The little things

Tonight Slater taught Jade how to play "Ring around the Rosie". She refused to fall down the first couple of times, but laughed hysterically at the rest of us. Slater says most of the words now and loves to include Jade in any games that he is making up.

After dinner we were all required to be characters from Winnie the Pooh, Vega was the only one who stayed the same the whole time (Christopher Robin??? - why was the dog assigned the human role???). Everyone else was given different characters every couple of minutes and we had to talk about who we were, what we liked (gardening and bouncing) and then we all had to run around saving Piglet before he got away on the kite. It is great to be able to have a semi-conversation with Slater, things keep falling into place with his speech and it is wonderful to hear.

In the morning Slater now says - "Nice to see you." and "I missed you, mommy." Now if we could just get him to stop saying "GO AWAY". He also likes to assign us to time out when we aren't doing what he has asked - "You sit in time-out."

Other thoughts:
Jade's skin is still unbelievable soft and she smells so sweet.
In the morning she l.o.v.e.s. to cuddle in the chair.
If you ask her about reading books she will grab your hand and drag you to her bedroom to sit and read.
She can identify or point out most of the pictures in her favorite books.
At Uncle Carter's wedding she rediscovered bubbles and can't get enough of them.

Sort of rambling tonight, but it was a great Thanksgiving and I just needed to get a few thoughts down tonight. Hopefully I will post pictures of our fun week / weekend adventures soon.

Ice Storm

This week we have had 40 degree temperatures and rain. Falling rain on frozen ground creates a layer of ice that makes life a little more difficult. They closed school for 2 days and the kids and I choose to stay home on Monday. Since this is Thanksgiving week that means a week vacation for us ... too bad the roads are so bad that we are basically housebound.



Wade got the snowmachine out and took Slater to a nearby playground. It was the highlight of his day. He seems to be missing his friends from daycare and pre-school, he has been asking to see kids all day.

Piper and her guys

The pictures of pre-school day one...

Waiting impatiently for the school bus to arrive on the first day! We promised pictures of this big day awhile ago and some how they just never got uploaded. I hope that you enjoy seeing Slater take this big step (almost all by himself).


Getting off the school bus at school. I wanted to get one of him getting on the bus, but he was way to excited to stand outside the bus. He ran over to the door and jumped on - then he tried to steal the aide's seat. As much fun as he has at pre-school still can compare to the bus ride.


Here he is all settled into his classroom. These little people could be linked together, stacked and lined up like dominoes. After arranging all of his people he tried to snag a few more from the pile on the other side of the table (his classmate hadn't gotten there yet).

Sitting on things

Here she is "helping" vacuum the floor.


Jade sitting on her racecar.

She likes to sit in the chair with us, on the couch with the dogs, on benches, rocking toys and just about anything that her bottom will fit on. She often tries to sit on tiny objects (like toy horses and small stuffed animals.

Crazy hair-do!!

Bath time is the best time!

Jade loves to take a bath and we love to make her hair do crazy things. It is super-fine, straight, blond and finally starting to get a little longer.

I see a future in ponytails and pigtails.

Leaps in Language!

Slater has been in pre-school for two weeks now and we are seeing leaps and bounds in progress. He actually started to make some significant strides in the couple weeks leading up to it, but we are seeing daily progress that relates directly to pre-school.

: He can sing the entire ABC song by himself
: He is using 4-6 words in sentences of his own
- "I see a Charlie Brown tree"
- "Right behind you Jade"
- "That is you, booboo"
- "That is the school bus"
- "I found the storm trooper"
- "Jade, this is Commander Cody"
- "Baby duckie, so cute"
- "I see the number 2"
: Transitioning between activities better
: Uses the words I, me and you (not always correctly, but he says them now)
: Loves going to the gym at the school
: With a lot of coaxing and prompting he tells us things about his day
: He is sitting still for library and circle time
: Learning how to walk in a line or be a line leader
: Getting better at waiting in line
: LOVING the school bus more each day
: Always happy to see his mom at pick-up time

He still seems to understand what other people are saying better if they phrase it as a statement or a direction instead of asking a question (this is something that we are all working on). Mom can understand about 90% of what he says, while Dad and other are probably closer to 60%. His teachers are great and seem to genuinely enjoy him, they always have a story about something funny he has done with his time at school.