I don't know what it is that has kept me busy from updating the blog, but it's been awhile, this is going to be a long post.
Keith has been really busy working on his presentation for next week up at the corporate headquarters in addition to finishing up his projects that he's been working on all summer. We're getting really close to the end now. We'll be leaving here the 13th and heading back to Utah, so two weeks and a few days!
Keith had the chance to go visit a couple of plants out in Illinois with the other interns and some of the newer hires. They were gone for three days and in addition to visiting plants, they got to do some fun games in Chicago. This is a picture of the Cedar Rapids interns, minus one, in front of a huge metal jelly bean shaped sculpture that reflects the skyline (and obviously those who stand in front of it)--pretty neat!!
Savanna is getting better at tolerating belly-time. She doesn't love it and will only go for a few minutes, but she is improving (before she would just turn her head to the side and suck on her fist). When she's tired she yells, she still spits up a lot. She loves to stand and to sit up (propped of course) and watch what's going on. She doesn't like to lie on the floor (but with an overly loving 2 year old brother I don't really blame her--hugs when she's lying down means that Alex is on top of her). She likes to suck on her fist and fingers and when she gets sucking too ferociously she sometimes gags herself. She likes her hair played with and sometimes will have one hand pulling on her hair behind her ear while she's nursing or trying to go sleep. When she gets too tired, she's hard to get to calm down--we've learned if you dance or jog around the apartment she calms down a little easier. She likes bath time and gets really wriggly when she hears the bath water running. She even tollerates pretty well Alex being in there with her (consequently Alex is anti-bath ((and anti-shirts)) lately but likes to help rinse Savanna in the tub so if she's in there most of the time he'll want to then climb in too). I can't believe she's already three months old--she's definitely not a newborn anymore!!
Her hair is still long, it thinned out a bit, and she's got a new layer growing in along this but I wanted to document the length. :)
My grandma gave Savanna this puppy--she really does like it--she usually smiles and talks to it, apparently we caught her in a less happy moment with the puppy!
One day last week I decided to be a good mom and try to enrich Alex's day a bit more than I have been lately, so we had a "Green Hunt"--we colored the paper green and then went outside and collected green things--it's about the only color you can find around here, so we had a great variety by the end.
Alex lined up all his cars along the train tracks, he can concentrate so well when he wants to!
When we were in Wisconsin Alex loved playing the piano, and at first he was just pounding on it, but we played a couple of simple songs for him and then he started pushing individual notes and slowing down a bit, it was fun to see him adapt more to how we were doing it. Then when we were at Peggy's house for the BBQ, my uncle Tony starting playing his guitar (he is a great classical guitarist) and Alex got so excited. He really wanted to play with him, and since the guitar was off limits, he climbed up to the piano and started to accompany Tony. At one point, Tony stopped playing and Alex turned around and looked at him with a great look and said, "guitar", as if to say, get back to playing that guitar please! Well, we were having dinner with the interns the other night and one of the girls had her dad's guitar. Alex got to strum it and boy was he excited!! He thought that was just the best! Last weekend General Mills had a plant sponsered outing. They gave us gift cards to go to a place called "Fun City" a couple hours south of us. We went down there and had a great time playing arcade games, while not worrying about the cost (usually the spoiler). Alex's favorite was a drum game (like guitar hero, but drums). He and Keith played for probably 10 minutes and they even made it to level 3! (I took a picture with my phone, but I don't know how to get it off my phone) At the end, when we went to redeem our tickets we picked out a harmonica among other things. It has been so fun to see Alex really pick it up. He's good!! He will ask us to sing a song and he plays along with us--it is so cute. We have a little musician on our hands!!
The other day Alex put this bucket on his head, climbed into this shoe box and told me it was his pirate ship, aargh!!
Turns out if you want to occupy Alex for a few hours, just give him a box of crayons. He LOVES to peel crayons (or has some OCD fetish about crayons with their paper covers on!). A couple of weeks ago, Alex and I were drawing and he started to peel the crayon he had (this is not the first time, I think it must be due to nursery with a bunch of peeled, broken crayons that started his idea that crayons with their peels is an abomination), and wanted me to help. Well after about ten minutes, I dropped out and just let him peel the crayons. He stood there for at least an hour and a half peeling the crayons. We let him stay up past his bedtime because he was so engrossed in his work that I felt bad interrupting him. Well during that "Fun City" trip they also did some BINGO and Alex stayed happy as long as we fed him un-peeled crayons to work on under the table!
Some other things Alex has been working on: he can now turn on and off lights, so most of the lights are on in the house all day long. He lables things he does like "good hug" or "nice kiss" when he gives Savanna a hug or kiss. When Keith was gone on his trip it came up a lot that Keith was at 'work', so Alex picked that up and started telling me, 'daddy work' whenever I mentioned Keith. One morning after Keith was back, but at work, Savanna was crying and Alex went up to her and said, 'No, Daddy Work!!!' (Was she asking for Daddy?) Yesterday he was at the front door saying, "daddy, where are you? Where are you daddy?" then playing his harmonica with brief "work" statements now and then. (I don't know where he learned about singing the blues, but I think that's what he was doing!) We've let him choose between two options for getting dressed and especially his pajamas since he was really little (like just batting at things), lately he has a funny way of deciding which one he's going to choose, he will back up and run up to them like a charging bull, then back up and come in for another swipe, before he head butts the one that he wants (also if he goes to get his own pajamas he'll still get out two pair and make a choice between the two)! The last thing I'll mention here is he is definitely hearing us, he has started repeating things like when we're in the parking lot he'll say 'watch cars' before we tell him, or we got a brick from Nauvoo and when Keith first let him hold it he kept telling him to hold it tightly, so now when he wants to hold it he says over and over, 'hold tight'. He also sometimes (especially when I'm singing or dancing and he doesn't want me to) will tell me "no, no, no, Mommy. No, no no" while shaking his finger at me. When he wants something he uses a high pitched, soft voice and asks and asks.
Something that we're enjoying that's unique to us is watching the fireflies at night popping in and out of light arond the yard, also the cicadas are SO loud!! They really can get almost deafening in their intensity. We still also get some really great thunder storms. Alex calls it 'dunder'.
This weekend we're probably heading down to Hannibal MO to do 'research' as it is a location Keith is using in the book that he's been working on (or at least was working on and is planning on getting back to as soon as we get back home). Then next week Keith will be up in Minneapolis all week (Tuesday-Friday) and then the next week is our last! It's coming up faster than I am prepared for, and yet I'm getting excited to get back to our apartment and things (I'd love to cook with all my bowls, pans, and a MIXER!!!) and also to go to my families reunion up in Washington! A busy next month coming right up!!
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