The Johnson's: Feb 9-15: Happy Valentine's Day

Happy (very late) Valentine's Day! I had been working on this post, making edits, adding pictures, etc and just when I got to publish it, it just disappears. I know that I had been saving my changes as I went along, but blogspot decided to mess with me. I can't remember all my text that I had added to this entry, so this 2nd version is going to be quite a bit shorter than the original. Better than nothing, I guess.

I think that we may have a future Olympian on our hands. Early this week, I was watching some of the team figure skating competition. Erik walked through the room and became transfixed by Gracie Gold's individual performance. After watching for a few moments, he started to mimic her actions. He started to jump & spin, with arm movements, as well as trying to do one-legged poses and sit-spins! I got quite a bit of his routine on video, but unfortunately will not be sharing it with you since Erik was fresh from his bath and was completely sans clothing!! I've shown Gracie's performance to Erik at other times this week to see if I can get another video while he is clothed, but his level of performance really went downhill!!! Erik and I spent lots of time playing with Erik's scissors along with my paper punches and paper cutter this week; he actually helped me with the Valentine's cards that we made. On Thursday, I bit the bullet and took both Erik & Elin grocery shopping. All the race car carts were being used when we got there, so Erik had to walk with me while Elin took the infant seat. I was prepared to ditch the cart and drag both kids out of the store at any point if the shopping trip went downhill, but Erik did great. He is happiest if he has a task/job to do, so I had him help me load the cart. This got a lot of comments from our fellow shoppers about what a great helper he was! He especially loved the produce section and putting fruit into the plastic bags. Erik ended his week with his class being Shabbat Stars on Friday morning. The last time he had to perform on stage, he cried the whole way up there because Kent couldn't go with him. This time, Erik went much more willingly. Once he got up on stage, I heard him tell the little boy next to him "That's my Dada; there's my Dada!" Too cute.

Practicing on the paper cutter with newspaper inserts

Hmm, they put Erik next to his teacher again on stage. Since he is just standing there, I wonder if that is a deliberate strategy on the part of his teachers!!!

Elin's big news this week is that she started eating real food on Thursday, the 13th! She wasn't too sure about it at first, but has since decided that this is a good thing and ate with gusto. We started her on apples; based on advice from our pediatrician we won't start rice cereal or other grains until she is 9 months old (due to maturity of digestive system). I hope that giving her solids will enable Elin to sleep longer. We have gotten a few longer nights out of her this week with her going 6 and half hours or more. And yes, some of the longer episodes did happen prior to starting her on solids; I'm hoping that the food will encourage her to keep sleeping longer! She has started to stick her fingers in her mouth while nursing this week; this has proven to be super annoying and a bit painful. Not sure why she thinks this is a necessary thing to do, but she's been doing it all week and I am now on alert to catch her hand if it moves towards her mouth!

Elin's first bites of apple

Elin at the Orlando Science Center - my view

Kent's view - looks like she is in a serious time-out!

Both kids appear to have gone through growth spurts this week. We got lots of remarks on how tall both of them look this week. I am going to have spend next week going through their wardrobes and moving them up to the next sizes, I guess.

1. Bible - I finished the book of Matthew this week for the New Testament portion of my Scripture reading. Reading through those chapters reminded me of the Passion of the Christ movie that came out several years ago.

2. Fun - We indulged Erik this week and allowed him to take several of his nightly baths in our big bathtub at the same time that Elin had her bath in the infant/toddler tub. He just thinks that this is the best thing! Elin appeared a bit surprised the first time Erik got into the tub, but quickly got into the spirit of things and loved having more company during her bath!

3. Projects - I'm actually in the midst of several projects right now. The big project that I have in progress is updating our family wall pictures. It's been awhile since I've added to the wall, so I have some catch-up to do! I purchased a bunch of frames this week and started to order the pictures, but haven't finished that step yet.

4. Health - Well, I was told that this could happen, but I've had a flat week in regards to weight loss this week. In fact, the scale was going up at mid-week. That was scary enough to keep me from the scale for the rest of the week! On the positive side, I've had to retire more pants recently. I actually bit the bullet and ordered a new pair of jeans and black pants this week in order to have more options on what to wear! I was down to track pants, 1 pair of khakis and fancy/formal jeans. I love retiring clothes that are too big!