wordle

So my first graders did a neat project using wordle and it was so cool. Anyway, you can enter the link to a website and it will create a wordle for you. If you use particular words more frequently, they will show up bigger. Guess what I talk about a lot?? My kids (the school ones) had a blast entering their word lists they kept while reading Donavan's Word Jar. I posted their wordle creations on my teacher website. Have a look if you want!

Colin loves Star Wars too!

Okay, so Gavin has been a Star Wars kid for a while now. And, monkey see monkey do, Colin is also turning into a Star Wars fiend. They love to play together with their light sabers, they love to watch the movies and the Clone Wars TV show, and they *love* to play with the Star Wars action figures Gavin got from Gramma Joy for Christmas.

Colin can name all the figures! Check it out:

coming soon.... pictures!

Okay, we've had Gavin's birthday (first his party, including a visit from Gramma Joy, then his real birthday a week later) AND Christmas (with a visit from Grammy). I promise that pictures were taken. I also promise to upload those pictures and post them here with commentary.

A quick recap: Gavin had his birthday party at the Hoppin Hippo on 12/12. He had a blast and loved playing with all his friends. His real birthday occured on 12/19 and he is now officially 4 years old. I continue to feel baffled at that whole situation. Then Christmas came! Santa brought way too much stuff (duh, who didn't see that coming?) and the boys had a blast.

I am off of work for 2 weeks total - I go back January 3 for staff development and my class returns on Jan. 4. Gavin and Colin are loving being at home with me and Scott (who is taking a lot of time off to be with us at home - yay!) but I know they'll be excited to see Kelly and her family when they get back into that routine.

Pictures soon, I promise!!!

reading

Gavin has been learning and understanding more and more every day about letters, sounds and words. It is such a trip to watch him soak it up, process it all, and share it back in his way.

He's been "reading" Blue Hat Green Hat for a while now. Tonight he read it to his brother So cute, for so many reasons - 1) duh, it's so cool to see him as an emergent reader and 2) the boys do such a good job together.

In other news, Scott has gotten on a plane and is currently (I hope!) in the air on his way back to the land of craziness, i.e. our house!!! He left early Monday morning, and we have been missing him all week. This morning especially was r.o.u.g.h. - reason #3 why this video and the boys being cute together is making me so happy! The week has actually been pretty great. I've had a blast with the kids. Last night (hello, vomit, you are so not welcome here) and this morning, though, the strain of being without Scott was really starting to show! SO happy he's on his way back :)

dentist

Gavin loves going to the dentist. So much so, in fact, that when I let him know that I (gasp!) forgot to take him on Thursday - I'd been home all day with Colin, who'd been running a fever the day before - Gavin wailed. Not cried, no, that would not do the spectacle justice. He sobbed, he wailed, he nearly screamed. And he spent the rest of the evening, until he went to bed, angry with me. I felt awesome.

The dentist office is only open M-Th, so I wasn't able to call and reschedule until yesterday. Luckily, they had an opening this afternoon, so Gavin, Colin and I headed over there after I left work. Colin munched on pretzels and played with the water faucet (if you pushed a particular cabinet door it turned the water on, a no-hands thing) while Gavin had his teeth inspected, counted, polished and flossed.

After the hygienist finished with him (Ms. Stacy was great!), Dr. Gaddy came in to check him out as well. After learned what we already know - Gavin and his teeth are awesome! - Dr. Gaddy gave both boys a sugar-free lollipop.

Colin had his when we got home, and now it is somewhere in my house, stuck to something. I'm sure it'll turn up sooner or later..... :)

2K Fun Run/Walk

My first grade team organized a 2K Fun Run/Walk to benefit the Humane Society of Williamson County. Gavin walked/ran in the race - he ran most of it, actually! By the end, he was in need of a banana:


Colin also enjoyed the bananas. You can't see it in the picture, but he's shoving the piece I'm handing him entirely in his mouth:

Gavin was SO proud of himself!!!

favorites

Colin loves shoes. Loves them. As such, he would very VERY much like to be wearing them at all times. He has a specific love of his crocs. His cammo crocs are super stinky (seriously, EW) so I've hidden them from him. If he can't wear those, he wants his Longhorn crocs, even though they are too big.

This morning, he found one of his Longhorn crocs on the floor and had to put it on. He couldn't find the other one, so he walked around for quite a while in his red socks and 1 croc. He calls his shoes "oosh" (like he's saying it backwards).

The motion in the picture is because while wearing his favorite shoes, he was saying his other favorite word: NO.

Speaking of words, here's a list of words Colin says now:

NO!, baby (that's what he calls Gavin!), mommy, daddy, Jakie, Maggie, shoes, toes, nose, eyes, ears, hair, belly, penis (that was a new one this morning!), purple, green, orange, red, eat, milk, juice, doggie, puppy, Woody, hat, baseball, water, hot, more, please, thank you, bath, teeth, vitamin, car, mine, pizza, cheese (both the food and when pretending to take a picture), yogurt, cup, outside, whee! (that's his word for slide), swing, pop, balloon, bubbles, up, Spongebob (he says "bob bob"), knees, bottle, hi, bye-bye, nite-nite, uh-oh, ball, bite (usually it's "more bite" when he's still hungry), ew (that usually means that he pooped - he'll even point to his dirty diaper while saying it), pancake (take take, just like his brother used to say it!) ... and many more that I haven't deciphered yet :)