January 2010- Snow days

We had a couple snow days this week so Duane got to stay home. One of the luxories of having a teacher in the family! I bundled Alex up in multiple layers and took him out to play in the snow. He loved it! Burr!!! It was cold, but we had time to pose for a quick picture.

Alex wasn't quite sure what to think about this white stuff on the ground. He didn't want to touch it. He just walked around gingerly enjoying the freedom of finally getting to go outside.

He had a few times down the slide....

And of course a visit to Nate's house to see his buddy! He walked right up, rang the door bell & just stood there waiting for Nate to come out & play. It was too cute

The End of One... the Beginning of Another....

So we had two things that happened this year that killed our blog. Duane and I both got on Facebook this year and discovered how much easier it is to post pictures on there.

We also broke our digital camera & had a season without picture taking. But we are off to a new year in 2010 and will try to be better about posting a few pics here and there!

It sure was a great year in 2009!! We had some really amazing things happen. Here are some highlights from 2009:

- We went to Vegas and attended the Trek convention! (see previous posts for pics)

- We went to Hilton Head with the Keaton's where Duane played tennis with Gladys Night & lots of golf with his dad & brother. Alex enjoyed the beach with Grandma & Grandpa & mommy did some shopping for her birthday.

- We got a new kitchen table & kitchen island in our home.

- Dacian FINALLY earned the Pampered Chef incentive trip program. We will be going to Disney in June 2010. The best thing is that because it was part of a bonus program from the Pampered Chef, we will not pay a dime! They are even giving us spending money to use while we are there! Isn't that amazing. We are so thankful. If it weren't for Pampered Chef, we would not be able to do a trip like this (at least not at this stage in life). Alex will be 2 1/2 when we go. He loves MeeMou & Pooh. He will LOVE this trip.

- Alex turned 2 this year as well. He had so much fun celebrating his birthday with all his friends. We are so grateful to have such precious friends & church family.

- Duane finished up another year as the Art Teacher at Southern Middle School. He led the STLP (Student Technology Leadership Program) as well as the After School Art Club & Year Book.

- Alex continued to grow both in sprit & in mind! His vocabularly is exploding. He can count past 10 and recognizes all his uppercase letters. He can even read a few small words like "CAT" "DOG" "MOMMA" & "DADDY".

We are looking forward to 2010 and sharing it with all of you! HUGS

Life Lesson

I'm not sure if many people read this anymore but I want to get this lesson out to the public somehow. I learned something today that was quite valuable. It started with me having to write an office referral for a student who was skipping my class. She immediately protested and pratcially begged me not to do it, but I was sure it had to be done. The reason for my need to write one was because I remember a very similar situation happening just a few years ago. In that situation, it was another girl who asked for her and a friend to go to the computer lab to print out a picture for a class project. It seemed innocent enough and so I let them go. 20 minutes later the ambulance arrived because one of them had overdosed on drugs and was lying on the floor in the bathroom. I then flash on other moments in my life that followed the same theme: my best friend in high school slamming in to a tree at 80 mph because he was drinking and driving, a 12 year old boy in my youth group passed out in his own vomit because he was drunk, another great high school friend sitting infront of a campfire, wearing a t-shirt and pants in 20 degree weather, and rocking back and forth uncontrollably because he was high on drugs; and the list goes on.
Personally, I am one of those who can honestly say I've never been drunk and I've never even seen a drug. I think the reason for that is because there were so many examples right in front of me that would completely discourge me from ever doing either. But what does this have to do with me writing a referral for some girl who skipped my class? The answer is that I have learned a lesson from the one mistake I made in all those examples. I never once told any of those friends, students, or anyone else to stop what they were doing. I didn't have the courage or knowledge to do so. But I want to start. I want to start with these students and even one day my own children. Therefore, so be it if my writing a referral makes this one girl a little uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortable with writing referrals. I'm uncomfortable with conflict. But, if that referral jolts her in to the reality that small bad choices CAN lead to terrible choices than I have done my job.
So, there's my lesson for whoever reads this. If you know of someone who is taking things too far, talk to them. There's a great quote from Derek Webb of Caedmon's Call when he was speaking about someone he knew who committed suicide. "Sitting in that chapel with all those people who loved her, I was convinced that this tradgedy could have been prevented had she just taken 5 minutes to talk with any one of us." Imagine that. Just 5 minutes.

Alex updates

Alex's words are really taking off. Everyday he amazes me with a new word or two or three.

