Zach is 8!

Zach turned 8 today. He seemed really happy to get his Nintendo DS. He brought cookies to school to share with his class and said he had a really great day. Though the highlight of his day seemed to be pictures of the Galapagos Islands that his computer teacher brought back from his vacation.

Now if you will excuse me I am going to bed. Lily is finally asleep and I have a huge headache and I'm nauseous. Don't go there... Ryan is sick too. 'night.

Lily 9 Months

Lily has done so much in her short 9 months. She has now been in the world for as long as she was in my "tummy." She did a lot in there too, you know changing from a zygote into a baby that was ready to come out and see the world. Amazing. No less amazing is all she has accomplished since she joined us out here. She has learned to smile, giggle, make lots of different sounds, recognize faces, voices and names. She has learned to roll over, bear walk, pull herself up, cruise around the furniture, stand up by herself and she even took her very first fawn like steps toward becoming a walker! All this from the little, tiny baby that didn't do much besides cry, kick her feet and swing her arms without much control. Baby humans are so fascinating. Other babies are also fascinating, even plants fascinate me. Like the Narcissus(paper whites) Ryan and my mom planted about 2 weeks ago as bulbs that are now over 9 inches tall! Sometimes I just sit and marvel at God's creations.

The Coolest Gift

I just got Ryan the coolest gift EVER! It's really too bad that he is the only one in our family the right age for it, but you can bet Lily will get one too when she is older. The best part is it cost less than $3!!! So do you want to know what it is...yes? Well okay. Mickey Mouse is going to call Ryan on Christmas day to wish him a Merry Christmas! Check out this site to get one of the Disney Characters to call your little one. They have different occasions for calling. I would recommend this as a congratulations on using the potty thing. Having your favorite character give you praise is probably something a kid would remember and think was totally cool. I know I would have.

PS I just updated the wishlists on our website. Zach added a bunch of stuff to his list.

She Took Steps!!!

Lily just took her first steps. It wasn't really walking, but it was a start. She has been standing up and lowering herself down for a few days now. Today she moved her foot when she was standing and I thought maybe she was just trying to keep her balance. Since she was still standing I went over in front of her and put my arms out and she stepped toward me and grabbed my arm. A little while later we were in the kitchen and she stood up and took four teeny tiny little steps all with the same foot(the left one). If there was any doubt in my mind that put it to rest. She was being very intentional and although her four tiny steps equaled the distance of one, she was trying. When she tried to move the right foot she plopped down on her bottom, but she still looked very pleased with herself. It might have had a little bit to do with her mommy gleefully exclaiming, "Wow, wow! What a big girl!" To top it all off she happily replied, "Ma ma ma" to my encouraging words.

Ryan 3 years 3 months

It amazing to me how much kids learn when they are young. Ryan's little sense of humor is developing, his ability to interact with and initiate play with other kids is developing and he is getting smarter every day. He is interested in new things too. My little boy who wouldn't sit and color for 2 minutes 6 months ago is crafting up a storm, asking to color and even asking me to show him how to make letters. He does pretty well too. Drawing circles and triangles. He can write a few letters pretty well. Some capital and some lowercase. Since he has shown so much interest in writing letters and numbers I printed out some great tracing sheets from Jan Brett's website. Which I would highly recommend to mothers with young kids. She has such beautiful drawings and great learning activities. Best of all it's all free! We printed out 0-5 and Ryan did some of each before he got bored and started basically scribbling, but he had fun. There is so much Ryan is doing I think I'll do some bulleted lists to keep this short and sweet. This part is mostly for me and the proud grandparents who care to read the whole list;-)

Ryan can-
-count to 100 with only a little help
-say the sounds of most letters
-figure out what letter lots of words start with
-sound out some small words with help
-make people laugh
-do a forward roll
-do a backward roll off of the little hill
-hang from a bar and pull his feet up to touch it
-almost do a pull up
-walk the balance beam with no help
-say the Lord's Prayer and Psalm 23
-sing the words to all sorts of songs
-hop on one foot
-jump over small (very small) obstacles
-hike about a mile
-swing on and let go of the trapeze bar in gymnastics

Ryan loves to-
-make people laugh
-hug and kiss family, especially Lily and Mommy
-climb anything vertical
-jump on anything horizontal (including beds, floors and anyone who dares take a rest in our living room)
-running (even if it's just in circles- okay, especially if it's just in circles)
-play with cars, Thomas trains and tools
-play pretend (like making his cars talk to each other and making food in his play kitchen)
-help- with laundry, cooking, getting diapers for Lily, just about anything