Sweet Sixteen, Girlfriend!

Our dear sweet niece & cousin Allison turns 16 on Jan. 26th. She is a lovely girl in so many ways. Her smile and beautiful singing voice are just tiny little glimpses into the wonderful person she is inside. If you ask our kids, they'll tell you how she loves each of them, loves her pets, her whole big family, her parents, especially her big brother Grant in Afghanistan, and her billions of stuffed animals. God has grown her into a lovely and brilliant young lady. We all just adore her and look forward to spending time with her each summer. Sometimes we get visits with her during the winter as well.

She popped into town for a Duke BBall game earlier this month, and Michael invited her to come in and take a look at the kids who were supposed to be sleeping. I think we surprised her!


Congratulations, Brian and Marian, on your awesome little girl who is all grown up now!

Amelia seeks your help!

If you would like to read to or sponsor this Kindergartner in her first ever Ephesus Elementary Read-A-Thon, please let us know! Pledge amounts are due by Jan. 20th and the funds need to be turned in by Feb. We'll try to capture some pictures of her reading adventures!

Rokenbok

The other night some good friends came over for dinner. I looked into the living room to find all men and children thoroughly engrossed in their building projects with our Rokenbok sets. This was the scene, except their heads were all down. I tried to make them look up for the picture, but they wouldn't.

This afternoon, Thomas has been playing with a handful of pieces while I've been cleaning up, replying to emails, prepping dinner, etc. He has brought me a tall car, a crane, a truck, a long car, a race car, and an ax for cutting into burning buildings, etc. He just keeps on making items with the same 10 pieces. He is loving the kits we have, and I enjoy seeing his creativity grow and grow. I got 2 of this Deluxe set for preschoolers on kids.woot.com. He is having so much fun! http://www.rokenbok.com/estore/construction/deluxe-rok-blocks

Sweet Boys

John and Thomas are having SO much fun together each day. It took a few days after Amelia started Kindergarten for them to realize that she wasn't coming home for lunch and that they could play freely in her room without worry. John enjoys going to the baby doll crib and picking up the boy doll to take him on a stroller ride around the house. He'll often put the baby back in the crib, turn on the sound machine and shut the door quietly before informing us "the baby's asleep." He loves pretending almost as much as big brother Thomas. Dressing up in costumes, acting stuff out, playing firefighter with the random hose we have, playing with Imaginext guys, trucks, whatever. John also enjoys cleaning things, mostly his big black pickup truck. He will search the house until he finds something to spray - a hair spraybottle or more recently the lemon juice spray we use for keeping cut fruit fresh. Hearing a squirt squirt following the refrigerator door makes me jump up to wipe the lemon juice off whatever item he doused. He loves playing with the soap pump and any water faucet he can gain access to. The child locks don't actually keep him out of anywhere, but they slow him down enough that we can hear them rattling and run to get there. John is also using the potty quite frequently. Not always, but there are many days where we remove and replace the same dry diaper the entire day. Here's a picture of the two boys one morning before his speech therapist came to play. We were trying on new clothes to see who got which size, and they looked like they were going to work with daddy.

Our little author met a REAL author!

click on picture for more photos

Last night, we used a groupon to eat at a favorite local place, The Flying Burrito. Yum. After dinner we sauntered into a bookshop a few doors down. We saw an advertisement for the author of the newer Amelia Bedelia books was coming to talk the very next night. Peggy Parish, from SC, wrote the original series, and her nephew, Herman Parish, has carried on the tradition by continuing the series. Now, Amelia Bedelia is a young girl. Here's the book we got: Amelia Bedelia's First Field Trip Of course, it pains me to see it for $9.99 on Amazon when I paid $18.xx in person, but I guess that's part of the fun of having a real author come within 2 miles of our house.

Mr. Parish talked about slamming his finger in the car door the day before on the way to our town,then he talked about his aunt and her career. She was a 3rd grade teacher who had lots of famous people pass through her school, including Chevy Chase. There's a statue of Amelia Bedelia in Manning, SC where the author lived.
The author of the new series shared how he gets funny ideas from real life conversations and jots them in a little notebook he carries in his pocket - things like turning left is right, telling a waiter to bring some pie and "step on it." The slightly older (well, older than 5) kids got the humor and giggled. Besides the obvious "name fun" for our Amelia, we really enjoyed seeing so many familiar faces. We saw my old student whose family was there with their youngest 5yo girl, a friend from ballet, a friend from church, a yard sale friend whose clothes we've bought for years, two best guy friends from preschool, multiple friends from Kindermusik, and probably more. And now, we have 2 new friends, the real Amelia Bedelia and the new author, Herman Parish.

First Day of School EVER!

Thomas started school this week! He is in Mrs. Wesley's 3 year old class on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the preschool across the street from our house. It's a special place because it's where big sister Amelia spent the past 2 years, but more importantly because it's at the church where daddy grew up!

Thomas got to meet his teacher last year when her son Jonathan was in big sister's 4 year old class, and when she came to our house for Amelia's birthday party. Actually, Mrs. Wesley and her son were in music class with us when I was pregnant with Thomas! His whole life he's waited to be in class with Mrs. Derby (the assistant teacher) since Amelia loves her so much. He is excited to begin his school experience at Binkley Preschool. Just hearing him shout it with enthusiasm brings a smile to us all.

On his first day of class, a parent needed to join him. Little brother John also had his first ever mommy and me Kindermusik class at the same time. Mama cannot be in two places at one time, so we called on grandparents to help out. Grand Dan was in the area, so he proudly accompanied young Thomas to his class. I'll admit we were all a little worried about sticking Dan in the 3yo class for the morning, but it was just an hour the first day, and only half the class attended at that time. Both teachers reported that Dan and Thomas did a great job. Click on the photo to see more of the craft time and story time. The children made crowns to wear during the first day parade.

"Oh, you must be here to play with me!"

The last few months have brought us many visitors. I called Early Intervention/the NC Infant and Toddler program because of John's delayed speech. Jessa, our service coordinator came over to speak with us. Then she brought Van to evaluate him. Then she brought Ginny to do the speech evaluation. We got temporarily set up with Martha, a speech therapist who filled in until Michele came to work with him consistently. In each situation, we've tried to keep the hoodlums (A & T) in the back of the house so the expert/therapist could actually HEAR John. Usually, mom, John, and the therapist are in a room together.

Yesterday, we had DUCTZ come to the house to check out our air conditioning system, go into our crawlspace to investigate, etc. When the hoodlums where in a different room and the DUCTZ guy, John, and I were in a room by ourselves, John lit up and started trying to engage the gentleman. He was pointing to the Elmo sticker the pediatrician had given him and trying to talk with him about it. He was watching the man's lips, being super-animated, and so on. It took me a day to figure out why he was so lively and expressive with him. John must have assumed the man arrived at our home to "play" with him as all the other visitors have the past few months. If the others were off playing in another room, and just mom, the visitor, and John were in the room, surely it was for a speech therapy session, right?

He's doing really well with his language since starting therapy, by the way. We're amazed.