Discovery Gateway Museum with Daddy!

Nat had all last week off so one day we took the kids to the Discovery Gateway Museum.  I took them once during the summer but Adam loved having Daddy there to really play with him while I was handling Miss Abigail.

Playing with balls in the Beehive

They were directly above Abby putting balls down a tube and she loved looking up at them

Playing House

Buying Groceries
Picking Vegetables

Loading the Veggies
Adam loved turning the wheel on this conveyor belt

Water Table

Abby playing at a little table
Putting Duplos together. 
She wasn’t just banging them together, she was actually pressing them together, trying to make them stick.
Both Adam and Nat loved building pipes on the magnet wall and then dropping balls through them

Another favorite was this wind tunnel thing where you put a coffee filter in and it shoots it up into the air and floats back down.

We had so much fun together!  One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to try and keep Saturdays for fun family activities rather than having to clean, shop, and run errands all day.  That just means I have to do all that stuff on my own during the week I guess!

Abigail is Walking!!

Dear Abby, (ha ha)

Walking at 10 1/2 months is NOT cool!  You are still a baby!!

Love, Mama and Daddy

Abby took her first “real” steps on Christmas Eve Day and by Christmas Day she was standing for several seconds and then taking 3-4 steps.  One week later she is standing for longer periods of time and will even bounce, dance, and play with things while she stands alone.  She is taking as many as 8 steps at a time now!  I think she’ll be walking as a regular mode of transportation by the time she turns 11 months in 1 week.

Adam starting taking steps at 11 1/2 months and by his birthday was walking really well.  She just seems so tiny to be walking around.  How on earth has this year flown by so fast?

Another development that happened a day or two before Christmas is that she finally got her first tooth!  No sign of any others yet. 

She started using words on purpose right around Christmas also!  She calls me Mama and Adam Buh-buh, and can sometimes get the “r” sound in like Bruh-buh.  Much to Nat’s dismay, she will only occasionally say Dada.  I don’t know what it was about Christmas but she exploded developmentally all at once!  I forgot how fun it is to see a baby learn and develop.  She will be a toddler before I know it!

Our Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year.  It was our first year staying in our own home on Christmas Eve and I loved it! 

Christmas Jammies

Cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the Reindeer

I just realized I didn’t get any pictures of Adam with the train set that Santa brought….but here’s the load from his stocking (and his train in the background)

Ditto for Abby….no picture of her with her toy from Santa.  We were too busy playing with the new camcorder that Nat got for me.  So we have lots of video but not a lot of pictures!

Isn’t it funny what kids get the most excited about?  Adam couldn’t wait to color with the “Cars” markers that were in his stocking!

We went down to my parents’ house for brunch and more present opening. 
Two words….Spoiled Kids!

Playing with Papa

On Sunday we had Christmas with the Gardner side of the family.

Abby loved the baby doll from Grandma LesaAdam opening a present from his cousins

Once again we were having fun with the video camera and didn’t get very many pictures but I sure do love my new camera!!  It segments the videos and is all digital so I can upload them and they are already separated.  No more tapes to deal with!

Adam made this Christmas so much fun and I can’t wait until next year when he is 4 and Abby is almost 2!

Tot School – Christmas Part 3

- Adam is 37 months old -

Sigh….so much to do, so little time. I had so much more planned and prepared than what we actually did but ‘tis the season for busy schedules I guess. On the bright side, I’ll have a lot of things ready to go next Christmas! So, for the past 2 weeks, this is what we did for Tot School:

The following 2 printables are from Confessions of a Homeschooler’s Preschool Pack

Size Ordering Candy Canes

Ornament CountingAdam counted the ornament on the tree and placed the corresponding numbered star on top. He easily counts and knows the numbers 1-7 and 8 and 10. The only thing he had a little trouble with was double counting or missing some of the ornaments because they were rather small.

Coloring a Nativity scene

In this picture he is pointing out that the Shepherd is signing “milk” because the baby Jesus wants some milk.

