Happy Labor Day!

Just taking a minute to write a quick post while Chuck is out mowing the lawn and the kids are finishing dinner. I hope everyone is having a nice Labor Day weekend. Congratulations to Chuck's nephew Greg, who got married today! Congrats Greg and Rachel!

Aiden's 1st week of 3K went by without incident. His teacher is wonderful and he is getting to know all of the kids in his class. This pic below was taken on his 1st day back--he was not happy that I wanted a pic of him in front of the playground, lol.

I promise to upload some of my many video clips in the next day or two and get them up!

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!