Kendal
We were finally able to find a preschool option for Kendal this school year. After so many preschools being full, others too expensive, and being put on a waiting lists we finally found a Mommy preschool group in our ward. I'm perfectly fine doing a preschool group my only reserve is that Kendal is in a group with three other kids and they are all three. Their moms want them learning abc's while Kendal has the basics well covered. Even though a preschool with kids one to almost two years younger than Kendal was not our ideal we decided to go with it. Kendal craves the social aspect of preschool and kids learn best by playing with each other and interacting. I had started doing preschool with Kendal at home and I will continue to supplement throughout this year with things I feel Kendal wants to learn / needs to learn.
We have started using tech tokens with Kendal. She's given three tokes a week to use for the computer or tablet time. One token is for free play she uses this on daddies tablet, video games, or fun kids websites. The other two tokens are for educational based tech time. Casey and I pick websites or tablet games that teach skills and knowledge. We're working more on reading lately and Kendal is doing very well reading beginner books. We've been borrowing ABC books from the library and she has read each one. We are on O, P, and Q this week. Kendal is a smarty pants ( I attribute it to her constantly asking questions). She's always more than willing to share anything and everything with everyone around her.
Kendal is our busy bee. She can talk your ear off like no other. Her day is full of constant questions and comments. Casey took her to a football game the other week and said she didn't stop talking for the whole two hours they were gone. (No surprise there.) Kendal has a love of singing. She knows and sings many primary songs. She has also taught her self the snowman song from Frozen and has a good 80% of Let if Go memorized. Kendal's imagination is expanding every day. It's funny / amusing to hear her play with her doll's or toys. Kendal also likes to help around the house, which is nice and helpful (to a point; i.e. bossing her brother around, and making the mess bigger).
Kendal is super excited for fall to come because it means her birthday is fast approaching. She's very set on having a Frozen birthday. She has a lot of ideas for her birthday on cake / gifts / happenings. I just hope I can deliver.
Peter
Peter is still as mischievous as ever. This past month as you saw in a previous post he has learned to scale our cupboards. He then found an easier rout by opening the oven door and climbing up to get food / make messes. I can definitely say he is testing his limits and pushing boundaries lately. He will pull Kendal's hair, or try to break into our room while looking at us with an "I dare you to get me" look. He also tries to break out of his room when he should be napping and sleeping. We had a nice one to three a.m. put Pete back to bed session the other night that was frustrating. He is still waking up too early and then gets grumpy around ten in the morning. His naps are getting more difficult. While he definitely still needs naps he's been fighting them lately. He takes a while to go down, tries to escape numerous times, and doesn't sleep for long because he has chosen to sleep by the door lately so any noise he hears or when he rolls over into the door he is up.
Peter has picked up the questions mode from his sister. "What's dat?" and "whatcha doin?" are heard throughout the day at our house. Peter is very curious and likes to take apart and rebuild things. He's finally branching out with his Legos and no longer is obsessed with building the train every day. Now he'll build airplanes, and crazy looking houses. He still loves cars. He has his favorites and loves to drive them around the room and sometimes take them to bed. Peter and Kendal are still my play dough kids. They can create, imagine, and play with play dough for long periods of time.
Peter can peddle and steer very well on his tricycle now. He loves peddling around our neighborhood. I now have to take turns about who leads on bikes because both Kendal and Peter want to take the front and be in charge. (Lots of power struggles with these two.) Peter has a bucket on the back of his trike that he's been collecting rocks, twigs, and leafs in. He's also into putting rocks and toys in his pockets which is fun in the moment, but adds a few minutes to laundry day so i don't have rocks banging around my machines.
Peter is enjoying story time lately. He'll sit on my lap and enjoy the book. He likes to point and ask over and over for me to name the character's / objects in the book. His favorite books to read lately are tracker books. I think we've exhausted the library's picture books on tractors. He has me read them daily when we get a tractor book, and if we don't find one he pulls out his truck / vehicle books for me to read.
With Casey being in back to work and coaching the kids love any daddy time they can get. I'm grateful the football season isn't too demanding so they get to see daddy most every day. (FYI Casey's team won their first game of the season last week against his old school Declo!)
With naps dwindling and becoming more difficult I'm loosing the beloved hour or so of free time (aka mommy needs a break for sanity reasons; time to chill out or clean). But I have to move with the times and that means two active kids, lots of questions, lots of play, and a plethora of good times.
I wish I could add some cute pictures of the kids but I left my camera in Logan on our last visit, and my phone can't transfer pictures.
