It's that time of year again!

Opening Day!

Will is standing! Ha, he really does love to stand, but was doing a bit of leaning too.

The O's are in first place today, and so all good Orioles fans know to get our celebrating in now! Of course, we are expecting great things this season, so we plan to be talking about first place a lot over the next few months!

Will is going to get to go to his first game this year!

And Emma still has a perfect winning percentage at O's games! We hope to keep that up!

Orioles Magic, feel it happen!

Mini Family Vacation

A few Saturdays ago, Martin worked some overtime so that we could take a day during the week to have some fun as a family. Yesterday we had a great time together, especially with our first trip to Xbos!

Emma was very apprehensive at first, and really off and on throughout the time there, but she has talked about it non-stop since we left.

We took turns crawling around with Emma in all of the tubes and going down slides. It took some convincing for Emma to go through, especially some of the tunnels, but she was very brave.

One of the tunnels looked like a train on the outside!

Emma found the Batmobile!

It was a great day, and we were so thankful for the time together!

Emma and Will

Will was ready for some pictures; Emma wasn't quite sure yet.

He convinced her!

So sweet!

Will is starting to get a little bit of chub! He weighs almost 15 pounds now!

Tot School

Emma is 26 months

Thanks to 1+1+1=1 for Tot School!

Our ongoing Tot School activities include:

practicing letters out loud (she can recognize all but 4 letters)

practicing numbers out loud (she counts to 11 or 12 on her own)

Catechism (working on Who made you? God What else did God make? She says "the heavens and the earth"

Memorizing Proverbs 3:5 - she can say the whole thing when prompted with "Trust..."

Potty training - doing much better! goes #1 & #2 and started telling us instead of just going when put on the toilet.

It has taken me all week to get this put together because we have all been sick with colds...we are so ready for spring and warmer weather!

Color sorting...

Sidewalk chalk on our 70 degree day! Emma asked specifically to do this outside.

Reading with Daddy...from our favorite book, The Jesus Storybook Bible

Emma had a great time reading books with her friend, Caleb last week!

Some of our favorite books from the library are by Iza Trapani. She wrote extra verses to several nursery rhymes and Emma especially loves the books on CD so that she can sing along on her own. We've been reading Shoo Fly, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, and I'm a Little Teapot. You should really check these out! They were favorites of mine from the daycare, and I'm so glad that Emma is really enjoying them too.

While at the daycare, we emphasized the difference between art and crafts...art being something that the child does on their own without help or suggestions and crafts being more "directed art". Our art usually consists of painting and some coloring with crayons, pencils, pens. This week's craft was coloring a baseball field. I showed Emma where the green (outfield and infield) grass should be and the tan infield dirt and told her to color inside the lines...and she did a great job! I was really impressed with how meticulous she was to keep the colors in the right areas.

Since baseball season spring training is well underway, I've been making sure that Emma is properly prepared for the regular season! She is able to point out all of the bases!


Mom's Favorites:

Sweeties hanging out together!

And Miss Emma taking off her socks to check for fuzz (of course).

Emma asks to watch a movie

We have not watched Narnia for a good month or two, but out of the blue Emma asked yesterday, with a pretty detailed description!

Book Review: Flight of Shadows

I was provided with a free copy of Flight of Shadows by Sigmond Brouwer through Multnomah's Blogging for Books. This review is my own opinion.

This story was fast-paced and interesting, and I really enjoyed many of the social and political themes that were woven into the novel. The book is a futuristic novel, but hearkens back to ancient Rome in many ways as well. I was unaware that this was the second novel in a series when I requested it, and there were no indications on the book itself that said it was book #2, which I found somewhat confusing. That being said, the book worked fairly well as a stand-alone novel. I'm sure I would have understood some things more quickly if I had more knowledge of the back story, but it was kind of exciting to not know exactly what was going on.

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars. It was hard for me to put down and I really enjoyed the different characters. Even so, I would recommend reading the book #1 first.

Books

It's no secret that one of my favorite things to do is read! I really wish I had kept better track of books that I have read in my life. Last year I did a pretty good job of keeping a list updated, and I've added all those books to the "books" tab right under the header of the blog.

This year I am doing way better about not only keeping track of what I read, but also writing a few sentences about each book. I'm using Goodreads to keep things organized, and I'm loving it. I have the app on our iPod touch which makes it really simple. Goodreads is free and you can find your friends via Facebook or email who are also on Goodreads...you should come find me! Its a great way to get recommendations for new books.

My favorites from this year so far have been Choosing to SEE: A Journey of Struggle and Hope (by Mary Beth Chapman, Steven Curtis Chapman's wife....AMAZING!), Same Kind of Different As Me (a true story), and Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes Us Just (by Tim Keller). I've read some fiction, but none that has made my "favorites" list at this point...gotta get to work on that!

Spring is Coming!

Time for Crocs outside...

flowers poking through...

Baby Legs...

and of course, baseball season!

Tot School

Emma is 25.5 months

Tot School

The last two weeks have been filled with potty training! Except for sleeping and travel, Emma has been out of diapers full time, and she is doing a great job! She still goes in her underwear from time to time, but probably less than once a day at this point. The big breakthrough this week was #2 in the potty, though that did lead to our first BIG mess (on Sunday morning before church no less!!) -- yuck!

Our other ongoing Tot School activities include:

practicing letters out loud (she can recognize all but 4 letters)

practicing numbers out loud (she counts to 11 or 12 on her own, sometimes skipping 6)

Catechism (working on What is the chief end of man? When asked Are there more Gods than one? she can answer "no, there is one true God")

Memorizing Proverbs 3:5

Potty training!!

Emma loves being a big sister! She does a great job helping with Will and is so sweet and attentive to him. She is super excited to share her high chair with him and watch him eat off a spoon!

Emma has been enjoying art with shaving cream! We use it with a brush and as finger paint. She loved using the brush...

but was not sure about the mess on her hands at first.

She warmed up to it, though, and has asked to do more shaving cream painting! (we use Barbasol...lots of foam and only $1 for a can at the Dollar Tree)

Emma is starting to show us a creative side; she found the letter U in her cheese,

drew a "hat" on in the bathtub,

as well as "ovals" in the tub.

She also enjoys going to the grocery store, both for real and with her pretend shopping cart.

She sets up a "store" and then goes and puts the food in her cart!

We are thankful for warmer weather, so hopefully we'll get to take Tot School outside a bit more over the next few weeks!

He's sitting!

Both Emma and Will sat very early...4 1/2 months exactly! Really, we were not too surprised with Will, since he started rolling over so early too.

He actually is not as stable as Emma was when she first started sitting. He does not do as well holding himself up with his hands in front, but prefers to balance back a little, which makes him much more tottery.

He loves it though, and is quickly getting better at sitting for longer stretches. Just for fun, here's a look at 4 1/2 month Emma, the first day that she sat: