Nine Years...

Nine Years ago today Philip and I took the plunge!  I know I keep saying this, but it's amazing how time flies!  We have been married for nine years and together for nearly ten!  Just think how old our kids could be if we had decided to have them right away... but I am glad we waited.  We couldn't even afford ourselves when we were first married and poor students! 

Philip is so sweet, he's on his way home right now with food for me!  Yay!  We're eating Enriques for dinner, yum!  Pork shank and enchiladas.  Yay!

Here's to another nine years together!!!!

Hello?

Anybody there on the (boat) phone?

I found this adorable airplane fleece for Colin that I am going to hem into a blanket.

Strawberry Fiends!

Both of my boys LOVE strawberries!  Usually I only give him two strawberries at a time (one for each hand), but this time I decided to give him three.  He surprised me by holding them all in his hands!  He managed to hold two in one hand!

Yum!

One of Gavin's favorite fruits is the strawberry as well!

Sleeping Babes

Philip thought it was so funny that Gavin built a pillow nest around himself one night.  Must have been comfy!

Colin was awake and we thought that he would want to get in on the picture-taking action. 

This night Colin was asleep holding the baby doll's hand.  I thought that was so cute!

He moved his hand a little just before I took this picture, but you get the idea.

This time (and more common in general) Gavin was still awake.

Airplane & Signing Playtime Class

We have discovered that Colin LOVES airplanes! This is another instance that living under the flight path has paid off! Since I have been teaching him a few signs, airplane (click and select airplane from the list of A words to see) is one that I have been doing with him, since the airplanes go overhead often enough to notice.  One day we walked outside and he put his arm in the air and said, "airplane," (with his mouth closed, an annoying habit!)

We have also been taking the Signing Playtime class through the city's parks and rec.  The first class we went over animals and colors using the book: Brown Bear, What do you See?.  The second class we went over foods and days of the week using The Very Hungry Caterpillar. She also included more signs as well, but those were the main ones.  The class motivates me to do more signs with him and he has been doing several signs now.  The teacher told me that I should start writing down which signs he knows and I think it's a good idea, otherwise I will never remember what he knew.  I have seen him do 1) more 2) milk 3) eat 4) all done 5) airplane 6) mama 7) ball and I think I have seen him attempt 8) diaper 9) water and 10) again.  I numbered them so I could see how many he knows.  I think we are off to a good start!  I am pretty sure that the number of signs he knows outnumbers the number Gavin knew.  I really only did more and milk with Gavin.

Don't you love the goggles on Colin?  I do!

 

In this video an airplane went overhead and you can see how excited he gets.  I was trying to get him to say airplane, but he wouldn't.

In this video listen very closely and you can hear Colin say, "airplane," (and he is doing an approximation of the sign for "airplane," as well).

Building a train

Aunt Staci gave us this fun train that is put together and taken apart with tools.  It's very cool; Gavin  is taking it apart this time and he did it all on his own.  Colin wanted to get in on the action, of course.

Brothers at play!

Gavin tends to be one of those kids that likes to do what the other kids are doing.  So he happily joined Colin on the floor kicking the cupboards. Thought it was cute.

It's garden time!

Since my baby isn't so small and I usually get a full night's sleep, I decided I should probably do a garden again this year.  I finally got around to planting my peas! Gavin and I enjoyed eating the sugar snap peas as a snack in the afternoon when he was a bit older than Colin, so it's been since before Colin was born that I had a garden.  I planted two kinds of peas.  Hopefully they will grow since I bought them the last time I planted my garden.  Colin sat in the swing while I did the work of planting.

I left some plant that started growing on its own.  Not sure what it is, but we shall see.

Duck

Colin is getting better at imitating the sounds of words we make and I think that they may even have meaning behind them.  I got Colin to say, "duck," and I even got a video of it!

Gavin's Track

Gavin loves to "make" tracks, but it's usually Philip or me doing all of the work.  I guess I put him off long enough this time that he made this square all by himself!  One side is a bit longer than the other, but it's still great!

Preschool in February

February included, of course a lot of Valentine themed artwork, but also teeth and alphabet work!  I also included the football and Valentine he made me in speech.  The red heart in the middle is a sample of the Valentines he made for everyone in his class.

Here is the Valentine he gave me from speech.

I kept finding other things that he made in school in random places.  I need to be better about putting them all together.  This particular one has a story, though.  One of his teachers told me that he was very particular on what he put on his necklace.  He picked out pink hearts and separators out of four different colors! My boy knows what he wants!

This project cracks me up.  Not only is it a cute idea, but check out what he put in his fridge!

Hahaha--does Gain detergent belong in the fridge?

Raspberries!

I guess I need to pay better attention when I post.  This one never got published either, it's from November 22.

Colin was loving playing with me the other day, so I thought I would get a video of it. I did it by resting the camera on the exersaucer. The first part of the video is at a bad angle, but I thought that he was cute enough it in it keep part of it. It is kind of a long video, though, in total almost three minutes.

Gavin Stories

I wrote these on December 20, I'm not sure why they never got published...

Playing with Trains

Have you ever watched an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine? If you have not, they are always narrated, the engines themselves do not talk. I have noticed that when Gavin does pretend play with his trains that he has them speaking in narration style as well! (i.e. "blah, blah, blah blah, James says." "Such and so and so and so, driver says.")

Count to...uh 30?

I asked Gavin to count. He said, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, ... he skipped a couple of numbers in the teens-13 and 16, I believe, then he went on to the twenties)... twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten, twenty-eleven, twenty-twelve." I guess we need to teach him thirty!

Here is a current story:

Colin received Chica Chica ABC for his birthday and it has been a favorite at our house with both kids.  I just bought the full version of Chica Chica Boom Boom at Costco and both boys love it--although Colin only has the attention span for the shortened version.  Gavin can recite the whole shortened version of the book!I have a video of it, but the file is too big...

The Zoo!

We went to the zoo with my friend, Holly, whose kids are the same ages as mine.

Gavin, of course, wanted to look at the tracks!  We made them wait to do the train until last!

Colin pointing to the turkey.  I am sure he thought they looked weird.

Colin's little friend, Zack.  It's hard to believe that they are only 5 days apart.

Kaylee told Gavin she wanted to hold hands. So cute!

The kids LOVED, of course, to play in the water.  It was meant for washing your hands after touching the animals, but they just wanted to play.

So many monkeys to look at!

  Colin was very interested in the ducks.  I got his head in this picture on purpose...it may look a little weird because I was holding him to the railing at the same time!

 

More monkeys!

A bald eagle!

Finally we let them ride the train!

Just got a short little video of them riding the train together.  

I took this picture of us.  Couldn't very well have Gavin do it from the other side of the seat, or Holly right next to me!

Explorer Gavin!

Explorer Colin!

We had fun, thanks for coming with us!  Hopefully we'll be able to do it again sometime!