ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Soooo - long time, no post again.  :( So sorry to anyone who actually still reads our little blog.  I hope that going back to school and returning to a routine will mean that I will get back to regular blogging, since the blog has sort of turned into a family scrapbook of sorts.

The end of August has arrived. Yikes.  I always have such mixed feelings about the end of summer . . . sad to see our carefree days at the pool, my time with Braden, and our slower pace of life come to an end. . . Yet excited to jump back into a more routine schedule and the fresh start of a new school year as well as the challenges/creative opportunities that teaching brings. 

Our house is still on the market; August has been a slow month.  Though we'd be thrilled if it sells, it has also been nice to enjoy the summer in this place that we love.  It is a little hard to be "up in the air" about our future plans. It's also hard to anticipate a big change, and have no idea when it will happen. We're learning a lot about patience and flexibility! :)

We finally made another change! We've been planning to move Braden to a "big boy bed" for a while now . . . I think we first intended to make the switch in January!  Buuuuut I wasn't quite ready to let my little guy turn into a big boy (and he really loved his crib) . . . and when we put the house up for sale it seemed sort of silly to switch things when we might possibly be moving everything then anyway.  However, B is now approaching THREE (how did that happen), and we're kinda sorta starting to work on potty training (he still is not very interested).  And we figure that if  we are going to work on potty training, he will need to be able to get out of bed to go to the potty.  So - on Saturday we made the switch to a big boy bed!

 For now, we've left the rest of the room "as is," so that it wouldn't feel too different to B.

We were a little nervous about the first use of the bed, but he napped that afternoon like a champ.  I had to sneak in and snap a picture. He looks soooo little in that big bed!

Going to bed in the evening went a little less smoothly. . . he didn't really fuss and it wasn't terrible by any means, but just took forever to fall asleep (we kept hearing him talking and several times he asked for mommy to lay down with him).  He eventually fell asleep (under the watch of his dog!), and I (of course) had to snap another picture.

We find it funny that (so far) he must not realize that he can get out of bed on his own now (and we aren't planning to tell him until he needs to know - such as when the potty training takes off).

Another noteworthy (to us!) change around here is that we've bid bye-bye to binkies!  I had sort of been gearing up to "take it away," but realized one day that he'd gone 24 hours without one, and hadn't asked for it.  We decided not to make an issue of it/say anything to B, and I gathered all the binks from our stashes and hid them away in a ziplock.  And that was the end of it!  I think he's maybe asked for one once in the car (he saw one that I missed in the console before I grabbed it) . . . but was ok with the response that he doesn't need a binkie anymore because he is a big boy!  Whew!  That went so much better than I imagined.

It's a little bittersweet that our little big boy is meeting these milestones! But honestly, he has grown so much this summer - literally (he's getting tall!), and in his speech and motor skills.  Braden is now chattering away in mostly complete sentences, and has learned to ride his trike like a pro. He can ride all the way to the school and back and grandma lets him ride down the steep hill on their driveway (giving me a heart attack).  B loves to hit a ball off the tee, and is such a little fish in the water (he is kicking and paddling and puts his face underwater when he swims).  He's also figured out that he can reach light switches and doorbells, and loves to use this ability.  Though a lot of work, this really is a fun age.

When I uploaded the pics of the big boy bed, I found a few others hanging out on the camera . . . (yes, I will confess, P365 officially bit it this summer).  Here are a couple from Kids Day at Kinnick. Despite how the photos look, it was a gorgeous day to go out and see the Hawkeyes!