Greyson's first real word: BALL

I say "first real word" because to be a real word he has to know what he is saying right? Well, Greyson definitely knows when he is pointing to a ball when he says the word "baw". I was hoping it would be "mama" but I'll take "baw". What does this say about him and his future? Do we have a ball player on our hands? We'll just have to see! (As Ben groans and says "how do I handle an athlete son?")

A mouse?

Madelyn sits at the dining table to eat facing the window that looks out over a tree in our backyard. We have a walkout basement so the picture below is basically the view that she sees. So, yesterday we were sitting down eating dinner when she said very matter-of-factly looking toward the window, "I see a mouse." Seeing that it is too cold outside to have mice running around, my first thought was that a mouse was INSIDE MY HOUSE! So my first question was, "Is it inside?" "No," she says, "It is outside in the tree." I am stumped so I look outside for a minute and then I see it. Can you see what she is talking about in the picture below?


It is really a branch that is going off in the opposite direction but I have to say it does look like a mouse! Madelyn is pretty convinced that it is mouse too. :) I told her today when she was talking about it again, "You know it isn't a real mouse, right?" She replies after a minute, "Mama, it IS a real mouse. It isn't pretend." I left it at that for now. She added tonight that it has "a really long tail."


It is kinda fun to watch her lately recognize shapes and other objects in interesting places. Today she also told me that she had made a flower on her apple. What she meant was that she had eaten her whole apple in such a way that it looked a flower. It probably is an expected development milestone, but I'm impressed with her creative mind nonetheless.

Jesus cleaned us white as SNOW!

I had a great time presenting Easter to the kiddos this year! I'm pretty sure that they enjoyed it too. I would even risk to guess that Ben had fun too... This year Madelyn is really starting to get that these traditions that come and go every year are celebrations of things - you know, Christmas = Jesus' birth, Easter = Jesus is alive (again!). I love unfolded these stories for her. She found a book at the library that had a picture of Jesus on the cross and she started asking questions. I truly think that this might have been her first exposure to extreme violence AND to the visual of Jesus hanging like that. She was kind of taken back by it and asked why the people were doing to him. Kinda surprised myself, I told her that he didn't really deserve to be on the cross and that those people didn't know what they were really doing. (It was the best I could come up with at the time.) We brought the book home and since then have had several conversations about it. It is wonderful to see her starting to understand that which gives her mom and dad so much hope. Even though she knows that Easter is about Jesus and how he died and rose again (in her simple 3yr-old way), I also decided to have the Easter Bunny help us celebrate. He (or She according to Madelyn) came and hid the eggs we colored while they were taking naps on Saturday and then brought the celebration gifts that Jesus has risen. The kids both really enjoyed the egg coloring and hunt. And as for the snow reference, we got 5 inches of snow today! I guess that is what happens when Easter comes early!

Hunting for eggs!

"Jesus is Risen" celebration gifts

Family Photo Op

Madelyn and Greyson showing off their Easter outfits (btw, Madelyn's dress is homemade!)

Easter Videos for you!

32nd birthday today....

Ben and I had our special lunch sans kids last Saturday at Bucca DeBeppo - yum! It was delicious! Today we're playing it low-key but I have to hand it to Ben because this morning he got out of bed early and made blueberry muffins - double yum! The big feat was keeping Madelyn quiet enough that she didn't wake me up! Now, that is *my* husband!

Thanks, babe, for the extra shuteye and wonderful breakfast. Luvya!

While, I was sitting here writing this, I got totally surprised by.... these! Thanks Mom and Dad!


Now, here's a special treat for the people who love my kids - Greyson dancing to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" in one of my birthday cards. Thanks Grandmomma! :)

Ahhhh.... such a beautiful day!

Today is such a beautiful day! The sun is out and it was in low 50's! The snow is melting and running down the streets in great rivers of water to the nearest street drain. The birds are starting to come back. The buds are starting to appear on the trees and bushes. Ahhh......

The kids and I just got back from a nice walk. Well, Madelyn rode her bike. I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures, I forgot my camera. :( Thank you, God, for the break in cold weather.

Will it last?