I got these Christmas erasers at the dollar store and we played a matching game
And I attempted to do patterns with him…he still isn’t quite grasping patterns
Then he lined them up all…
Stood them all up…
And then had the reindeer give sleigh rides to each pair of erasers using the cart from our Little People Nativity.
He played with them for a while and would say, “Go reindeer go! Go reindeer go!” and then “They’re back to the North Pole!” when they finished their ride.
One day we made Christmas trees out of felt and added sequins and glitter. I thought he’d really like the glitter, but he was much more interested in gluing the sequins on!

For our Family Home Evening treat one night we made Gingerbread cookies
The funny thing is that neither Nat or I even like gingerbread but apparently the kids did! I think next year we’ll stick to plain old sugar cookies.

I am looking forward to the new year and getting back into using Before Five in a Row for weekly themes. And after we finish that, it’s on to a Letter of the Week type at-home preschool. I’m excited!

I’m also excited (yet exhausted at the thought) that Abby will be 1 in just over a month so I want to begin planning and putting things out specifically for her to do as Tot School. Adam has been doing more preschoolish things for a long time now so I’m excited to research and plan things more along the lines of the actual Tot School theory.

I’m taking this coming week to plan and prepare our Before Five in a Row themes for the next few weeks so hopefully we can begin a unit the following week. Sometimes I wonder why I do this to myself. It’s so much work!

I Can See!

Technology and modern medicine truly are a miracle!  I had LASIK Eye Surgery yesterday and as of my post-op appointment this morning, I’m seeing right around 20/20 and my eyes should continue to improve over the coming months.  It’s awesome!  I went to bed with blurry/fuzzy vision after my surgery, and after a 4 hour nap (thanks Valium!), I woke up seeing clearly with only a little irritation and dryness. 

Today my eyes have been dry and a little irritated, but mostly just tired.  Most of the time it seems like I’m just wearing my contacts (which I’ve worn for probably 13-14 years) so it’ll be neat to wake up tomorrow morning (or the middle of the night since Abby has been waking up crying lately) and just be able to see without any glasses or contacts.  It’s kind of strange!

I’m really grateful to Dr. Hoopes for blessing me with this surgery.  I didn’t think I’d have it for many years and I feel so lucky and blessed!

I want to post about our Christmas but this is about all the computer time my eyes can handle….maybe tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!!

The Gardner Family’s Christmas Stockings

I am FINALLY finished with making our Christmas stockings!  I was done with all the appliques a while ago but I attempted to hand embroider our names on them and it just didn’t work.  Well, I’m too much of a perfectionist and it was taking too long so I gave up.  I had them machine embroidered instead.

They aren’t perfect.  Why was I expecting them to be?  For instance, why is Nat’s longer than the rest?  Why did the lady who did the embroidery put my name slightly higher than the others and a bigger font than Dad’s?  Why is Abby’s wreath lower than the other appliques?  The answer is….I’m a total novice at sewing!  And I have no answer about the lady who did the embroidery.  All things considered, I am happy with them.  After all, they are homemade so they shouldn’t be perfect right?  :)

We are allowed to have 2 more children…that is it!

”The stockings were hung by the staircase with care”

I just washed and dried them this morning (to make them fray) so I’d say I finished just in the nick of time!

Bring on Santa!!

Our Little Drummer Boy

Adam has loved drums since he was a baby so it’s no surprise that one of his favorite Christmas songs is “The Little Drummer Boy”. 
Every time he hears it, he starts drumming and marching to the beat.  I told him the story of why the boy went to play his drums for Baby Jesus, so now in addition to drumming, he acts out the story.  He’s so cute.

We have a tradition where every year we give the kids an ornament so when they move out and start their own lives and families, they will have a box full of memories and ornaments for their own tree.  I haven’t been able to find one for Adam for this year until tonight.
It plays the classic Bing Crosby version of the song which is the version Adam knows.
It’s perfect.

Too Pretty For Words

While eating lunch the other day, it struck me how pretty Abigail is.  Her eyes aren’t as blue as Adam’s, but the blue/grey color looks kind of mysterious and deep, for lack of a better word.
And she has long, dark eyelashes like her brother, (and mother before getting old).  These pictures don’t do her justice.

On top of being beautiful, this baby girl is growing FAST!  Here she is “walking”!  It wasn’t long after Adam started doing this that he took his first real steps around 11 months old.  Yikes!