Speechless

How can she be old enough for this?!
.

Hannah the Kindergartner

Hannah is officially a Kindergartner! The first day was  a little rough (for me!)...but she loves it and is doing so well! She loves her teacher, her friends and her school!

Here she is on the first day of school!

And here with her best friend!

Riding her bike to school!

Jason brought her flowers for her first day.

Bless her, she thought they needed to be watered....

 The Kiwanis Club of Hillsborough County awards a "terrific kid" award every month. Each month comes with a different theme. The first month of school, the theme was 'respect'. One student is selected from each class every month. The teacher selects the student that best embodies the theme for the month and is an overall good citizen. Hannah was selected from her class for the month of September, the first month of awards for the year! We are so proud of her! Here is Hannah getting her certificate from the Kiwanis club!

My little Swimmers!

I am aware that it is January. I am also aware that I have not updated in many many months... There is no way I can catch up on everything, but there are a few things that I would like to add. One is an update on our swimming adventures from last Summer!
Tucker started his lessons through Kinderswim which taught him basic survival skills in the water. Pools are everywhere here and its something we felt he needed! Jason prefers to call them "supervised drowning lessons" but they really werent that bad... It was a little difficult to watch sometimes but his teacher was amazing and turned it into a really postitive experience! He started lessons in late July. He swam for 10 minutes, monday-thursday. By October he could "swim" from his instructor to the edge of the pool. If he couldn't make it to the side he could roll onto his back and float. Its amazing! Their instincts are so incredible! Keep in mind, hes not completely happy while hes doing this but he still loves the water and he LOVES Katja!!

Ou next challenge was William. William is very cautious in the water. He LOVES to swim and o under the water but he will not leave the steps. He swims like a fish as long as he knows the bottom is within his reach. Katja (Tuck's instructor) wanted to teach William. I didn't think it would work. I know William... I know his stubborness. I knew he was going to freak. Day 1...SCREAMING!  Not just screaming, he was MAD! He was straight-up yelling at poor Katja. I was mortified! He was saying things like, "I'm Done! I'm DONE OF THIS!". It was awful. Day 2....he was SWIMMING! He was going from Katja to the steps and back to Katja. It truly was incredible! He is still pretty cautious but I feel so much better about him being near/in the water. His biggest obstacle is water temperature. Due to his next-to-nothing body fat %, he does not stand for cold water. Katja keeps her pool very heated... Now hes pretty spoiled!

 

Hannah took a few lessons in early Spring. She was almost 5 at the time so she picked it up really quickly. She swam almost everyday at the house. She can't wait for Spring to get here so she can swim again!

Summer Birthday Bash

2 of our 3 Summer Birthdays have come and gone. Tuck turned 1 inJune, William turned 3 in July and Hannah will turn 5 next week! A few days after Tucker's Birthday we celebrated with our families back in Georgia. Aunt Shannon helped us host the big party to celebrate all 3 of our Summer babies. It was nice to be able to celebrate with our families and REALLY nice to only plan 1 party! ;) We had a beachy theme. There was swimming and pinatas for the kids...margaritas and yummy food for the adults!

The kids decorated buckets which later would be used to collect pinata goodies! Hannah and william worked hard on theirs!

Leis and hair bows!

Fun time with family and friends!

Sweet Presley!

Desserts!! We were lucky enough to have Ronnie's famous caramel cake and cupcakes!!

Time for Cake!!

Everyone getting their cake

Family Shot

Tuck with his cake... He was hysterical. Ive never seen a baby take on and demolish a cake the way our big boy did! :)

SOOO GOOOD!!!

I wish I had a picture of what was left of this cake... It wasn't much! The kid had it up his nose, in his ears.... He thoroughly enjoyed it!

Grandy was on clean-up crew... Thanks Grandy!

unbelievably behind...

Its almost been 4 months since my last post. I have no excuse... Well, I guess technically I have 3. I still can't believe its been 4 months! I know I keep saying that I will get better and maybe one day I will... For now, I will try and wrap up the last 4 months!

It has been one crazy, busy FUN summer! We had our first annual Simmons Summer Birthday Bash! The kids and I took a 2 week trip to Atlanta and got to spend some time with lots of family. Aunt Shannon (Jason's sister) was kind enough to help us host a joint family birthday party for all 3 kids so that we could celebrate with family even though we live in Florida now. We celebrated it 2 days after Tucker turned 1. I still cant believe he is 1! He thouroughly enjoyed the party and did quite well with his cake. The party will have its own post sometime in the near future. Part of my blogging problem is that I don't end up with many pictures on my camera. I have to hunt down pics from various family members (who are kind enough to cover my slack) and then I can post! (Shannon and Mom, I'll be calling you for pictures soon! ;))

Lets see...shortly after the party, we took our annual beach trip to Grayton with the Taylor side of my family. Again, the beach will have its own post..as soon as I round up more pictures! :)

Now, we are back in Tampa and have been showered with visitors for the last few weeks! Jason got to spend some time with with his parents a few weeks ago while I took a trip with my mom out to montana to visit with my Aunt. The trip was just what I needed! Time away to rest, relax and miss my kids!!! Thank you Nana and Grandy for all of your help! We would have been lost without you!