Today we took a walk in the wagon. He pointed at a kid riding by on a bike and said, "Bike. See, bike!" To my knowledge I hadn't taught him what a bike was yet. But he picked it up somehow!

Tonight at the store, I put him in the cart to go in from the parking lot. He pointed up at the sky and said, "See. Stars. See moon. Bye Bye sun. Moon."

He's also starting to pick up letters. He can recognize about 1/3 of the alphabet now (upper case).

Our biggest challenge right now is getting his little active brain to turn off at night at get to bed. He stays in his room okay, but it takes him 2 or more hours sometimes to actually fall asleep. And don't you dare leave a comment talking about a routine or offering advice. We've tried it all. He has his routine and everything else the books and internet people tell us to do. He just has to work his way through this stage. Yes, we are hoping it is just a stage.

His favorites are Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Adventures of Tiger & Pooh, anything with numbers on it & letters.

Updates on Alex

Alex has started learning his letters now. I think he can recognize and say, "A, B, C, D, E, O, S, T" and maybe a few more.
His newest word is "bubble." He learned it from a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode where Donald has to take a bubble bath. After he watched it, he started running around the house saying, "bath time! Bubble." He wanted to take a bath and play with bubbles. Too funny.

I'm realzing just how attentive Alex is. He learns and absorbs everything around him. It amazes me how he is only 22 months old, but he still puts things way when he's done. We really haven't intentionally taught this to him. I think he's just learned from watching mommy and daddy. When we are done brushing our teeth, we put our toothbrush back in the cup. When we unwrap our food, we put our wrapper in the trash. If there is a wad of trash on the couch that I haven't got to yet, he'll run it over and put it in the trash can. When he's done with his cup, he puts it in the sink. We are working on putting his toys away. Wouldn't that be nice if he learned that? Whew.

I'll get some pics up soon. Facebook is so much easier for loading pics that I've stopped doing so many on here. But I'll try to find a few of my favorite and get them up.

Counting:

Alex loves numbers, I've said it before. But what he did today was absolutely amazing. As I was snapping his onsie snaps while getting him dressed, I was counting to help keep him occupied and still for me on the changing table. Here was our conversation.
Momma: one
Alex: two (tuuuu)
Momma: three
Alex: four (fuurrr)
Momma: five
Alex: six (sis)
Momma: seven
Alex: eight
Momma: nine
Alex: ten!!!!!

I then tried to record his cuteness, but of course, he only did it when the camera was off.

Alex's sentences

So, he's starting to put words together to make toddler sentences. Here's some that I remember:
"No no, mickey mouse."
"Bye bye nee nee."
"Nite nite, dada."

Alex's animal sounds

Alex knows
Lion (roar)
elephant (hand up on his mouth to make a trunk and a horn sound)
turkey (gobbles with tongue)
cat (meow while signing for cat)
dog (rough rough while panting)
dinosaur (roar)
duck (duck duck)
bird (tweet tweet)

Alex's words at 22 months

cheese, apple, Cheetoes, (ba)nana, pizza, two, three, four, five, six, eight, nine, ten, ball, baby, up, down, happy, sad, Abby, on, off, bear, paci (aci), nite nite, blue, ellow (yellow), een (green), Nee Nee, Momma, Mommy, Daddy, hungee, bye bye, Mee Mou (Mickey Mouse), Oh wow!, Oh man!, awesome, Star Trek, all done, ding dong (for the doorbell), belly, eyes, toes, ears, hair, nose, knees, elbow, shoes, socks, ou-ie, no no, yes yes

90 seconds with Alex

I noticed that we have not updated anything in our blog for a couple months. Apologies to those who follow this blog. Blame it on Facebook. That being said, I thought a good blog post may be to simply follow Alex for a mere 90 seconds. So, I grabbed the camera and started to take pictures. He has learned how to say "Cheese" when there's a camera around so imagine that being the audio as I was snapping some shots as he went about his buisness.

It begins with Alex and his red truck playing next to the kitchen table.

He quickly moves over to the floor next to the refridgerator.

Things seems great and this floor is good for rollin'!

But! Just to make sure all terrain is fully explored, he moves over to the carpet in the living room. Which, of course, is when he noticed the carboard box.

Still holding on to his truck, he decides to test life inside the box.

Finally, he demonstrates the proper technique in breaking down a box and make it ready to recycle.

And there you have 90 seconds in the life of Alex.