Book Club and Book Reports

In December, a friend and I started a book club. We did because we both desired more adult, woman interaction in our lives. The goal was to invite people from our neighborhood and not to read just one genre of book. Another thing we really strived for was having a good mix of life stages: single, married, married w/ kids, ect. I really wanted that because I find that when I'm around women that have kids all we talk about are our kids. It has been really hard but I'm hoping that this group will help remember that there is a WHOLE WORLD outside of me and my household. I think it has gotten off to a good start and the women seem to enjoy themselves and each other. We've read three books now and I thought I would give just a short blurb on each for you, but mostly for me to remember later!

Kick-off Book:
The Power of thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
Very interesting! Pretty scientific in nature, which I enjoyed. The author did a good job convincing me that we have subconsciencious presuppisitions about people that are always coloring our world. I might be taking what he wrote too far but I came away thinking that if you want to put away all of your innate ideas of something or someone, you need to become an expert in that area. Anything you are not an expert in will be colored by what you think, instead of by what you know.

Korrie's Pick:
Falling Through The Earth: A Memoir by Danielle Trussoni
I really liked this book. It was about a girl/women that grew up in a broken family and whose father fought in the Vietnam War as an untrained "tunnel rat" crawling in the VietCong tunnels of hiding. She struggles throughout the book to discover herself and understand her father. She ends up going to Vietnam by herself as a yound adult to try and understand her father even better. This book really spoke to me because she was so emotionally strong but yet so impressionable. It showed me, again, how sensitive children are and how careful we should be with their minds.

Melissa's Pick:
Sudden Fiction: American short-short stories edited by Robert Shapard and James Thomas
This book was my idea but I didn't even finish it. It was hard for me to read stories that were sudden and abrupt and they didn't seem to leave you with any satisfying conclusion. I learned to not read short-short fiction...

And there you have it! Next month's discussion is about The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. Until then!

February pictures available

Hey everyone! Just a heads-up that I have uploaded February's pictures. Enjoy!

Especially for Uncle Mike

Well, it is ironic that this happened today after my post yesterday.... but Greyson found our random guitar that nobody plays downstairs while we were waiting for Madelyn to wake up from her nap. Not only did he find it, but he demanded help in figuring out how to play it! It was uncanny how he seemed to know that the strap goes over his shoulder and that his left hand went on the fretboard (I looked up that word) and his right hand was used for plunking/strumming the strings. Maybe he picked up from others he's seen playing the guitar around him, but come on! That's awesome! It is almost like he was given special understanding or something. I had visions of how I'm going to be showing this video at graduation or something similar to show when he got his start at playing the guitar. I might be completely wrong and that will be okay. But here is my question - how do you encourage a 16-month-old to hone his guitar skills? LOL

just kid stuff

Here are the kids eating one of their favorite things - grapes! They are extra nice and polite when I pull them out!

Here are those animals sounds that I mentioned Greyson makes.... disclaimer: this is *right* before nap, hence the crankiness....

I did remember a Madelyn story today when the kids and I were at the library for storytime. Today when Miss Ann (AKA Librari-Ann :) was doing a handplay, I remembered when Madelyn was about 2 she would come home from daycare saying in the unclear 2yr-old way something like "slap uh monkey uh ta da twee". huh? What is this place teaching my daughter? I was stumped listening to her say it for about 3 weeks until I remembered to ask and they laughed and explained that she ws saying the last line of "5 little monkeys" - snapped that monkey right out of the tree. I laughed and laughed. :)

Greyson has totally gotten into doing handplays these days. He loves doing one called "open them, shut them". He gets all excited! Madelyn and Greyson both love doing "a ram sam sam" and "if you're happy and you know it". I'm so glad that they love music. Madelyn is our little singer and Greyson loves to play instruments (especially the piano and tamborine). It will be interesting to see how they decide to use music in their lives and to love God.

Madelyn's Screening Results

It is official now - I have a very smart little girl! I've been telling you that (whenever you would listen), but now it is written on paper. She passed her prekindergarten screening with flying colors. She received a 47 out of 64 and at her age all she needed was a 14. This doesn't impress me as much as the fact that a 5.6 year old (what she would be if she took it two years from now without starting kindergarten) needs a 37. Wow!

