is up around 6:00 give or take a half an hour. She still consistently takes an afternoon nap which ranges anywhere from 45 mins to 1 1/2 hours. There have been a few days where she doesn't sleep but I think those are mostly days when something exciting is happening and she can't fall asleep. If we are doing something fun after nap I try not to tell her or she won't go to sleep. She still wears a pull-up at night but not during her nap.

The girl loves pretend play! A few of her favorites are: store (including driving there in her pretend car of chairs), restaurant, doctor, and mama and baby. She also loves to play with us or whoever she can talk into playing with her (mostly Grandma D.). Usually she is grandma and the other person is Rilyn. She really likes playing that. She also likes to be Mary and Ryder is usually baby Jesus. He actually plays along with her pretty well as long as she keeps him entertained. She also likes to play hide-and-seek, be outside doing anything, building with legos, painting, playing with her dollhouse, playing kitchen, reading books, and dancing. She is pretty easy to entertain these days and is happy just being around other people. She also still loves to help me around the house, especially when it comes to cleaning bathrooms. I give her a spray bottle of water and a rag and she is in heaven.

She loves to be around other kids; although, she can still be a bit shy and not quite sure how to interact with them. I think she is getting better at this though. She started a new class at Sunday school and I think being around some older kids will be good for her. She is around younger kids a lot it seems. Rilyn is obsessed with everyone in her family and cries when it's time for people to go home. She is quite the social butterfly around adults.

She is really starting to enjoy learning more (which is good for this teacher mom). She memorized her first memory verse this month (John 3:16). We work a little on some preschool level academic skills, but really I just try and follow her lead and let her learn about what she is interested in. She loves to read by herself now and has a couple books memorized. She has a good vocabulary and definitely likes to be heard.

Rilyn also has quite the attitude and needs to be reminded often to be gentle and kind, especially to her brother. The other day Tyler was discipling her for something, she was arguing with him per the usual and since that wasn't going as well as she hoped she grabbed her toy cell phone and began talking on it while he was still talking to her. Seriously if that wasn't a glimpse into the future. I couldn't help but laugh. Recently when she gets in trouble she will ask me if I'm happy or if I love her...seriously can she melt my heart in like 2 seconds when she says those things. And I'm guessing she knows it!

We love her to pieces and really just enjoy being her parents. She is so much fun to be around and is really full of love. I can't believe it's been 3 years since she made us parents, yet it feels like she has been in our lives forever.