Blake is 6 months old today!

I can't begin to explain how much these past 6 months have really flown by. Hard to believe our little guy Blake Conley is 6 months old today! He completes our family and we are so blessed he has touched our hearts. He lights up the room with his glowing smile and his two adorable dimples. He has a contagious laugh that starts out like a whisper then turns into a full on belly laugh. He loves his Mommy and always looks for her whenever he's not with her. He loves to sit with Daddy and watch football and basketball. Big brother Liam is his hero. I never thought it would start this early but Blake idolizes Liam.  He always looks for his big brother and laughs at everything he does. Blake will even cry if Liam leaves the room. Liam taught Blake how to blow raspberries and this makes dinner time lots of fun for Blake and messy too. The two have bonded in ways I know only they will understand.

Blake weighs over 13 lbs now. He might be a little guy but he LOVES to eat. His favorite foods are Mommy's milk :), sweet potatoes, pears, carrots, avocados, bananas, apples, and oatmeal cereal. His not so favorites are Zucchini and peas. He eats three times a day now at least 8 oz a feeding WOW! Thanks to the Baby Bullet he's enjoying nutritious, organic, homemade baby food made by Mommy.

Blake can sit up now with very little assistance, roll over on his tummy and back.
His favorite toys are teething toys, little piano, little basketball hoop, Baby Einstein play gym, an exersaucer,  and the jumperoo.

He's not too fond of tummy time he usually will cry  after a few minutes. But Liam likes to entertain Blake while he's on his tummy by letting him watch his Geo Track trains. So Cute! :)

Blake has two bottom teeth! He started teething when he was 4 months old and they both came in at once. OUCH! He was not a happy teether. He would cry a lot and had a hard time sleeping at night.

Blake is doing so much better since he outgrew the colic after 4 months old. He's such a happier baby now. Laughs and coos and always loves to grab grab grab anything and everything.  Since he had colic it was hard to get him on a regular schedule but now since he's turned 6 months old he is on a schedule that he likes and it works well for us.

Blake's Schedule  

7: 30 a.m. - Wake up

8 a.m. - Nurse

9 a.m. breakfast  usually oatmeal w/fruit

9:30 a.m. - Playtime

10:30 a.m. - Nurse/Nap time

12 noon - Lunch usually veggie

12:30 p.m. - playtime

2 p.m. - Nurse/Nap time

4:30 p.m. - Awake/ Nurse/ Playtime

5 p.m. - Dinner veggie w/ rice

6 p.m. - Nurse/playtime

7 p.m. bath/story time w/ Liam

7:30 p.m. nurse/bedtime

Blake loves to go outside for strolls in the stroller. He's already been swimming and loves the water :) His all time favorite water activity is taking a bath with Liam.  I find it so funny that Blake loves to get splashed. Sometimes Blake will come and sit in his bouncer seat in the bathroom while I give Liam his bath. Blake gets a little fussy and then Liam will splash him with the water and Blake will just make the silliest belly laugh so precious!

So much has happened in such a short period of time. Blake is definitely growing up so  fast. It is true that the time goes by so much faster with the second baby. Blake is such a strong boy. He's been through some tough times, colic, jaundice, bronchitis, weight gain etc. He's a healthy  lovable little guy. He's definitely a mover and shaker It will be exciting to see all that he accomplishes in the next few months. We are so blessed to have him he has changed our life for sure. I can't image our family without him. Love you sweet Blake. Mommy & Daddy are so proud of you.

Fun with EGGS!

