Performance!

Well, I finally got around to downloading the Christmas pictures. I love Christmas as much as the next gal, but what really stood out to me this year was how my kids are just BLOSSOMING! As I look at these pictures I see an outgoing young man, bravely stepping up to the stage for his first spoken part in a play :)

"That's right! BIG family reunions!!! 

 Eva sang in her preschool musical: Jingle Bells and Let it snow! She sang both songs...all the way through, and was one of the most willing participants ;)

 Miss Michele got a big hug for conducting! We have truly wonderful teachers at Learn n Grow!

Cal!!! Eva's main man ;)

Big Brother

Is there anything better than seeing your kids loving each other?

Disneyland!

What a great time we had, going to the big D-land with my parents and Adam and Juanita. Eva wasn't up for the rides, though Daddy tried hard with the carousel. She did have a wonderful time in the Redwood forest, toon town and generally exploring all the sights. Darren, on the other hand, was the PERFECT age for it. He was tentative at first, but once we figured out that it was the loud noises that scared him most, we taught him to cover his ears and we were golden! He must have ridden Thunder Mountain 12 times! He also tried Indian Jones, the Matterhorn, and even Tower of Terror! No space mountain, though...we decided not to push it too far the first time. Humorously, his favorite kid ride was Pinnochio (which none of the adults liked). We took turns riding it, ro-sham-bo, loser has to go! LOL!

Juanita and Adam were amazing to have around. Not only are they just super fun to hang out with, but they are great with the kids. We met up with them at the airport and they were a big help. John, Eva and I sat in one row with A, J & D behind us.

It did rain. A lot. Kinda dissapointing that the fireworks and Fantasmic were cancelled. We tried to Wolrd of Color light show Saturday, but got rained out. I was suprised that the park was a crowded as it was, despite the rain. Luckily we were prepared and so very close with our rooms at the Grand Californian (Amazing! Thanks Mom & Dad!). We swam in the pool and had a personal entrance to California Adventure. Especially great for Eva's naps.

Big Girl Underwear!

Eva has always shown signs of being a relatively easy potty trainer. At about 22 months, she started pointing at the potty and signing "what?" so we started talking to her about growing up and using the bathroom. She's a pretty predictable kid (if you know what I mean) so one day we were near the bathroom when I knew she needed to go, so I just grabbed the little seat, threw her up there, and asked her to poop. Worked like a charm! Every since, we have been using the potty when it's convenient, but haven't been pushing it.Finally, a month or so ago, she began asking to go potty. To be honest, I really didn't feel ready, since she isn't anywhere near being able to pull clothes on or off, plus it's winter so there are a lot of layers to go through.

I probably wouldn't have gone along with it, except I happen to go to a seminar by Kathie Snow called Disability is Natural. One of her many nuggets of advice was to stop saying you child is "not ready". How often are any of us actually ready for change? Would your parents have said you ready to move out/your first child/first job/etc? Sometime we allow ourselves to hold our differently-abled kids back based on our own protectiveness. Anyway, back to potty training....

So after the seminar, I decided that Eva was truly ready to take the next step. We pulled out the big girl panties, bought a travel potty for the car and off we go! This week we have even ventured out in underwear...no accidents!!! I know she's young and it'll take awhile, but I love getting to cheer for her and watching her face light up with every success. A big thanks to my Mom, who has encouraged me on this venture and pushed me into this new territory!

First sentence!

So Eva said her first two word sentence out loud this week! Getting ready for school/work/etc and running around like crazy - I told Eva to go give Daddy a kissy goodbye. He scoops her up (always sooo cute) and gives her a big hug, and she says "Byby Dada" clear as a bell. Awwwww!!!!

While we still dont' have a lot of clear words, she is doing really well trying new sound combos with her familiar "b" "d" "n" "p" and "m" sounds. Ba for ball is old, but Buuh for book and Boh for brother are new. Also, today I got my first "NO!". Leave it to a mom to be excited about an stubborn child yelling NO!

Darren is being so sweet with her lately (as long as her remembers not to be too rough). They are finally able to really play together :D

Not really a good Blogger

So I admit, I'm a little too sporadic to be a good blog writer. However, I love looking back at these old posts (especially the video of Eva crawling!) and remembering. It's much more likely that I'm going to use this format than any paper journal, so I've decided to keep this up. I'm taking this opportunity to review major happenings since my last post a long long time ago.

Let's see: Darren is in Kindergarten in Mrs. Ballew's class. He is doing fabulous, and it excelling in every area except public speaking. Appearantly he gets shy when talking to the group and needs to work on that. Sounds like a worthy goal to me :)

I've been elected to the school board at Newcastle Elementary School District. Exciting, but also draining and discouraging in the current climate of cuts and budget crisis. There are a lot of difficult choices to make. On the up side, I'm meeting tons of people at the school and am excited to participate in the process that affects my kids so directly.

John's been working hard on the Kitchen and is mostly done, just a few more doors to go. It's amazing and I love it so much! New seats and tires for the Jeep this year. Hopefully there will be a lot more of that in the near future.

Eva is doing so great. She was up and walking around 19 months adn moved straight on to dancing :) We are now focused on speech, which is progressing slowly. We only have a handful of understandable words: baby, dada, mama, num num (yummy) but she is assigning sounds (like "O" for orange) so there is some progress there. Luckily she does have tons of signs and is persistent in using her social skills to communicate what she wants, and not just through tantrums. She is learning colors right now, and working on concepts like same and different. It's all about the music with Eva. We love our 1:1 time with Tara for music therapy. Everything I can turn into a song is more successful; which sometimes makes us feel like we're living in a Disney movie (have you every seen Enchanted?)

Anyway, enough for now. I'll see how successful I am in doing more of this! Later g8r!

Video - I hope this works