Old Man and the Monkey and Other Chinese Tales 9/28/11

We visited the Center for Puppetry Arts this week for another great performance called Old Man and the Monkeys and other Chinese Tales. They love making puppets after the show and this week they made monkeys! Juli loves gluing buttons on him and Jayden preferred drawing everything on his. We attended with our good friends Ana and her daughter Sydney.

North Georgia State Fair 9/28/11

We went to the fair last weekend. They really need to head to Pennsylvania and visit some fairs! They are so small down here and no one knows what pierogies are!!!! One of the few things I miss from the north is the Bloomsburg Fair. Sadly they suffered major damage caused by all the flooding. The kids enjoyed the merry-go-round, cotton candy and some italian ice. We were there only a couple of hours and pretty much saw it all

The puppy is growing fast! 9/21/11

The puppy, Tiana is 13 weeks and growing fast! She's doubled her size since she joined our family. She definetly is fitting in well and we all love her, even if she's not house broken completely! Juli shared her love of bubbles with the dog this week.

Catch Air in Marietta 9/15/11

Our new favorite indoor play place Catch Air just opened a few weeks ago and the kids love it for the awesome equipment that they have and I love it because the whole time we were there an employee was cleaning the equipment! We avoid indoor play places because of all the germs that are on the equipment. At least one employee was cleaning the whole time that we were there, even up inside the play structures! I figured since this was a new play place and all the equipment was new that we would be able to visit before the place became infested with germs, I didn't expect the staff cleaning the way that they did. Life has been stressful with all the "no's" we've been saying to the kids. It's not easy avoiding fun places for us! We hope to visit again before cold and flu season is in full swing! Hopefully we will have an amazingly healthy winter so we can visit in the spring! Yes, I dream big when it comes to health!

They have a 3 story play structure, bounce houses, various pieces of equipment throughout, a merry-go-round that the kids propel themselves, a 5 and under area that has some really cool stuff and even musical equipment!

We met some of the kids friends and they all had so much fun. One of the girls was celebrating her 5th birthday which made the day even more fun!

It was a busy week!

Here is an update on the kids!

Jayden -He's doing so great with school! First grade spends a lot of time on the Greeks which is one of his favorite topics. Right now he's learning all about light and we made a sundial this week to see how it worked. His teacher assesed his reading last week and he's a grade level ahead! He's finally getting into reading and started reading to Juli more. On Fridays he participates in a program called Timothy Ministries. He takes Chemistry, Spanish, Animal Science and PE. He has so much fun at this program!

Julianna - This girl is a handful! She loves to keep us on our toes. We just never know what she is going to say or do next. I had planned on working on numbers with her this year but she can count well beyond 25 so I started working on addition with her. Once again she surprised me by creating her own problems and showing me addition and subtraction problems with everything she plays with. She's mastered the letter sounds and is working on putting them together. Sight words are not working for her, Jayden had a hard time with sight words at that age too. She's got plenty of time though and we are really only working on what she is interested in. She's very dissapointed that she doesn't get to go to school this year. We are trying to protect her from all the germs as much as we can. Our goal is to stay out of the hospital this year! She started music class again yesterday and absolutely loved it! The music class does such a great job. We will be participating in that for the month of September.

Our family - Still working on the puppy peeing outside of the house! She's getting better though. The kids adore her and love playing with her. We have lots of fun outings planned over the next few weeks and then we will only participate in a few activities towards the end of October through December. Museums, zoos etc, anywhere that I can stand next to Julianna and keep other children away from her! From mid December through mid March we most likely won't leave the house much! No grocery store carts especially! We were wanting to take her to Disney for her birthday but Justin and I decided it would be to risky touching all of the rides and staying with my mother in an adult community. The chances of getting sick are just to risky. We will wait till either the end of March for Jayden's birthday or go in May for our 10 year wedding anniverary and my birthday! We can always celebrate her birthday later with the Dinosaurs at T-Rex Cafe like she wants to.

Milestones we don't talk about

Both my children have a blankie that they've been attached to since birth. Jayden was about 5 when he stopped carrying it around with himevery morning when he was trying to wake up, and up until a month ago he would still take it out of bed to use as a cape, a parachute, a net or anything else he could pretend it was to him! Julianna gets out of bed every morning with her blankie wrapped around her and keeps it for awhile in the morning, she picks it up again in the afternoon for some quiet time and then makes sure its with her at bed, until this week that is. She came down the steps the last 4 days without it and didn't look for it till she crawled in bed at the end of the day. :( This may be because the puppy has been trying to steal it from her but I can't believe how grown up the kids are getting! Time flies by so fast so go hug your babies! No matter how old they are, they are changing and growing (not always vertically or in ways that we want them to grow!) everyday.

Our new puppy Tiana!

We got a puppy this week. We all fell in love with this girl. The kids have renamed her Tiana after The Princess and the Frog movie. She is so much fun and so loving toward us. Shes 9 weeks old and a mix of breeds. The ones we know includes Boxer and Staffordshire bull terrier. I had my hopes on a golden or a lab but look at this puppies eyes and say no to her! She's already spoiled in our house.

Family visited

We were all so happy that my sister and her husband Will were able to stop down for a quick visit before they continued onto Florida. Both the kids loved spending some time with the animals. Juli wouldn't leave Tigger the cat alone. Shes old and tired but was fine with all the pets and kisses Juli wanted to give her! Hope we get down to Florida this winter to visit and spend some fun time with them and my mom. Maybe Brook will even come down for a visit! I can't help sharing the last picture of Jayden being silly in the bathtub. ;)