Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!



The kids are so excited for Christmas! We have been counting down the days and it's hard to believe we only have a few days left! My parents and brother and his girlfriend will be coming over Christmas Eve to exhange gifts! :) We are going to order pizza and watch movies and hang out! Christmas morning, after opening our gifts from Santa we are going to head on over to Iowa and spend the day at Granny's house!
Olivia had her school Christmas party yesterday. They had lots of treats, played fun games and had a gift/book exchange! Olivia has school today and then she will be off for the next 2 weeks! We are trying to figure out a way to get to Florida this Winter and spend some time with family there!

Here's what the kids have been up too....

Olivia is doing a great job with sight words! She knows how to write her complete alphabet. She can tie her shoes. She knows her phone number, her birthday and she can count to 100 now! we are so proud of her! Her teacher was concerned about her focusing earlier in the year so they put her in a reading program that only had 8 children I believe. I wrote her teacher last month checking on Olivia's progress and she responded back that Olivia had progressed out of that classroom already! I knew she could do it! She has a lot of friends and asks me all of the time if they can have a slumber party! (not yet!) She has one of her best friends' phone numbers already memorized it's really funny! Olivia is still into Barbies. I wish she would play with Baby dolls more but I'm sure in time she will! She loves to read. This year for christmas Santa is bringing her a DS!

Channing...channing Channing! I'm a little concerned with his weight. He seems to just remain at the same 30 lb mark. he is so picky when it comes to eating. I'm constantly telling him he needs to put meat on his bones so one day in the car he says to me, "Mommy, do I have turkey meat in my bones?" I replied, " Uh no, why do you ask that?" to which he responds, "well because you tell me that I have meat in my bones so what kind of meat do I have then?" LOL! He cracks us all up. He likes to interupt our Pastor at church during the Children's sermon. One Sunday he interupted her by asking her where her daddy was? Another time was to tell her that he has bunk beds now. I guess he gets his randomness from me! :) He loves story time at the library! He loves his friends. Austen is his best buddy. He is always asking about his cousin Alex and when his dad told him that Alex is now using the big boy potty Channing jumped up and down excitedly yelling, "yay I knew he could do it!" and he goes around telling people that Alex wears big boy underwear like him now! It's so funny!

Gavin is ROTTTTTEN! lol. I can't keep my eyes off him for 2 seconds. He hits, he bites, he jumps off things, onto things. He is into EVERYTHING. The other night right before he was to go to bed he was making a funny noise with his mouth. Earlier that day he and channing had ripped up some paper and I thought I had thrown it all away. I looked in Gavin's mouth and out comes the thinnest piece of paper. My heart DROPPED I was so thankful I was able to see that he had paper in his mouth before I sent him to bed. Shortly after that I retrieved a penny out of his mouth. I have had to put away all of Olivia's tiny hairpieces, jewelry, barbie accessories just so Gavin doesn't get into them. :( If Gavin was our first baby, I would say he would defintely have been our last! ;)
Gavin has come across one of my old baby blankets that I had used for my baby dolls as a child. He likes to carry that blanket around with his stuffed tiger and I'm hoping it's not going to become a problem in the future. I just think about this kid we had at my preschool when I worked... he carried around a big blanket and sucked his thumb and he only talked baby talk. :(
Gavin's vocabulary is still expanding. I sometimes mistake him talking for Channing. The Dr was very impressed at how well Gavin can communicate and the simple fact he can blow his own nose.

Mike is home from work sick today. He needed a day to rest he's been putting in a lot of overtime!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and wonderful new year!

It's hard to believe Christmas is right around the corner!

Channing's preschool screening!

Channing had his preschool screening today and the teachers were very impressed with him!! He is talking in fuller sentences then the average 3 yr old. (he also talks a lot! which is very good!) He was able to identify and recognize shapes, colors, pictures, etc. He counted for them. His motor skills are all where they are supposed to be and he followed directions and listened very well! I was told he was very well mannered, too! :) This makes me feel great! The only concern they did have was the vision screening. I have noticed that Channing is sitting closer to the TV and the teacher informed me that he did great when it came to his right eye however, when it came to his left eye he was trying to use his right to see.... she said she's not extremely worried about it right now b/c it could correct itself but to keep it in mind closer to school!

