Words everywhere!

JoElle is doing very well learning to read. Two days ago, she saw the word "run" and read it to me. I was a little bit suprised b/c it was not a word we had been working on.

JoElle is reading at least 20 words, probably more that I am not aware of.

She is great with recognizing the letters of the alphabet and their sounds and can write most of the letters. I throw in Spanish once a week or once every two weeks. She catches on to it extremely fast! One morning she woke up and said "Como te llamas?" Tim asked her if she was speaking Spanish, he wasn't sure :) She enunciates extremely well, you would think she is a native Spanish speaker. She learns really fast, so we don't spend much time each day or week on serious school work, 20 minutes a day or two a week is really all. Of course we are learning / teaching all day long, just not sitting down and formally learning.

Si le pregunta dónde están sus ojos que le apunta a los ojos.

(If you ask her where her eyes are, she will point to her eyes)

JoElle también sabe su nariz, la boca y la cabeza.

Officially we are on Letter N right now. She has masterd writing the letter M. The first time we tried it, she got extremely upset - she is very much a perfectionist. If she can't do it perfectly the first time, it makes her upset. We are working on staying calm and practicing and that is going pretty well. Yesterday she started to get upset that she couldn't put her baby's diaper back on, but she stopped herself from becoming frustrated and told me. I was proud of her!

Yesterday we talked about nurses and nests, practiced writing N and n. Later I had he write "Mama" and "Nana" and she did a great job writing both.

Alexa is walking!!

Did I already post this? Alexa is walking! She started walking 3 days ago, and is really picking up steam!

It's so cute watching her walk, she is so tiny (chubby, but still tiny!)

Daddy time

JoElle had some fun Daddy time tonight while I relaxed in the bath. When they came to check on me, I asked her what they were doing, she replied " I can't tell you" When I asked her why not? She told me "It's a secret!", then giggled and started to skip away. I called for Tim and asked him, he also told me he couldn't tell me, it's a secret!! hehe

Then when I got out, she was giggling in the bed with him, they were reading books. I asked her if I could join them or if this was special Daddy time, she informed me that it was definitely Daddy time.

So I went to the living room and could hear her giggling and having fun with Tim! She came in to tell me that she had my head on her. I asked her "You have my head on you?" and I could hear Tim laughing loudly from the other room! They were being silly.

JoElle got so much energy from them being silly. I also asked her for a kiss. She told me no. (Usually she gives me kisses easily!) When I asked her why not? She told me "All of my kisses are for Daddy!"

I went to tell him this and she was giggling and falling on the floor, then she got up on the bed and kissed Daddy on the cheek over and over again! It was really cute!!

Cute kids choir songs

JoElle is doing really well at kid's choir (Little Levites) at church!

She was teaching me one of their songs yesterday and I told her that she would learn more of it tonight.

So when we picked her up, she made us stop outside, in the cold and dark, to sing under one of the lights.

Something like this, with hand motions and all: "My rock, my sword, middle of the whole world, it doesn't matter what you say, I'm getting on my knees to pray! Until Jesus comes back for me!
Something about lily of the "dalley" (I told her it probably is valley) and the sun and the moon!"

It is so precious when she sings this song!!! I love it when she sings the part "it doesn't matter what you say, I'm getting on my knees to pray!" She is serious about that!

At the Y this evening, she stayed with Alexa the entire time as Alexa cried and screamed, trying to take care of her and telling the teachers what they could try -didn't work- after an hour they called me to get her and she was gulping for air from crying so hard.... JoElle informed me she told them that Alexa needs teething gel, probably true too!

Alexa's new friend

Tonight at the nursery while we were in choir practice, Alexa made a new little friend named Mikayla. I didn't think she was going to be happy b/c she had just got finished crying and screaming for an hour at the Y while I worked out, but she ended up being happy and playing with her new friend.

Her teachers also told us that Alexa loved to stand at the door with them and wave bye bye to everyone! It is so cute when she waves and says bye bye!

Alexa was in the room with our friend's little one, Ian, who was born a day before Alexa. I told JoElle that Ian from the blog was in the room, so she wanted to see him :)

Recent developments- reading words, walking, talking, I don't have a baby anymore!!!

Well here we are, back in January again. Has a year really gone by that fast?

Last year at this time, I was miserably pregnant, still working full time, but about to cut my hours down to 32 hours per week. JoElle was just about to have her 3rd birthday party. We had it at the Little Gym and had a blast! She was still attending classes at the Little Gym, but was started to cry more and more when it was time to go in, she didn't want to leave me in the lobby and go in by herself since she had just moved up into the independent class.

So this year, 2009, I have two little girls, one who is almost 4 and one who is almost 1 year old! What? Alexa is almost 1 already? Is that even possible???????

Yikes! JoElle has learned so much with me at home over this past year, such things as:
How to write her name, how to write most of the letters of the alphabet, she can id all the letters and most of the sounds, she reads quite a few words, has several Scripture verses memorized, knows many Bible stories, has many many songs in her heart from FBCE Kim Noblitt CD's like "You Saved Me" songs, and so much more!

Alexa has learned to clap, she can read her first word "CLAP!" when she sees the word, she starts clapping, even before the word is spoken out loud!!! I am very proud of her.
She can sign several words- milk, all done, bye bye/hi
She can say: Dada, Mama, bye bye, hi, all done, night night, oh yeah she decided to use "baba" for bottle, Nana, Ana
When she hears "arms up" she puts her arms up, when you tell her "clap" she claps; she can point to her mouth when you ask her to
She loves to dance to any song, she loves "Yo Gabba Gabba" and "Superwhy!", she tries to do the spider on "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and does the hand motion for "washed the spider out!", loves the song "5 Little Monkeys Swinging from a tree"..when you get to the part "and snapped that monkey right out of that tree" she claps real hard to snap him out of the tree!!
Likes to do patty cake, can do "roll 'em up" really well by herself.

She loves pointing right now- to people, to objects, to babies, to her sister, to our eyes, mouth, nose, teeth.... she still bites me a lot, esp when teething, her molars are still killing her, the bottom left molar cut in yesterday, she is really fussy

Alexa tried to say "baby" when we looked at a baby book, she said real loudly "BAY!" She likes to hug baby dolls and softly say "dada" for "baby"

She still loves to giggle at everything, esp Daddy and JoElle; loves to chase and play hide and seek!

The other day, on New Year's Day, Alexa was walking all over the living room without holding on! She took 10 or more steps at at a time, even would turn and walk other directions without falling down! She has grown so much over the past year!