Sunday, July 19, 2015

One full year of school

Jack just completed his first full year of school in England. And happily, we can say it was full of learning, fun, and wonderful growing experiences.

His favorite parts of school this year were art and forest school. This is not very surprising considering the amount of drawing and painting and crafting he does at home, oh and the number of sticks he collects no matter where we are.

We love how much Jack talks about things from school. Just two weeks ago his class went on a tour of Kingston. Last Sunday, Jack repeated the tour for us showing us points of interest like where they used to tan leather with pee and where seven Kings of England were crowned. I wish I could remember all of the facts he spouts off about Kingston, or bees, or Brazil.

Jack has also made wonderful friends at school. We're always trying to schedule a playdate or hearing about the fun adventures he's had with his crew at school.

Now Reid has been in school for just about as long as Jack. Reid has also had a successful first year in Montessori school here. And just this month he has started going every day for the mornings.

Reid's favorite part of school is "drawing." It's been fun to watch his drawing skills develop over the course of the year. He's at the point now he can draw a clearly recognisable smiley face with hair. He's also made great strides on the shape inset tracing and drawing lines in those. And along this vein, he's started to write his name! He's also been very interested in letter sounds lately. He likes to imitate Jack spelling things. If you ask him a yes or no question, he'll answer "R - E - D, Yes!" It's pretty funny.

It's fun to pick up Reid from school and hear about the events of his day. He'll talk about his "best friends" that he played with and the work that he does. Reid has also made several good friends at school. When we see these friends around town, which is fairly often, Reid always waves and says hello, then turns to me and says "that's my friend from school!"

Now Reid will still go to his school through the summer, except for the times we are traveling or the occasional day here or there when we plan a fun day out.

Here's our comparison pictures from the first day this past autumn until this past Friday.

Jack - Year 2

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Reid - Preschool 2

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And just for fun, here's all three brothers :)

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Colin's First Birthday!

We can hardly believe how fast Colin's first year has gone by. It's definitely true that the time goes by exponentially faster with each additional child. But here we are with a 1-year-old! And he's so very happy about that too.

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To celebrate the big occasion, we had chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. And Colin got lots of fun presents too.

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One is such a fun age. Colin started walking on June 29, just 2 weeks after his birthday, and these days he walks everywhere.  He even has his first pair of shoes, that appropriately enough, have jets on them.

And while he hasn't started talking exactly yet, he does love to wave. We thought he started to say "hiya" with the wave, but he's only done that one day, and we haven't been able to get him to do it since. Soon enough, though, I'm sure he'll be jabbering away.

Colin loves to play. Right know his favorite things to play with are posting toys, putting balls through holes and down a ramp, putting coins through a slot, things like that. He also loves cars and the play kitchen. And he never passes up an opportunity to play with Jack and Reid. They make him giggle and laugh until he gets the hiccups, and Colin just loves it.

He's sleeping much better these days too. He usually takes a great nap during the morning/midday. And lately he even sleeps through most of the night, from about 8 or 9 until 6 a.m. We usually put him to bed between 6:30 and 7, and sometimes he'll sleep through until 5 or 6 from then.

Colin's eating habits are still developing. He loves fruit, just like his brothers. (I'm at the shops every day buying another bag of bananas or cartons of berries!). He is a carb lover and really enjoys croissants, pasta, and rice. The only meat we've gotten him to eat is bolognese sauce and an occasional piece of bacon. He's also is starting to eat more vegetables. He'll eat carrot sticks, peas and even red pepper, but he's not a fan of broccoli (which really isn't that big of a surprise). I'd say his favorite food is yogurt though. He'll have a meltdown if he's not done eating and the carton is empty.

We've also recently noticed that Colin is enjoying music. He'll dance in his seat or the buggy when we're out and there's music playing.

So it's official, we're out of the infant stage and into toddlerhood. Look out for more wild adventures to come!

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And just for fun, here's the review of his monthly photos from his first year :)

One month
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2 months
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3 months
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4 months
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5 months
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6 months
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7 months
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8 months
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9 months
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10 months
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11 months
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