Countdown!

So next Thursday Mac will start his first year of Preschool.

He will be going to our neighbors house across the street for Preschool twice a week for 2.5 hours.

I am actually excited about something new for him, and I am a bit anxious about how well he will do in a structured learning environment.

He does not do well with me trying this at home. But I haven't worried about that a ton because he is a quick learner and seems to do just fine as long as I am introducing the ideas to him. But actually trying to teach him something straight out has been a struggle.

I have also been trying to be better at preparing him for things to come. He usually drives me up the wall with excitement and impatience of what ever we may be doing that I tend to avoid telling him things until it is actually happening. But I have realized that I am not teaching him patience if I do that.

We have this chalk board that my parents made awhile back. I usually write what ever exciting thing may be happening that day like birthdays or when some one comes to visit. But I had this ingenious idea of putting a count down for Mac on it and thanks to Pinterest (let me know if you want an invite) that always keeps my creative juice flowing I came up with attaching the clothes pins to take off for everyday.

And the number looks wonky because I wrote dots and had Mac trace it himself. We have been working on number recognition as of late and this has helped.

Anyway, I was really excited about doing this with Mac. And to help him get excited for Preschool next week.

Family Photos 2011

Thanks to my awesome friend Kristen we have beautiful family photos! Makes me giddy! I love looking at family photos...there is always something magical about them. I loved every single one she gave us, and had a hard time choosing which ones to post.

Enjoy!

The "Ferris" (County Fair)

We had a super busy day Saturday. First thing in the morning we had our family pictures taken. We told Mac if he was really good for pictures and through out the rest of the day we would take him to the fair to go on the ferris wheel. He actually did much better than Oak did for pictures. She was a stinker because now that she can walk she wants nothing to do with being held or holding still. And he was great while we ran errands to pick out new glasses for Hubs and pick out a new cell phone for me.

So he got to go to the fair but when we got to the ferris wheel he was too short. So we found a kid ride that was close to looking like a ferris wheel. And he wasn't super disappointed. He so loved all the rides he went on. (Makes me excited for Disneyland someday)

Every time I ask him what his favorite part was he tells me something different. I guess that means he had fun. My favorite answer was, "The roller coaster, it was bumpy...I liked the bumpy!"

 He got to go on four rides, two of those by himself (that is all $20 bucks for 40 tickets go us).

We got a snow cone and an elephant ear then we went and looked at the animals. He loved the baby chicks and they also had a place where you could see the chicks hatch out of the egg. We also saw a huge mama pig with all of her 8 piglets crashed out in the hay. So cute!

When we were all done he got to pick out a blow up batman thing. It was so fun to see him have a huge smile on the whole time and ask "let's do more fun stuff!!!"

The Adoption Triad

I submitted a photo for this project a few years ago. It is one of my all time favorite photos of Mac and his birth mother. It was right before we were to take him home from the hospital when he was just barely one day old. You can honestly feel her heartache and love for him just looking at the photo. It is close to the begining of the video (I  think at 1:01), but honestly all the photos along with the music just pull at my heartstrings and remind me how blessed I am to be a part of adoption.

What I L.O.V.E.D about today...

* that I didn't feel rushed getting me and the kids ready for church while Hubs was at meetings.

*that we had the new sister missionaries in our Ward over for dinner.

*that we were able to visit a little with some neighbors that we hadn't seen all week.

*that we were able to go and seek the cool air at my in-laws house where Mac got to swing, ride a bike, jump on the tramp, run a marathon on the wii and pick some blackberries.

*the "tickle tunnel" adventure with our cute babes before they went to bed. How I love moments like that with my little family.

*that Mac has been fairly obedient today with few melt downs.

*that even though Oak was super wiggly and turning circles on my lap because she wanted down, I was able to hear most of one speaker, and it was a wonderful talk.

*Mac giving the scripture and prayer today in Primary. And he did such an awesome job! He did it on his own and even prayed for what they learned in sharing time and sun beams.

*to just get to spend time with my cute little family.

*my kids making me laugh out loud numerous times today.

*the yumminess of the blackberries we just ate and how they taste like Oregon summers.

Dancing Queen!

Untitled from bw on Vimeo.


As I said in the previous post, Oak is the cutest dancer. She never really did her hands in the air, but she has got some killer, adorable moves. And I think hubs is so cute in it too!!

Oak at ONE!

I have yet to take her one year photos. Hopefully I can work on that this next week. But I do want to make sure I get down what she is like at one. We go for her one year check up this week so I don't have her stats yet either.

One of my favorite things she is doing right now is her wanting to sit on our lap to read a book. The book is usually "Good Night Moon" if it is in sight. Otherwise she doesn't mind what book.

Also she just wants to sit in our lap. If she realized we are sitting NEXT to her playing she will stop what she's doing and come in sit. It is so stinkin cute!

She is an official walker. I haven't seen her crawl in about a week. She stands herself up in the middle of the room and she officially does not want to be held because she wants to roam herself.

She is the cutest little dancer, and it cracks me up every time I catch her doing it. She kind of stomps her feet and then she will sometimes stick her arms up in the air too. Oh my goodness so cute. I really hope I can get a video of it soon.

Signing: for awhile she wasn't doing much signing and I wasn't forcing it. But then I realized that she isn't doing much talking so I started to be more consistent and she is doing great now. She can sign: banana, more, all done, eat, please, dog, baby, ball.

Things she loves: the book "Good Night Moon", wearing sunglasses, cell phones, her daddy

She says: Mama, Dada, bubba (brother), BoBo (our neighbors dog), uh oh!, Hi!

Loves to eat fruit: Her favorite I think is mandarin oranges and blueberries.

Favorite food: cheese, goldfish crackers.

She loves to put objects in containers.

She is getting really attached to her thumb and her Bear.

She hasn't cut any teeth in awhile. She has just 6. 4 on top and two on the bottom.

LOVES animals of any kind. She can hardly contain herself when she sees the cats and dogs outside.

Loves balls. This makes her birth parents happy since they are both big sports players.

She hasn't been much for formula but once I started adding whole milk to it she has liked it alot more. She is at about half and half formula/milk. I waited awhile because at 9 months she had low iron.

She loves to drink water. She takes after me and her brother.

She is still taking two naps at 9am and 1pm. Goes to bed for the night at 8pm and sleeps until 6:30 or 7.

Oak is still a pretty content little lady. She has a killer smile and personality. She KNOWS she is cute and takes full advantage of it. She is so full of energy and is constantly on the go. She brings so much love, light and laughter to our home. And still am in awe that I get to be her mother!

Touch-A-Truck

So the large town we live next to does this awesome thing every year called Touch-A-Truck. It is for one day and totally free!! The last couple of years I only heard about it after the fact. This year, thanks to Facebook, I found out about it the week before. They don't do much advertising, but it is very obvious that they don't need to. When we got there, there were so many families. It was so fun, and LOUD!! They had every kind of working vehicle you could think of. And the kids could stand in line to sit in the drivers seat and push every button, turn every knob and stearing wheel, and honk every horn. It was a kids dream come true!! It was so worth the mad, loud chaos!!

Ice cream truck of some kind

This was a robot with a video camera and they had a tv to show what it was videoing.

garbage truck

city bus

standing in line for the roller

I think this was some sort of digger