So Chris & I are seriously thinking about  home schooling Liam. Chris has always been an advocate for home schooling and I was not sure but now I'm leaning towards going the home schooling route. There are a lot of reasons. Although Chris & I both were not home schooled we like the freedom it will give Liam. We've really noticed how smart Liam is. We're both shocked that at the age of 3 1/2 he can count to 250, add, subtract, count by 5s & 2s. can say the alphabet & knows all his letter sounds, and can even read. He is already advanced in math doing grade school level math. I really think he would be bored in kindergarden. Also with Chris' work schedule he would never see Liam or Blake. He works evenings and when the boys would be getting home from school Chris would be leaving for work. His day off is Monday and the boys would be in school all day. So there is still a lot to think about and I hope we make the right decision for both the boys. There are so many resources and tools now for home schooling and Texas is a state that really supports home schooling and makes it easy to do. I guess my only concern is that Liam gets to socialize with other kids, and even though Chris will be teaching too, I just hope  I will be confident enough to teach him. 

I decided to do a trial run of home schooling to just see what it would be like for both of us. So  I decided to start the first week in April for 5 days. With Easter coming I thought it would be an easy time to come up with ideas for themed lessons etc. I decided to do a Spring/Easter theme.  It was lots of fun. I found Liam really enjoyed learning and all the activities we did. Down side is that it does take a lot of preparation to plan each day's lesson but it was worth it. It gave me the confidence now that yes I can do this.

Here are some pictures of what Liam learned during his home school trial run week. Please note that a lot of these ideas are my own mixed in with ideas I got from others from Pinterest. I'm still learning how to post links up on my blog. So please check out my Pinterest page to see where I got my ideas from. I want to give credit to those wonderful teachers who are so generous to shares their ideas. I don't know how I would have been able to do this without looking to others for inspiration so a BIG THANK YOU :)

First we learned about Eggs. I had  Liam cut out an egg shape with blue construction paper. Then I cut out different animals that lay eggs and let him glue them on his big egg. I had this cute poem I found on pinterest about animals who lay eggs and he also glued it on his  egg.

We also sang a cute song about different animals who lay eggs. Liam really loves to sing so he enjoyed this one. It was to the tune of farmer in the dell. We just filled in the names of different animals who lay eggs and sang.


                                               EGG SONG  (Tune of Farmer in the Dell)

The Chickens give us eggs 
The Chickens give us eggs
Hi Ho The Derry O
The Chicken gives us Eggs

Add different animals such as penguin, spider, duck,  turtle etc.

I threw this together quickly with things I had on hand. I made it an easter/spring sensory tub. I added  rice, beans, plastic eggs, tongs, measuring cups, bunnies, sheep,  & stickers, Liam loved it!

Next up was color recognition. I knew Liam knew all his colors but I wanted to see him practice reading the color names on his own.  He had a worksheet with different easter eggs on it.  Under each egg had the name of a color. He had to read what the color was and color the egg that specific color. He did an awesome job.  He got 100%

Next was a fun game using sounds, and listening skills.

I grabbed some plastic easter eggs and filled them with different objects that made noise like rice, paper clips, coins etc. The trick was that two eggs had the same objects inside.

So Liam had to shake the eggs and see which two eggs made the same sound. For example the eggs that were filled with rice sounded different than the eggs filled with coins etc.

This was lots of fun for Liam. But I wish I taped the eggs shut because he did open some of the eggs up to see what was inside. But I made him start over. Ha Ha!

Next we did  a little science experiment called Sink or Float

I filled plastic easter eggs with different object and had Liam see if they would sink or float

Liam then checked off which colored plastic eggs would float or sink

Here's another song we sang too about Easter Eggs.

Easter Eggs

tune: Jingle Bells

Easter eggs, Easter eggs,

Eggs of orange and blue.

Here are lots of colored eggs

All for me and you.

Chocolate eggs, colored eggs,

Jelly beans bright green

Aren't these the most

beautiful eggs

That you have ever seen?

Next was learning patterns with colored eggs.  I knew this was a skill I had not worked with Liam too much on so I thought this would be an fun way to teach him about patterns & sequence with color.

I would start a color pattern or he would and then he would finish the pattern.  It took  him a few tries in the beginnin but once he got it he was off flying with it. So easy to practice with these eggs.

Then we finished the Egg theme with decorating real easter eggs for Easter.


