Sign Language

A few months ago we were walking through Wal-Mart and I told the girls we needed to buy some tea.  Ava said, "I don't know how to make a 't' with my hands."  It took me a second to realize what she was meaning, so then I showed her how to sign the letter 't' and we continued shopping.  I think she must have just assumed you could make letters with your hands since you can do numbers.  We taught them a few signs when they were little but never the alphabet.  After that, she would ask me how to do 2 or 3 letters per day and Gracie has picked up on it as well.

Last month Joel preached a revival for another church and after the first service we were talking with the pastor and he asked Ava what her name was.  She ducked her head and very quietly told him 'Ava' but he couldn't hear her.  I said, "Tell him really loud so he can hear you."  She looked up at him, stretched her arm up as high as it would go, and silently signed A-V-A.  I about fell over.  I had casually shown her that once or twice but hadn't seen her do it herself.  Haha!!

Poor June Bug

Crafting

Well, more like cutting and gluing but it's a start!  I do not consider myself very creative or crafty but I found these books at Wal-Mart and thought they looked fun.  And they are!  The girls have LOVED working through them this past week. 

Some of the pages have parts that peel off and you cut pieces of paper and stick it on the adhesive to make the picture.  Ava really enjoys cutting paper.

Gracie's favorite part is the glue!  You don't actually need glue on these pages, which was incredibly disappointing to her, so I quit peeling it off and just let her use the glue.

Her interesting-looking panda bear.

Ava's colorful tree.

That's all we did the first day but the second day I think we sat at the table for 4 hours all total.  They kept wanting to do more, and more...and more.  =)

The second half of the book has pieces you cut out and glue (yay!!) onto another page to create your picture.  They liked these even better.

Gracie did all these in one day.

Ava did all these.

=)

A-A-V!

Gracie did all three A's in this picture.  =)

Tornado Scare

Lots of excitement this past Tuesday!  We got to go down in a storm shelter for the first time.  Thankfully, several of our neighbors have them and we ended up in the same one as Ava and Gracie's friend, Amarah.  I think having each other to play with kept them from being scared.  The spent 5 minutes crouched down like this, telling a spider to 'go faster' and trying to scare him.  =)

We saw this beautiful rainbow as we came up out of the shelter.

They loved splashing in the rain!

I love Ava's outfit and the fact that her shoes are on the wrong feet.  =)

Road Trip

The girls and I are leaving this morning to drive to Rene's house for the night.  We'll drive on to my parent's house Friday and be there until the following Thursday.  Then we'll go back to Rene's until Saturday and get to see Mamaw Roach while we're there!!  I'm so excited about this trip and all the family we'll get to see.  I wish Joel could come but he doesn't have enough time off work.  If you are reading this, say a prayer for our safety while we're traveling!

I'm thankful for our van, especially since it has a 6-DVD changer!

Hail Storm

We had quite the hail storm Sunday afternoon!

John and Jody lost the windshield and back window in one of their cars, the church van lost a side window, and my next-door neighbor lost the windshield in her van.  We were fortunate to only get one dent on the top of the van, one on the hood of Joel's work truck, and a small tear in the screen on the living room window.  I was expecting much worse!

Train Up a Child...

Fishes

The girls were so impressed with the fish Joel brought home recently. 

They even watched him filet them and didn't seem the least bit grossed out and have asked several times since then when we're going to eat the 'fish meat'.

Good Helpers

Ava and Gracie are both super good at folding washcloths.

I was completely impressed that Ava had all hers turned the same way!

Gracie folded several different sizes so her stack doesn't look quite as neat but she did awesome as well! 

Now, if only I could get them to finish painting the house!

{starting with the brown trim you see behind them}

They LOVE to put clothes in the washer.  As soon as they hear the water, they come running in, declare "I wanna help!" and run off to get their chairs so they can see in.

They also helped me get the guest room ready for Jamie's boyfriend, Josh, to stay with us this week.

How would I manage without them?? 

=)

Priceless

Gracie kept asking me to help her color the dog on her picture and I kept telling her that she knows how to color and needs to try to do it herself.  Finally she asks Ava and Ava happily agrees to help her.  I'm so glad I caught this on camera...it's so sweet! 

I LOVE how Ava immediately tells her, "You did good!" and then explains how to do it.  And Gracie is just loving all over Ava and telling her that she's a sweetheart, she's sweet, and her dress is sweet and blue.

I love these precious girls!

A Night on the Town

Hobby Lobby

Petco

"Look Mom, there's NEMO!"

Ava said, "I will buy little groceries and put them in my little cart."

Trying out the new frozen yogurt shop.

We also went to Cato, Ross, and Dollar General. 

Shew!

Roach Academy

I bought these books at Wal-Mart the other night.  I've been eyeing them for awhile but thought they might be too hard for a 3-year-old. 

However, they both did really good!

I helped Ava a little bit but she ended up tracing quite a few letters all by herself.

{Joel pointed out that I need to get some smaller markers so they can hold them properly} 

I love the look on her face!

She concentrated pretty hard.

At one point she told me, "My hands are tired" so I told her to take some pictures of Gracie and I.

She did a pretty good job, I thought!

Gracie LOVED this, but only if I helped her.  She insisted that she could not do it by herself but with my help she did 10 pages, which was tracing 20 different letters, 10 times each.

And then she got a little crazy.

Miss Ava

And now to celebrate all that hard work:

I'm really impressed with these books!  Well worth the $3.97 I paid and we'll be able to use them over and over. 

Friends

We are enjoying spending time with some new friends! We first met them at the Library Story Hour and eventually found out we live right down the road from each other!  The kiddos all seem to get along well and they have a wonderful mom that I just love = Win-Win!  They came over last week to play for awhile and I put Dora on for a few minutes in an attempt to get a picture of all 5.  I didn't get a very good picture but here they are!  Kate, Gracie, Ava, Reed, and Emma.  =)

Reed and Gracie, hard at work.

It was a rainy day so we played inside most of the time.

On Monday I dropped Ava and Gracie off at their house and I went home and cleaned carpets. 

YAY!!

 

I've been wanting to clean the living room carpet for MONTHS but some things are challenging with little people underfoot.  =) 

They had a lot of fun!

Ava has talked about these butterfly wings since the last time we were at their house and I think she had them on within 30 seconds of arriving.

=)

Oh, and my carpet looks and feels so much nicer!

ABC's & 123's

This video was taken the night they turned two.  It melts my heart.  =) 

Ava still called Gracie 'Dee-Dee' and Gracie called Ava 'Dee-Cee'.

{And upon closer inspection I see that Ava really did have

the cup with the green lid to start with!}

Five months later (July 2010):

And now in May 2011 at 3 years, 3 months old.

Too Slow!

Giggles

*Correction*

They were 16-months-old.

I think they would have been around 18-months-old in these videos.  =)

And So It Began...

{Note - Blogger had some major issues and was down for 2 days and when it

finally came back up, this post had been deleted so I've tried to re-create it.}

And continues daily, even hourly:

They're not fighting in this one but I love how Ava has no intention of going down the slide until Gracie tries and then, "No, it's my turn!"

But much of the time they do play very well together. 

I think I tend to take those times for granted.

{This was shortly after we moved into our current house

 and had all the cabinet doors off to be painted.}

This one is for Aunt Steph:

This picture is especially sweet to me because as soon as I have them ready to go somewhere I tell them to stand by the door and wait until I'm ready. Almost always, they end up fighting over who gets to hold the door knob, or one is screaming because they're standing on the rug and the other one is trying to move it, etc.  But this time they were hugging and giggling and being so sweet.  =)

Wordless Wednesday