1st day of 3K

Aiden starts 3K today! I am so happy that fall is almost here and school is starting back up again. He has a wonderful teacher this year, so I am hopeful that he will have a lot of fun in his new class!

Here he is looking handsome as ever:) and then his infamous "cheese" face, which just looks painful, lol. And of course Ava couldn't miss out on photo time!

18 month check-up

Ava had her 18 month check-up yesterday (almost 2 months late, she'll be 20 months on Monday, but better late than never!). She impressed Dr. Berry by counting to 10 in English (skipping 4 and 7 as always) and to 8 in Spanish, which actually really surprised me, since I didn't know she could do that! He was very pleased with her verbal skills and said she's definitely on the advanced end of the talking spectrum. With Aiden being such a late talker and all of the worrying I did over that, it's nice not to have to stress about it this time around!

Ava is a little shrimp--she's fallen to just the 10th percentile in weight for her gender/age, but she's still 50th percentile for height. Here are her 18 month (20 month) stats:

Weight: 21 lbs 13 oz (a teeny tiny bug!)
Height: 33 inches
She's still wearing size 4 shoes (although she'll probably wear 5 by the fall), size 12 month pants and 18 month shirts.

As usual, she's chattering non-stop these days. She is completely obsessed with all things mermaid and Dora (her first words this morning were actually, "I want tee-bee (tv). I want Doa (Dora)!" We might be in trouble with this one, lol;-)

Alphabet fishing game

I can't take credit for this cute game, this comes courtesy of Allie over at my favorite educational blog, No Time For Flash Cards (http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2008/07/parents-corner-make-this-tonight.html). It was a big win at our house so I thought I would share it on my blog too:)

This is a really simple game to make. Just make a fish template and copy it onto construction paper. Cut out the fish, add letters and a smile, and attach the eyes. I used paper fasteners, but you can use pretty much anything that is magnetic.

We already have a magnetic fishing pole from the Dollar Tree, and it worked perfectly for this game. But you could just as easily attach a magnet to some twine and wrap it around a stick!

Aiden already knows his colors and letters, but really enjoyed the fishing aspect of the game. It is a great game to introduce colors and letters to Ava, and she can't stop yelling, "Fish! There it is! That is a FISH!" Lol.

Monkeyin' Around

Chuck had to work last Saturday, but he got to take Monday off, so that was a nice change. We took the kids to Monkey Joe's in the morning to bounce out all of their energy. I wish I could take the smile on Aiden's face when we go there and keep it in my pocket forever:) You'd swear there was never a happier kid in the whole wide world.

The pics aren't that great because of the lighting, but I wanted to share them anyway. Enjoy!

Stomprockets

Here is a little video clip of the kids playing with their stomprockets. These are such a great toy--wonderful for fine motor skills and physical activity at the same time. Ava loves the idea of counting down--as I'm sure you can tell. She can count to ten, but always skips the number 4 and the number 7, I have no idea why! Lol. This clip also shows how sweet Aiden can be to Ava when he is trying to be a good big brother!

Popular

I was never super popular in school. I always had a few good friends, and my sister of course, and that was plenty for me. These days at Casa-de-Bailey, however, I am the hottest thing since sliced bread. I am THE most popular person in this house, hands down (sorry Chuck, just sayin'). My lap is the coolest place to hang out since The Max on Saved By The Bell. Both of The A's want to reside there permanently.

I'm starting to understand why it was so hard for Kelly Kapowski to always have Slater and Zach fighting over her. It's not fun having to turn down one of my A's, but my lap just isn't big enough for two (not that either of them would share it anyway!). Ah, well, I suppose there are worse things than being the most popular girl in the house:) Like being the breaker-up-of-fights, which I am off to do now before one of my A's kills the other one! Yikes!

(and they look so innocent in these pictures...)

Photo Friday

Just a few pics on this muggy Friday morning. We are off to feed the ducks and turtles at the pond before it gets too hot. I hope everyone has a wonderful Friday!

Dino-table

Yesterday we went to the Macon Children's museum and the kids had so much fun playing with the animal table they have there. So I decided to take apart our train set and set up a dino-table for a while. The kids love it, and I had NO idea we had this many plastic dinosaurs laying around, lol. (To be fair though I did buy a few more in the dollar bins at Target!). We even added Diego's Dino Rescue Mountain and it's going to be a sanity-saver this week, I can tell already!

We're back!

Well, we are home from Jamaica. Sigh. What a wonderful trip it was. Now that we've seen how amazing an all-inclusive vacation can be, I am not sure we'll ever take any other kind of vacation! The resort was truly amazing. Incredible food, incredible staff, incredible drinks, just amazing all around. I couldn't have dreamed up a better vacation if I'd tried!

The kids had a great week with my mom. We are so thankful and grateful that she watched them all week! I knew I didn't need to worry and it helped us enjoy our vacation that much more. Plus they had an amazing week with their Granny and were very sad to see her go this afternoon. They miss you already Granny!

Here are the photos, enjoy!