New computer!

Good news – we finally got a new computer so that I can begin updating posts regularly!  You may recall that I have mentioned (on occasion) that we have multiple computers, but they are all old, and each one does something specific.  For instance, one plays music, one get on the internet (but it was painfully slow and irregular).  Well, I bought a $300 laptop that is pretty great!  Definitly not fancy, but perfect for us right now!

I will leave you with an updated banner that shows our family of 4.  And a few pics of the boys from our October photo shoot.

 

rachelsmith (5 of 6)

Happy Friday

Just wanted to leave you with some Oliver pictures Brian took this week. I haven’t even changed the header on this blog, so the least I can do is show you his sweet smile since he isn’t represented up top. Also, I think we are having pictures take soon to hopefully correct the problem.

On a side note…Spencer has been a GREAT big brother this week!  He has been being pretty rough with Oliver for the last two weeks, so on Monday,  Brian told him he would get a special treat if he was kind to Oliver all day long (of course he wanted to know what the special treat was before he decided if it was going to be worth it or not…please see prior post on his decision making) and he did great – 4 days in a row!!

Holy, Holy, Holy and curiosity

I need to show you Oliver’s new moves, but I don’t have a video of them yet.  He “crawls” (scoots) great and can pull up the stairs on his own!  He is still the happiest child ever!  He is always such a blessing and loves his brother so much! He also says “dadadada” all the time.  It is like Spencer’s “Ba.” Works for all communication!

By the way, I take back the part about him being a good sleeper though….we are still working on that!

Spencer loves singing!  He sings lots of songs, but at dinner the other night he was singing Holy, Holy, Holy over and over again.  By the time I got the video camera on, he was about done, but we caught a bit of it!  You will also see at the end of his song the curiosty that goes through his head all the time.  He is suspect when I tell him he can’t do something…..you can see him mull it over in his head then decide what he is going to do (“Is it worth me jumping or will I really get hurt? hmmmm?”).  Another funny* characteristic about Spencer; he always wants to know the consequence of his actions before he decides if he will obey or not.  He doesn’t obey much for the sake of obeying, but rather asks me what will happen if he doesn’t.  Then, based on the consequence I state, he decides if he will be compliant or not.

*funny now, but could be bad when he is 16.

Oliver is 6 months!

Oliver is 6 months old!  Can you believe it?  He is so happy and scooting all over!  I love his little silent giggles and open mouth, toothless smile! He is sleeping really well! He is such a blessing to our family and I am thankful daily for him! 

Stats:

Weight: 21.3 Lbs (96% weight…chunky monkey!)

Height: 65% (can’t remember exact height)

head: 35% (Smith boys have small heads!)

Thank you, Leah, for the precious Gator outfit!! 

Spencer is a great big brother (although too rough at times) and I am so grateful for both of my boys!  He is hilarious right now and I usually have a funny Spencer story for Brian every night. Yesterday we went to the Dr. and the nurse looked in his throat with an audioscope (or whatever you call the tool with the light on the end).  Well, Spencer promptly came home, found the flashlight, and has been shining it on everything.  Then he says ” you feel better now?”

Dancing and Sharing a Room

Two quick stories to catch you up on life here.

The first one is a story about Spencer’s new passion.  He loves watching my very creative friend’s video.  He LOVES to watch Beth and he even dances along a little – although when he watches it – he is very serious!  I am pretty sure you guys will love the video as much as Spencer.  He would like to tell you about it when you see him.

The second quick update is about the boys sharing a room.  Oliver has been waking up quite a bit, so I thought maybe it was because he has outgrown his little bassinet. I thought he might be hitting the sides causing him to wake up.  Out of a bit of frustration and not knowing what else to do, we decided to see if the boys were ready to share a room.  Sunday night we decided to put them down at the same time and in the same room.  It was a disaster and we have concluded they are not, in fact, ready to share a room.

7:30 – Oliver and Spencer are put in their respective cribs  – we monitor with a video camera on each crib

7:33 – Oliver falls asleep

7:37 – Spencer climbs out to come see us

7:38 – we put Spencer back in bed and warn him not to come back out

7:39 – Spencer climbs out of his bed and onto Oliver’s crib – Oliver wakes up!

7:40- 8:50  – repeatedly try to get both boys asleep and in their own beds (all sorts of measures were tried)

8:51 – Finally, we put Oliver back in the bassinet in our room….and Spencer in his crib

8:52 within 1 minute both boys are asleep in their respective (different) rooms

We will try again in a while!

Once upon a time….

We had a great July 4th weekend at the beach and I will upload pictures as soon as I get them from my sister.  If it weren’t for Rebs, I am afraid we would have a quarter of the pictures we have. 

In the meantime, I wanted to let you know about Spencer’s new favorite activity: storytelling!  He loves to tell stories to anyone that will listen. The stories usually include interactions during the day mixed in with stories from his books.  For instance, we saw one of our friends at Publix and she told us about a surfing accident she had over the weekend.  Well, as you can hear below, it made it into Spencer’s story.

The story is pretty long – 6 minutes but Spencer is tracking with it the whole time.  It is really funny!  It changes direction around the 4:30 minute mark and lots of new characters are introduced (alligator, hippopotamus, etc.)