9 months!

Our little Miss Mae is 9 months old. *sniff, sniff* What a joy she is to have around!

Computer Savvy

I just recently started allowing Gavin to use the computer by himself. He loves this website called Starfall. It teaches letters and beginner reading. It also has games, which Gavin recently discovered. It's great for when I jump in the shower or just need a few minutes to myself during the day. It's also another thing he can do without being "bothered" by his sister!

Gavin

Gavin is cracking us up, as always. He is ALWAYS talking. He talks just to hear his own voice. He asks questions that don't make sense or that he already knows the answer to. I think that the following routine happens almost every day: "How old am I?" "How old is Charlotte?" "How old is no one?" "Does God have an age?" Just today I said, "Gavin, please stop asking me questions." He looked at me and said, "What? You don't want to talk to me?" That was a dagger to the heart!

One of his new favorite things is numbers. He loves them and is trying to understand everything about them. He wants to know how many of everything there is. How many stars, how many people in a room, how many cars he has, how many pieces of chicken are on his plate. It goes on and on. . . The other day he was counting and I heard the number Fivety five. Yeah, that's right, fivety five not fifty five. It was too cute!

Gavin has also been very interested in the gospel lately. He is really asking good questions (and some funny ones). I can see God really working in his little heart. Everyday he is talking about sin, Christ on the cross, his heart and even Hell. In church they were going over the wordless book. Gavin told me, "first your heart is black, then it's red, then its white and then it is green." He told me what each color meant, too. Of course he thinks that your actual heart turns those colors, but at least its a start! It's so fun to watch his mind piece everything together.

I am thanking God daily for the gift He gave me almost five years ago!

Driving the boats at Navy Pier

Google Reader

I think we are all using google reader by now to get updates on the blogs we follow. If your not, you should be. It's such a time saver and you don't miss any posts on the blogs you love to read. I signed into my google reader today and I had a few extra minutes to poke around. I clicked on the recommendations tab. MY GOODNESS! Google reader apparently knows me better than I know myself! It is pretty much up to date on most of my interests. It recommended blogs on children's ministry, crafts, crochet, preschool, breastfeeding, cloth diapering, pregnancy, and news in and around the city of Chicago. I am amazed.

Reading

Yesterday I started teaching Gavin how to read. I probably should have done this awhile ago, but he just wasn't interested. Things have really just started clicking with him. He is soaking up everything I am willing to teach him. I got this book from the library called "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." It's fast, simple and claims it is guaranteed to work. If that's true, I should have a reader on my hands by February 1st. I'd love any feedback if you've used this or know someone who has. I've heard some good things about it and am very excited to try it! I'll let you know how it goes!

Charlotte's new love

Charlotte's new favorite thing is pulling all the books off the shelf. She loves to look at them and eat them and even rip them. I try to keep her confined to the board books, but every once in awhile she will break into Gavin's section and try and rip out pages. She really seems to like looking at the pictures. Gavin didn't want anything to do with books until he was much older. Charlotte will even sit for a little while and let me read to her, until she decides she's rather eat the book, of course.

Keep Away

Sometimes I feel like my days consist of one big game of Keep Away from Charlotte. She is eating paper out of the garbage can, ripping pages out of books, eating any tiny morsel she can from the kitchen floor, the list goes on and on. I had to ban Gavin from getting the Lego's out. There were just too many close calls. This did not go over too well. It really stunk for me too b/c Lego's can occupy this kid for hours. Well, the other day I had a great idea. The one place Charlotte can't get to is up on my bed. I spread a bit blanket out over the top of the bed and put the Lego's on it. That way, Gavin can play up there all he wants with out being bothered by our little destroyer! At the end of the day I just gather up the corners of the blanket and put it on the floor. It is also great motivation for me to make my bed everyday!

Charlotte

What a FUNNY girl we have on our hands. I don't quite know what to do with her sometimes. She's a stinker, that's for sure. Gavin was such a timid and obedient little guy. He just did everything we told him to with no questions asked. When it was time to eat, he ate. When it was time to sleep, he slept. If we told him not to touch something, he didn't. Charlotte does NONE of those things. I have to admit I was a little skeptical of those mom's who said things like, "I would NEVER be able to get my kid to do that . . . " Now I know.
This little girl will have nothing to do with her baby food. This stinks b/c I have a pantry FULL of it. She just wants what we are eating. It sure it easier, I just wish I would have know it before I stocked up on all of this food.
She is a good sleeper. However, sometimes I will lay her down for her nap and then 10 min. later I will hear her playing in her crib. I peek in at her to find that she has turned on the light (her crib is near the switch) and is standing up in her crib just cracking up at me.
She has a hard time with the "No" word. I'd like to say that she doesn't understand. But I'm pretty sure that's not true. She just thinks she can do what she wants!
She is taking after her big brother in the fact that she is on the move in a big way. She has been walking along the furniture for some time now. I just hope she doesn't walk any time soon. We will really be in trouble! I have a cute video of her cruising down the couch, but I can't get it to upload. It is taking forever! This picture is of her walking down the train table undoubtedly trying to get something she isn't supposed to have!

Five in a Row

We ended up NOT sending Gavin to preschool this year. After all that heart ache over where to send him, I just didn't have peace about it all when it came down to it. I also wasn't ready for the hastle it would create in our lives. I did start doing the Five in a Row curriculum with him at home. We LOVE it. Gavin is so excited about it. Everyday he wakes up and says, "Are we doing school today!?!?" It is fun. If you don't know about it, it is a curriculum that is based on children's books. You read the same book every day for a week and your lessons are based on the book. Our first week we read "The Story About Ping" by Marjorie Flack. Our lessons were about China, ducks, counting, things that float vs. things that sink, and where the sun rises and sets. We put everything we did in a lap book for review. We are past the first book, but Gavin is still talking about Ping and looking through his book quite often! Here are some pictures of our lap book.

Volcano's

Gavin absolutely LOVES volcanoes and everything to do with them. He has been asking and asking to make one with baking soda and vinegar. I was really dreading the paper machete. Then I found this idea online that made one out of poster board. It only lasted for two eruptions, but we had a great time doing it. I am thinking about buying him a plastic kit for his birthday or Christmas. Below are some pictures of Gavin painting it. I did take some video but I never got around to editing it. Maybe one of these days. . .

AHH!

I can't believe how long it's been since I've blogged! I love my blog. I miss my blog! I really dislike being so busy that I neglect it. I'll try and update anyone who cares about what we've been up to.

I'll start with our trip to DISNEY!!!! We went with Ryan's folks to Florida last month and spent a week at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge. We hit the Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. It was AWESOME. We loved every minute of it. The weather was perfect. Not too hot, not too cool. Gavin, of course had a great time. The pool at our resort had a little splash park for small kids. It was perfect for us. We could have just spent a week at the pool. There were even a few small water slides! Here are some pictures from our trip (if you haven't already seen them on facebook!)

This was at Animal Kingdom. That is the tree of life behind us.

This was the view outside of our hotel. There were LOTS of animals for us to watch all day and they had African Guides everywhere to educate you about them all. It was really fun.

The Cinderella castle behind us. Gavin was in half of his Peter Pan costume - they had a trick or treat thing if you dressed up.

This in on the balcony of our rooms.

Gavin came off the water slide running to do it all over again (repeat about 50 times).