So I'm going to try and write down my observations of the visit just so I remember them later. When we walked in, I was given a stack of papers to fill out and Madelyn was given a blank sheet of paper to draw a picture of herself on. She refused to draw a picture of herself and drew a spaceship with a little boy inside of it instead. I thought to myself, "oh boy, she's already rebelling the rules... although her picture is very creative... ." Then we went to a room when her vision and hearing would be tested. She was enjoying herself and the woman guiding us through and passing the vision test *until* the woman asked her to put on some glasses that had one of the eyes covered over. This was to test the eyes individually, but she was *not* going to do it! For some reason she was scared of it and wanted nothing to do with it. Then once she was worked up she didn't want to even cover her own eye or anything. So we moved on to the hearing tests. She was apprehensive but did fine with that and asked for a hug from the woman, who seemed a little taken back by the request. So we went back to the vision test and she would only let me cover her eye if Pinky (her bear she brought) had his eye covered too. It's a deal! So we got through that! Both tests done and passed.

Next was the academic test - a series of questions supplemented with colored blocks and flashcards. I tried really hard to just sit back and watch Madelyn during this time, rather than getting involved and either skewing it or getting her confused. The teacher (T) started out by asking her to copy a few simple shapes and I was blown away that she did them really well. Granted they weren't exactly the same, but she had the right shape and the same number of strokes! Next, T asked her to write her name.... uhh... we have been working a little on that, but not much. She made an M-looking shape and said "that's it!" T then stacked up some small blocks and asked her to stack up some of her own to look the same. Mad flew through the first 4 stacking patterns no problem, but on the fifth she did something wrong to begin with and when she got to the top she didn't have enough blocks. I thought for sure she would give up, but she didn't! She looked at it hard and figured it out! I was really impressed by her persistence and problem-solving! There were lots of questions/tasks like this and she didn't get everything right, but did really well over all. Something that surprised me was how confident she was throughout the whole session, even if her answers were wrong. T asked her about some letters (which Mad has not been very excited to learn at home) and she would answer with a *very confident* wrong answer! (She did get one correct - G - because it is the first letter in Greyson.) I found this interesting because it is different than what I see at home. At home, I see a little girl that only wants to participate in something if she thinks she already knows or understands it. Hmmm..... makes me wonder how I can get the confident responses to new activities or questions.

Overall, I was very impressed and proud of my little girl's "performance". She is *officially* a smart little girl! No big concerns, no big issues to mention. I was surprised that the screening was very skewed to physical and academic tests. I didn't see any behavioral or emotional screening. I see them as just as important, if not more, especially for this age. Oh well, I guess that is mine and Ben's job!

Enough already!

Even though it is only 13* outside, the kids were begging me to take them outside! So we all bundled up and ventured outside for a little bit. With the sun shining, it didn't feel that bad for about 30 minutes of play. I'm so ready to have winter over with though! The sun has been shining and melting the snow off a bit and it was even raining a little yesterday, but enough already! Madelyn has been asking about why the snow is going away. We have been trying to explain that spring is coming and God is going to wake all the animals and plants up again. I think she is still trying to figure that one out. It will easier as the leaves start budding. As you can see, the kids are also ready to get out and play with their outside toys. We could today because there is no snow or ice on the driveway today. It was kinda funny to put Madelyn's helmet on top of her hat, but if she's gonna ride her bike, I guess she needs both!


Here's Greyson in his car that he can't figure out how to push. He keeps getting his feet stuck under the car! But he does love to just sit in it and take the world in too.

Greyson loves to shovel the snow too. However, I guess it is just as fun to just push the shovel around too - seeing that there is no snow to shovel!

This morning Madelyn and I started some bell pepper, jalapeno, and delphinium seeds inside to plant in the garden when it gets warm enough. It will probably be another 12 weeks are so before we get put them in the ground, but hopefully this way they will have a good start. I have tomatoes and some other flowers to plant from seeds too. I probably wait a week or so and get those started.

Come on, Spring! We're ready for you!