End of summer

We are going through some important stages right now at the house. Emily is learning to sleep through the night without having a bottle, which means that she spends a lot of time crying, which means that Alixa spends a lot of time not sleeping. Bo is getting ready to begin potty training and also recently lost his binky privileges, which means that he spends a lot of time crying/getting out of bed to cause trouble. Jenna has recently begun her final year of non-school school, which consists of a twice weekly co-op of about 10 kids. She is gone for about 4 hours, including eating lunch. Next year she will begin kindergarten, which will be accompanied by lots of Lixi tears. In preparation for that, Lix has spent a lot of time crying and generally bemoaning the fact that her baby is getting all growed up. Between the combination of two kids that are sleeping less and crying more and the fact that she is sleeping less and crying more, please don’t take it personally if you do or say something near Alixa and she threatens to punch you in the face. As of this writing she has yet to follow through with any of her threats, but there is a palpable sense of fear that hovers around Jarom these days, ironically mostly when he has good things to say, such as “Emmy took a four-hour nap for me today” or “Bo has been so nice while you were gone.”

 These aren't functional yet, but soon

The end of the summer was celebrated by Jarom turning 32. Alixa arranged for a party on the water with some friends who have a boat. There was some wakeboarding, some tubing, and general merriment. Jarom continues to try wakeboarding, but still isn’t very good at it, and did take one particularly rough fall that smacked his face up pretty good. I guess that is why they don’t recommend teaching old dogs new tricks. But at least he was able to get out of the water, which is more than Nate or Alixa were able to do (insert face punching threat here.) There were also some highly amusing and very fun tubing battles. After boating for a few hours the group got some dinner and Jarom got some Chipotle gift cards so that he could go out for lunch a few times. It was a great way to celebrate getting old.

I haven't put a picture of myself in here for a while, so here I am

Jarom’s other birthday present is a new bed, which Alixa was kind enough to pick out for him. It is a king sized, which was the major requirement that Alixa had. She has already adjusted to the expanded space and already wants a bigger bed, because she too often comes in contact with Jarom. The new purchase has also caused some furniture rearrangement as the old bed moved into the guest room and the futon got sold to a nice home on a farm outside the city. Kyle stopped by on his way down to Austin to test it out, and the initial review is that it is an improvement in terms of comfort. The new bed makes for fewer monkeys falling off the bed and bonking their head. It also means that we can get other new things like bed skirts, and bed spreads, and everyone’s favorite useless decoration, pillow shams.

These rats don't get a new bed, because this sleepover only lasted about 20 minutes

Emmy is as fat as ever, and recently moved up to rice cereal to augment her enormous calorie intake. She is currently outgrowing her 6-9 month clothes as she approaches the 6-month mark. She is very smiley and loves being around other people. She is rolling over and scooting a little bit, and has recently begun practicing balancing on Jarom’s hand. She still isn’t a very good napper, but the complaints we have against her are pretty limited.

 This is usually what Emily looks like

But not always

Alixa stays busy being a mom and is currently in training for her cruise with Jarom, scheduled for January. She has adopted #nofatties as her slogan and throws it around all the time. To help her on her quest she recently participated in a mud run with some friends, has another 5k race scheduled in October, and usually won’t leave the gym until she has burned 1000 calories. It is all working because she keeps losing weight and looks great. Jarom has been pretty good about going to gym since all of his summer sports wrapped up, and gets there 3 times most weeks. His weight loss isn’t as good as Alixa’s because he is not as interested in dietary change, so we’ll see if he is allowed on the cruise or not.

Done for the day #nofatties 

Bo has somehow turned into a boy over the past month. All he ever wants to do now is fight or play with a ball. He can constantly be heard making fighting noises to accompany his array of karate chops and kicks and leaping tackles. Jenna is his primary foe. Sometimes she is willing, sometimes she is not. We’ve had a lot of discussions about when it is acceptable to wrestle with someone and when it is not. I’m not sure it is sinking in because Bo thinks that any time is a good time to start a fight. His favorite seems to be pillow fighting on the new giant bed. He isn’t very good, but in a pillow fight it is equally fun whether you are winning or losing. He has a new stuffed animal, Binky Bear, and after a rough first week has settled in without his longtime sleep aids nicely.

 It was a big day: tower building and saying goodbye to his binkies

 He loves his "littlecrosse" shirt

Jenna is having a great time with her new school year. She loves learning and doing crafts and all the things that she gets to do there. Her biggest challenge is finishing her lunch in the allotted time. She is also doing some other activities. She has been doing a gymnastics class each Monday for the past month and is having a great time. I don’t think there is an Olympic medal in her future, but it’s a good time. She is also signed up for an art class that will be starting soon. She will be running in her first official race in a few weeks, a 1-mile color run. She has done a little bit of training with Jarom. She doesn’t run the whole thing without walking, but she does pretty well.