We have been busy the last couple of weeks, although I haven't taken many pics because our camera died and our charger is missing. We are going to look in one more place for it tonight, and if I can't find it, I am going to have to buy a new one. I can't stand missing out on all these pictures because of something being lost!!

T and I have been staying home alot more than we ever did at our other house, and we go swimming just about every day, although the past four days it has been really rainy.

We went back to a new gymnastics place for him to try again, and he really liked it. His favorite thing was hopping all the way down the tumble track ( a very long trampoline). Like last time, he really enjoyed jumping down with the older girls, and would wait for them to jump down with him. I would love for him to take lessons there when he is older, if he wants to!

I started a ladies Bible study at my house, and we had our first meeting two Wednesdays ago. We will meet every other Wed at 12 to pray and we will be studying marriage. There are four of us at this time.

Last Tuesday was a big night for me. For the past two yeas, I have been planning on starting a pro-life ministry in our community. Everything all came together, and we had our first meeting last Tuesday evening at our church. I am so blessed to have the endorsement of Calvary Chapel, and they are advertising it for me in several ways (in the bulletin, in the minstry directory, and on the website. There were ten of us at the meeting, and everyone was very excited to be there. I got some great feedback, and we are planning on having our next meeting at the end of July. The purpose of the group is to come together to pray, become better educated on the issues, and discuss various projects that we might like to take on.

T had a big accomplishment this past Saturday night at church...he went into the toddler classroom for the first time. WE started out in the family room, and about half way through he was getting antsy, so I walked him down to the room. I expected that I would go in with him and help get him acquainted while he clung to me. Nope!! He went right in and just started playing and talking to the other kids. I had planned on staying in the room for at least five minutes, but after about two, I could tell he was fine, so I took the plunge and signed him in. He saw me leaving and I expected that he would start to cry, and he never did. I stood outside the room for about five minutes , waiting......and nothing. One of the helpers came out at that time, and I asked her how he was doing, and she said "He's doing great, he's still playing with the trucks." I left and went back to the Family room and expected to get paged to come get him, and I never did. When I went to pick him up after church had ended, he was just in there playing with the toy kitchen. The teacher said he did "Awesome" and never even cried. In fact, the only time he did cry was when we picked him up because he didn't want to leave. Ha!

Books we have been reading

Sorry I haven't had much time to come on and update. I really want to keep this up to date, so I am going to try a new approach and see if it works.

Here is a list of some of the books we have been reading lately:

The Little Red Hen Makes A Pizza: this is T's favorite book right now. It's about a hen who needs to keep going to the store because she doesn't have all of the items needed to make a pizza. She keeps asking her friends the duck, the dog, and the cat for help, but they won't help her. At the end of the book, she gives them some pizza, and they help her do the dishes. T loves the part where the big pizza is all finished and likes to name off all the different toppings, especially all the bacon slices. He calls the tomatoes "monanoes."

The Color Box: He loves this book too. It's about a monkey who steps inside a box and goes through different holes. Each hole contains a different colored room. Every time I am finished reading a book, T says "one more time."

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom: This is such a cute book and T loves it. It's about all the alphabet letters racing to the top of the coconut tree. When they all get to the top, the tree breaks and they all fall off. They all go up the tree again, but they have various amusing injuries..(T's favorite page goes..."look who's coming it's black eyed-pea, q,r,s, and loose-tooth t. I always point out that the letter t's tooth is just dangling there, and he thinks that is hilarious!

Oh Boy, it's Bounce: This is a cute book with great illustrations. Bounce is a goofy little spider, and the book just talks about his goofy outings. This was his favorite book to read for a while but now he's getting tired of it, although he did ask for it last night.

Don't Wake Up Mama: A funny book about 5 little monkeys who are baking a surprise birthday cake for their mom while she sleeps. They burn the cake and the firetruck has to come. T calls it the fire-monkey book.

Slowly, Slowly, Slowly said the Sloth: A nice book about a sloth who likes to take his time. At the end, one of the jungle animals asks him why he is so lazy, and the sloth replies he is not lazy, he just likes to do things slowly, slowly, slowly.

Circles and Squares Everywhere: Nice book about circles and squares.

The Number 1: Good counting book featuring one of each object pictured.

Touch and Feel 1,2,3: Another good counting book

Dinosnores: A book about dinosores sleeping that T is not really into

The Little Boys Bible: He loves the story of Adam and Eve eating the apple!

Daddy turned 30

Daddy's birthday was this past Monday, and he turned the big 3-0. I had a family party for him at the house on Sunday, and we were excited to host our first real gathering ever! Our last house was just too small to entertain people in!!

All of our local neices and our nephew came over, and the kids and the dads spent the majority of the day in the pool. We also had a cookout, and after a few hours of pool time, we celebrated with cake and ice cream.

I thank God every day for bringing my husband into my life. He is so gentle and kind. He works very hard to provide for us, and always puts his family first. I am so proud to be his wife and I look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with him!!

