Jeffrey's Birthday and Arabelle's Swimsuit

This year we had Jeffrey's birthday party at a park, and just invited family. Luckily he has plenty of cousins to play with. The park we chose has a cool splash pad with water features to play in and it is also bordered by a river.




Jeffrey turned 4 but he gets mad if anyone says he's 4. He yells, "No! Jeffrey 3!", which is interesting because he never managed to communicate that when he was actually 3, but now when it matters most and his 3-year-old status has been threatened he's putting forth the effort.




Here's Jeffrey's "Lightning Mcqueen" cake that he picked out. I can't believe I've turned into one of those moms that buys a character cake from a grocery store bakery, but it was so easy and just what he wanted! So in spite of the expense, nasty frosting, and lack of creativity, I'm happy with it for this year.




Unfortunately I did a really horrible job taking pictures at this event. I managed to get a lot of Arabelle's cute swimsuit and that's about it. I suppose I was too busy following two kids around and organizing the meal, etc.

Jeffrey at 4 years:

• Jeffrey is finally really starting to talk. He still has to learn each thing, but at this point he only needs to hear a word once to learn it if it catches his attention.


• Jeffrey is into things being "broken" vs. "working". He likes to be able to fix things by getting new batteries for them and helping open the battery compartment with a screw driver. If that doesn't work he says "Daddy fix it."


• He is also into carrying around collections of things. At Memaw and Papa's this summer he had a Lightning McQueen bag that he had to carry around the entire time that held several dart guns, a wooden box, a watch and a few cars. The bag did become very large and cumbersome. He continued doing this at home. First he had to carry around a bag full of several plastic revolvers, dart guns, and his pocket knife, then it morphed into a bag full of my two jewelry boxes with jewelry and coins that I had given him.


• Jeffrey is also very into "keys".


• He has a necklace that he loves that is a silver chain with several large charms: a sword, a key, a cross and a few others that I forget.


• Jeffrey likes to watch Clifford, Superman, X-men, and Madeline.


• His favorite X-man is Scott because of his "powers" with his eyes.


• Jeffrey is really enjoying his second year of preschool and seems to be really adjusting well. He is exhausted each day when he comes home.


• Jeffrey likes to drink apple juice, eat mini corn dogs, spaghetti, cheerios, blueberries, raspberries.

Arabelle at 18 months:

• Arabelle is full of life and spunk. She likes to play with the toys Jeffrey does: guns, Lightning Mcqueen, trains.


• She is also into Elmo.


• Arabelle wasn't eating any solid foods until about 15 months because she was unable to swallow correctly and would wind up gagging and throwing up. Now she has turned into quite the eater and I love it! It is still amazing sometimes to just see the food disappear into her little mouth. Arabelle has many of the same favorite foods as Jeffrey: raspberries, apple juice (Ju), spaghetti. She also likes yogurt and cheese sandwiches.


• Arabelle is talking a little, really just one word nouns mainly, and a lot of them she doesn't quite finish, like "Ju" for juice and "Chi" for Cheese. She says "Elmooooooooooooooo" really cute.


• She still cries when I put her down for bed/naps and I have been sleep training her for months now and not going to get her. It's usually only about 5 minutes now but sometimes can go much longer. She will also wake up screaming a few times in the night and sometimes wake up for good at 5 a.m. I will let her cry for half an hour but she still won't go back to sleep.