Fine motor play

We have been picking up our constructive play lately. Our focus is fine motor. We are trying to encourage upper body strength and it is working bc he can finally open the fridge door! Rumor has it that upper body weakness also leads to decreased fine motor. We "make" him open the fridge and get his "almond juice"(carrying the heavy container) every time but he doesn't mind that! We also play "beans" (just doing different activities with dry beans), paint, play dough and our new puzzle! I can see a difference already! And of course we let "E" (Ansley; sometimes we call her Ansie so that's what Caleb calls her now) in on some of the action!

Horse Friends

Caleb is still loving his weekly horse therapy! Today they asked if Ansley wanted a turn. The therapy includes siblings too! We tried to find a helmet that fit her but she is too small (just like one of the other participants) so she went without. First they let her just sit in the saddle. She was all smiles. Then a volunteer got up there with her and they rode. Ansley held on to the horn the whole time! Caleb has a hard time being done with therapy and to add too it that Ansley was riding, he lost it. It really wasn't a problem of letting Ansley have a turn he just wanted to help too but he had to stay out of the arena.

Caleb is talking more. If you ask him his name he will tell you. Except he calls himself "Bo"! Haha. He named his rocking horse Bo, so maybe thats his cowboy name. He is able to name saddle, saddle pad, mane, tail, bridle, halter, Shy (his horses name is Cheyenne), brown, blue, rope, walk(for walk - on a horse command), horn, Bee( his show horse was named Gatsby and we named his other play horse that), nose, hoof, shoe, yee haw and cowboy! That's a lot of talking for him!

We are so thankful for this blessing.
Our kids love it!

New Tradition

We took a roadtrip to Boone to cut our own Christmas tree down. We had a wonderful family weekend. It was nice just to relax, just us, and reconnect.  Josh and I have talked about doing this for years(before kids even) but every year we make excuses. Not this year, and not anymore. It was so fun. We stayed in a hotel and enjoyed the hotel pool, eating out and just slowing down our schedules. We went to one farm on Saturday and enjoyed the view and some animals. Caleb even got to go horseback riding in the mountains!(for free!) On Sunday we went to a different farm and enjoyed seeing many more animals, barns, hot cider/hot chocolate, hay bails, and a hayride! Caleb is really into farms(barns, hay and animals) so the mountain drives were even a big hit. There was lots of “oh, look!”, “Cow!”, “Caleb, look!”, “WOW, horses!”! Ansley took lots of cat naps, not much of a view facing backwards in the infant seat, poor girl!)  We had to hike up a pretty steep part to look/get for our tree. I wore Ansley and Josh helped with Caleb.

“Tree shirts” for the tree hunt on day #1!

Chilis for dinner. Caleb couldn’t believe what was going on in the FSU/UF game.

Right before we left, we figured out the couch had a pull out bed. Whoops. Caleb got spoiled and slept right in the middle of us. He used Mommy as a body pillow most of the night, snoring right in her ear!

Christmas shirts for the Christmas tree hunt, day #2!

Found the one!

Caleb and Daddy sawing it down.

The girls giving it a try.

It was getting a little too close to lunch for the kids enjoyment. So we headed to the trunk of our car to see what we could scrounge up for them for a snack while we waited for them to bring the tree we cut over to the car and load it up. We were minding our own business when a goat decided he wanted some of whatever we had. The goat wouldn’t take no for an answer. Caleb was hysterical we were trying to shoo the hungry nosey goat away with no such luck. Mommy tried to get Caleb up higher to keep him from freaking out which just meant the goat had to get higher and tried to climb up on the hood of the car! We ended up all cramming in the front seat of the car so the kids could have their snack. The worker finally heard Caleb crying and came over and rescued us from the hungry goat. It was a little stressful, and it happened pretty fast. But I really wish we had some pictures of the 4 of us, two snacks and a goat seaming playing chinese fire drill. Makes me laugh! bahaha. Daddy didn’t think the shananagans was the least bit humorous!