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