Aunt Leslie, Aunt Cathy and Savannah were here to visit last weekend. We ate lots of crabs, took a trip to Magic Kingdom and had a blast!!! My Dad, step-mom and sister, Madison are coming this weekend to visit with us. We may just take a trip to the beach on Saturday! We are excited to have them visit!

Well, the countdown has begun... Hannah starts Kindergarten is 19 days, August 23rd! I can't talk about it without crying. I'm excited for her and everything but it just makes me sad! Time truly goes by way too fast!

So Tucker is 1 and 100% pure joy! He still is so easy going. He loves to make us laugh. He still loves to eat. One thing he doesnt love is walking!!! He started taking steps a few months ago but thinks its hysterical to plop right back down. He'll plop and then clap and laugh. Always a comedian... At first I couldn't wait for him to walk. Now, I'm kind of glad he doesn't want to. I realized once he walks he will be one step closer to a big kid and one step further from being my baby... At least now he still needs me for something! :)

William turned 3 last month. Thankfully he is fully potty trained now! YAY!!! I wouldn't mind that much that he was 3 and unpotty-trained EXCEPT for the fact that he has to be potty trained to go to school, which he also will start in a few weeks. Its worried me for so long! Most kids have some time between their 3rd birthday and starting school but the kids with the later birthdays don't have much leeway. Anyways, he did it and I'm so proud of him. He rarely has any accidents now (thank goodness!!). I'm excited for him to start school. I know that sounds bad since I'm so sad about Hannah going to school but William is only going for 2 days a week and its only for 3 hours a day. It will be great for him and I won't miss him too badly since he will be gone for so little. Hes not quite sold on the whole school idea but I think he is going to love it!

Hannah, like I said, is about to emark on a whole new chapter of her life. She couldn't be more excited...unless she found out her BFF Courtney will be in her class. She hasn't turned 5 yet but she only has a couple more weeks! She has decided she wants a mermaid princess party for her friends here. All 2 of them... :) We aren't going to do anything major (remember the first annual Simmons Summer Birthday Bash?) but we will do something small and mermaid-princess-ish for her and her friends. So yes, about to turn 5 but sometimes I feel like she is already going on 14!! The attitude...the eye-rolling...the exasperated sighs... I mean, really?! I may be reading a few new parenting books in the near future. The problem is I will have to take another trip to Montana in order to have time to read said books. SIGH!

OK, I'm off to hunt down pictures! Hopefully I will have posts soon! :)

LOVE TH (the) FAMILY?

Why YES... I do! :)


*Artwork done by Hannah.
**If you are wondering, she did seek advice on the proper spelling of FAMILY.
***And no, she doesn't think there needs to be an e at the end of 'the'.



OK, I just noticed the back of this picture...
Anyone care to guess the movie? :)

Tucker, Tucker, and more Tucker!

Tucker just turned 9 months old. What?! I really can't believe it. He has changed so much from his last update on the blog.

If you remember, he was undergoing physical therapy to treat his torticolis and he weighed in in the 1% for weight a few days after Christmas.

We are happy to report that Tuck graduated from physical therapy right before we moved! Yay!! He really improved quickly! We were told to expect 4-6 months but this kid graduated in 3! We miss his therapist Ms. Monica but we are glad not to have to report to her once a week anymore! :)

Tucker went through quite the growth spurt after Christmas as well. He weighed 13.8 lb at 6 months. By 8 months he weighed 18LB!!!

I know this is not huge for most babies but for some perspective, Hannah and William were both 18lb at a year!

My sweet baby has an unparalleled love of solid food. William had a huge appetite but nothing like this!

Tucker started sitting unassisted for long periods of time the day he turned 6 months. He quickly began scooting and a little before 8 months, started crawling on his hands and knees.

Here is a video of him from Feb 24th. It was a few days after he started really crawling.

Of course now he is super fast and is pulling up on everything. Most of the time he just pulls up to his knees. He doesn't quite have the strength yet to pull all the way up to standing consistently.

His favorite things these days include food, waving HI, snacks, taking toys from hannah and william, food, clapping his hands, pat-a-cake, and snacks!!!

He says Da Da for everything and says, "HI!" when he waves.

A video of some waving and saying HI. No, we are not at the zoo. The crazy loud screaming chaos in the background is hannah and william on a particularly crazy evening!!!!

He takes 2 good naps a day (only he gets woken up a lot to accommodate the schedules of his older siblings) and still sleeps like a champ at night.

He got 6 teeth in 6 weeks! Ouch! Sweet boy did great through it all. He was a little fussy for a few of them but I was shocked how well he handled cutting all of those teeth! He slept, ate, and played like normal!

My resident chunk-a-munk! :) LOVE HIM!!!