Ocala Trip

For Memorial Day weekend, we went up to Ocala and stayed for two nights. Daddy's brother owns a property up there, and he let us stay in their large trailer for the weekend. Daddy's brother, his wife, and their daughter met us up there and stayed at their property, which happens to be just one mile from where we stayed. Daddy's mom rode up with us as well, as she had never been there before. We took Maggie too. The trip was a little bittersweet for me because we took both dogs up there last year and they loved it. Daddy and I had talked about taking them back again over the next year, and we just never got around to it. It made me sad because I know how much fun Thomas would have had...man I miss him!! Anyway...

On Saturday night, we went over to Tim's brother's place for dinner. They eat seafood every year for Memorial weekend, so they had steamers (either raw clams or raw oysters..I can't remember), and they fried up some fish. I wouldn't go near the raw food, and Daddy ate one, but T gobbled up four of them. They were so gross looking, and he just scarfed them down without a care in the world. I tried to get a picture but he was done before I could locate my camera.

On Sunday, we went to a place called Silver Springs. It is kind of an amusement park, but a much smaller scale. We rode on a glass bottom boat, which allowed us to see what the springs look like from the inside. We did a jungle safari in a jeep and saw some animals. We watched a bird show. T went on his first amusement park ride without us-boats that go in a circle. He went on with his cousin and loved it! Then he saw the Merry-go-round and was running over to it shouting "Hooray." He rode on a horse with Daddy behind him. They also had a nice jungle gym for little ones to play in, and he liked that too. We were there for about half the day, then went to eat at a BBQ place.

Once we got back, T and Daddy rode on the quads and the tractor. Daddy's family came back over to hang out and we had a BBQ that night at the place where we were staying.

We had a fun Memorial weekend and are so thankful to all the men and women who died for us and for our freedom!

The letter D

This week we worked on the letter D. Here are some of the activities we did this week:

Letter D Dinosaur
D is for Doctor Do a Dot Art
Colored Dinosaur pictures
Dinosaur file folder color matching
Dramatic play with dinosaurs

We do lots of other educational things throughout the week too, but these things go directly with the letter D. This week we pained alot and used alot of Glitter Glue. We also do Tot Trays, which I will explain in a future post.

Tristan knows all of the main colors now and will correctly identify them by saying their name. He knows red, orange, yellow, blue, green, purple, white, black, and pink. He can also identify about 3/4 of the alphabet by sight, and has started singing his ABC's. Today he attempted to count to 20 for the first time. He made it all the way from 1-17, I was pretty impressed!

A funny thing: Tristan hates getting his teeth brushed. Last night Daddy was holding him and brushing and T was throwing his usual fit, but this time he actually yelled out "Please Help." Daddy and I laughed so hard!!

Books we are reading:
The Nativity: a Touch and Feel Usbourne book which he loves. He points at the book and says "Jesus."

ABC I like Me: a positive reinforcement book that goes through the whole Alphabet.."A-I am Awesome, B-I am Brave, etc

That's Not My Tractor: a touch and feel book about Tractors

Puppies: He must have this book memorized, because he was reading to himself today and said the correct things on the correct pages. For example: one page features a puppy stuck in a water pitcher and the puppy says "Help, I think I'm stuck in this pitcher." Today when T got to that page he said "Help, I stuck."

Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother Too?

And the ever-popular Dinosaur Roar!!!

Let the BBQ's begin!!

Last Saturday, we went to a BBQ at my friends house. T and her son E are one month apart and have known each other since they were 7 and 8 months old. T enjoys E, but he especially loves Ellie, another toddler who my friend babysits for. Ellie is also very fond of T, and the kids all get together and play at least twice a week.

On Sunday, I attended a surprise baby shower for one of the ladies in the mom's group which we belong to. Daddy watched T for me so I could spend a few hours with some of the girls. Later that day, some of T's cousins came over and they all swam in the pool, and then we had a BBQ at their house.

Since our weekend was so busy, T and I just stayed home Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday afternoon, I had a meeting with the Personhood Now! team. Personhhod Now! is a youth led pro-life group whose goal is to collect enough signatures to be able to put the Personhood Amendment on the 2012 voting ballot. The Personhood Amendment would declare unborn children as persons and would ensure them the same rights and protections as people who are already born. They will have one year to collect 700,000 signatures in the state of Fl. Out of the five team members, only one lives in locally. The rest of the teens live in Colorado and Texas. They are here to kick off the project, network, and recruit/train other volunteers to keep this effort going for the next year. We had a great meeting and I am excited to be involved as a liason.

On Wednesday, we took our weekly trip to the library. We always play at the park right there and have snacks, and then go inside to do puzzles, color, and look at/check out books.

We stayed home again Thursday and Friday and just went swimming in our pool both days. We are loving having a pool!!!

This weekend we are going up to Ocala, about a two hour trip from here. Daddy's brother has a house up there, so we will be staying there and meeting some of his family that will also be up there for the weekend. We are having a BBQ Saturday night:)

Hope you all had a good week!!

The letter C

Back in Feb. we worked on the letter C. Since it has been so long, I can't remember much about it, so I will have to go from the picture:)

We made a caterpillar C using pompoms, we made a sprinkle letter C, and we also made a counting cupcake.

Because of the move and being so busy, we have gotten out of the habit on working on one letter per week. However, I am going back to doing that. I've been organizing our things and getting some supplies that we need, and we should be back on track next week.