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!