Some other activities we did that I didn't get a chance to take pictures of were:
Alphabet Scavenger Hunt - It was like playing Bingo. I had a chart with all the letters of the alphabet in lower case. I then hid eggs that were filled with one of each letter in the alphabet in upper case. Liam had to find the eggs and match the upper case letter with the lower case letter on the bingo chart.
We also played Animal Charades using the pictures we had of animals who laid eggs.
We had fun playing with eggs during a Egg Relay Race. We used  plastic easter eggs & a spoon and went outside with Daddy and tried to balance our eggs on our spoons. Fun Fun!

Who thought you could have so much fun with eggs but we sure did!

Happy Easter 2012

We had a very busy Easter this year with lots of fun activities planned.  First was the annual Easter Egg Hunt with my Mom group  KinderMoms.  I just love how well it's put together and all the kids don't push and the organizers make sure there are plenty of eggs for all the kids. Liam had lots of fun. I bought these cute matching t-shirs for the boys from etsy they were so cute! If anyone wants the info please let me know.

Daddy & Liam getting in a little fun on the playground before the hunt.

Liam on the hunt with his new Lightning McQueen Easter basket he loved it.

The grass was a little wet but Liam found plenty of eggs

  

Here's a video of Liam on the hunt. He's too cute!

Okay so we tried to get a family pic but it didn't work so well.  They had a photo area to take family pictures which was so sweet. Do you Like the bunnies? 
They're mine! I let KinderMoms use them for pictures. 
There's a girl bunny behind Chris.

Okay Chris tried again but another bad one. But the boy's t-shirts were 
so cute though. I hope to get another picture soon of them together wearing the
 t-shirts before they grow out of them.

When we got home Liam had fun looking to see what was inside his eggs.

On the Saturday before Easter Sunday we went to another Easter Egg Hunt and Easter Party at John Newcombe Country Club. We just recently joined and it is beautiful! So excited to start working out again. They are a tennis club with several tennis courts, a pool, fitness center, lots of fun for the kids. Liam is taking tennis and swimming lessons there this summer. Hope Chris and I will be able to take some lessons too. 

I hardly have any pictures of me and the boys. I know sad but true. My friend Paige was there and took our picture right before both kids had a horrible meltdown. Thanks Paige for the sweet pic :) Blake was teething and Liam was just so moody that day. They even had the Easter come but Liam just did not want his picture taken and Blake was crying with his teething. I was so disappointed but that's kids for ya.

Liam hunting for easter eggs by the tennis courts. But he was not so into it instead he kept watching the tennis players and saying " I want to play tennis please." 

I love Easter pictures. Liam had fun playing with the camera and with these
  bunny ears

This is one of several adorable pictures of Blake. I could not believe how much he enjoyed getting his picture taken! Plus Liam was trying to get him to laugh so here he's really looking to the side at Liam.

Baby Blake's 1st Easter 5 months old!

So far the best picture I have the silly boys. It's so hard to get them together. 
Love how this came out.

My favorite outfit I bought for Blake for Easter. So adorable! 

Chris was so great helping Liam color easter eggs for the first time this year. I thought 3 years would be a good age to start. Liam had a blast watching 
the eggs turn colors.

Resurrection Eggs are so popular now. They basically teach kids about Jesus and how he died for our sins. You can buy them in the stores but I found some ideas on pinterest and decided to make my own for the boys. It was fun. You are suppose to have 12 and open one up every day leading up to Easter Sunday. Each egg contains a bible verse with an object to go along with it. I decided to do a shorter version that I saw on pinterest. I had Easter eggs filled with different things, like a rock, bandaid, a heart, clay for the tomb etc. Liam really enjoyed it and liked looking at them all the time and it helped him to understand in a simple way why Jesus died on the cross for him and what Easter really is about. I hope to keep this a tradition each Easter.

Blake's Easter Basket

Liam's Easter Basket

The boys Easter Baskets

I think Liam liked getting the peeps the most 

Blake checking out his 1st Easter Basket !