Happy Halloween

Thrilled to be Thomas!

Under the weather ballerina

Tonight we went "trick or treating". The clinic that Audrey's OT works with had a little fall festival for all the kids. Andrew and Audrey enjoyed the games and since we will be traveling Friday night, it was their chance to dress up. Audrey's has a bad cold and was not in the mood for photos! You can see how thrilled she is about having her picture taken in the photo of the two of them. My mom would refer to Audrey's expression as "my Washington, D.C. face". I think I have that same expression in several of my childhood photos. Andrew was thrilled to finally wear his Thomas costume that Clay and Marla gave him.

More pictures!

A week already!

Has it been a week already since I posted? Okay, it's been over a week now. This blogging thing is harder than I thought. It's not that I don't have new things to share about the kids on a daily basis, it's just sitting down and writing them out that is something that I find difficult. I guess this is why I've never been much of a journal keeper. My mom is always encouraging me to journal what's going on with the kids, specifically Audrey's progress, and I just haven't done it. Now looking back over the past 3 months I wish I had started in July, so I could see what all progress we've made since then. So, yes mom, you were/are right...I need to start journaling.

This week has been uneventful for us, just the way I like it. We visited a new church on Sunday and liked it. It was our 5th church to visit here in NC. I don't know what we are looking for, we just keep thinking we'll know when we find it. Andrew enjoyed getting to go on the playground at church and he loved that Audrey's class was on the playground at the same time. He told me that he followed her around to make sure that know one was mean to her because "I'm a big brother and I have to protect her". He also said that when the teacher called for the 2 year old class to line up, he took Audrey (aka. dragged her across the playgroup, I'm sure) to the teacher and told her that she was 2. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall and witnessed that. It's funny how protective he is of her one minute and then the next minute will run through the house, right into her and take her out.

We went to the fall festival at Andrew's school Sunday night. The kids had a pretty good time. Audrey loved the bounce house for the little ones and Andrew was able to play on a huge hay stack. I think they both liked the hot dogs and cookies the most.

She was having fun, regardless of her "expression".

Audrey has had a good week. Her vocab. continues to surprise me. She is now on to learning her shapes and a couple of letters. She likes to say "Give me five!" and always wants her turn to pray before a meal which sounds a little like "Thank you day, thank you (some random things we're not sure of)...Amen." She joins Andrew in his bed every night for story time now and will pick her own book to have read to her and then listen to whatever story he chose. Most of the time she sits through the entire story time (which is a huge improvement in the last month or 2), even the Thomas ones, which usually do not make any sense and are hard to read.

We will be in FL next week. I'm looking forward to the visit. Our 4 nieces will be there for a little bit and it will be nice for the kids to get to visit with them again.


That's all for now.

Weekend Update

It's Sunday and I'm thinking that it's about time to update this blog. My parents were here this week, visiting on their way back home from their trip to Maine. Audrey and Andrew enjoyed all the extra attention and lovin from them. Andrew was able to go camping "in the woods" one night when they were here. He is still waiting to see those bears that he thought were in North Carolina.

The kids and I are headed to Florida for a visit in two weeks. Chip's aunts are riding down with us, so hopefully the kids will behave for the car ride. I'm hoping that the Blue's Clues and Barney DVDs will keep them from going too crazy in their seats all day.

Andrew is still doing well in his preschool class. He loves going to school and all his new friends and teachers. He loved his school in TX so much that I was a little worried about his new class this year, but it has exceeded my expectations by far. Audrey is also doing well at her school. Those first few weeks were tough (I'm not sure if it was worst for her or her teachers) but she has begun to have better days. She's not crying during circle time anymore (she doesn't really like it when they make her sit in her seat!) and starting to talk and sign more at school. Hopefully this will continue and they can start really seeing what she is capable of. One of her teachers is also now providing her speech services at home, so I hope that will help too. She is beginning to identify her colors (gotta love "Signing Time!"). At last count I think I have her up to about 70 words! When we visited the developmental pediatrician in Dallas in July, she was only saying about 4, so that is about 65 new words in 3 months. Chip and my personal favorite at the moment is "monkey" or as she says "munck-me".

That's all for now.

This One is for Alicia!

Well, after a year of reading countless blogs (my guilty pleasure) and telling everyone I was going to start blogging myself, I have finally found a moment to get this thing up and running. Once Alicia got hers going, I was feeling like a big slacker! I hope your proud of me Alicia. Now that I am officially typing my 1st blog, I have to say, this is a lot harder than it looks. Never mind all the formatting, but just trying to think of what say and how to say it. I'm a little lost for words.

I do hope I can keep this up to date with pics and posts to update everyone on our lives in North Carolina. These last 2 months have been quite an adventure, but everything has went so smoothly and we are doing well. I have to give credit to Chip for the name of this blog. It won out over my Summey Spot idea, but I do think it is most appropriate.

That's all for now.