We will get the information packet in the mail soon!

We celebrated his day with lunch @ Mcdonalds. He told me he was so happy and he will have fun when it's time to start preschool! :)

misc. pictures

Pendleton update.

Olivia is getting better and better at spelling words and sounding them out! She is learning how to read words as well!

The other day we were in the car and she asked me why I chose her name with so many syllables. lol. She then started counting syllables of other names.

Some of her favorite things to do is color/crafts, watching movies, riding bikes, etc.

Her favorite toys are her Barbies. I wish she played with Baby dolls more but she's just not interested in them.

She loves playing make believe and she is quite bossy to her little brothers! Her favorite food is Raman Noodles and Mexican.

Channing is going to get screened for Preschool tomorrow! He's very excited! I hope that the school does not do away with the preschool system where we go.

Channing LOVES reading. Whether you read to him or he just grabs up a book and reads to himself. He loves story time at the Library and has made some friends. He's starting to socialize a lot more and play with the kids his own age!

His favorite toys are his monster trucks and Tonka trucks. He fills the trucks with toys and he races them up and down the hallway! He also LOVES the outdoors!

Channing's favorite food is Chicken and apples.

Gavin is 19 months now and still into everything. He's his own little person and no one bosses him around. He holds his own. lol. He loves to play with his siblings! His favorite toys are cars, jesse doll (from Toy Story) and he also likes to look at books! He talks like he's a 3 yr old. His favorite words are, "Where are you." I can never tell his voice apart from channing's. Sometime Channing sounds like Olivia.

Gavin's favorite food is pretty much whatever you put in front of him. He's really not picky at all.

Library PK costume party!

The Local Library had a special costume party for the PK and younger kids!

Friday is Olivia's school party I will post more pictures.

Superman doesn't have a mask however, Gavin wanted to wear one b/c Channing was. So, I let him! lol.

Daughtry!

For the past week I had been trying to win Daughtry tickets from the local radio stations!! Friday, being the last day, I WON!!!!!! I took my girl Tracy and we had a blast! Ps. Daughtry is awesome!

Pictures!

The kids and I went up to Grandview Drive in Peoria, Il with Tracy and her family to get some pictures of the kids. I was hoping Mike would go with us so we could get a nice family picture.....however, He's always so busy with work.

Yesterday, (oct 20th) was our 5 yr anniversary.

Apple Blossom Farm

Halloween is fast approaching! The kids are so excited to dress up and go Trick Or Treating! This year, Olivia was going to be Spider girl however, her costume had several malfunctions. She has decided that she wants to be Minnie mouse so we are going to use her dance costume from last year! Channing was going to be batman however, his head was too big for the head part of the costume so we exchanged and he picked "Dash" from the "Incredibles" Gavin will be Superman! I'm dressing up again this year! I love Halloween! However, I'm not revealing my costume just yet as I will be attending a costume party! ;)

The kids have been doing great. Olivia is writing her entire alphabet and is learning to spell bigger words. She is also sounding out words. I'm hoping it won't be long until she's able to read! She can read some things but just from memory I'm sure. Channing and Gavin got bunk beds. We have them as single beds for now. They can become bunk beds when they get older. The boys are still in the climbing stages. So far, they have been doing well in their new beds! Gavin is talking a lot more. He loves to sing "Scooby dooby doo, where are you" I have it on video and will have to upload it soon. He loves putting blocks together, playing cars and chasing his siblings around. He eats anything and everything. He and Channing have the same size foot. Maybe off by an inch but not much.

This past Saturday the kids and I went to Apple Blossom Farms with some friends. Mike was working all weekend. Channing was so excited to ride on a big Monster truck! Olivia loved the slide! We were able to pick our own pumpkins right from the patch, they loved that!!

Mike and I have our 5 yr wedding anniversary coming up on Tues. Hard to believe it's been 5 yrs. Not sure what we are doing. He has been working a lot.

My friend Tracy and I have been hanging out a lot with our kiddos. She and I have started 30 day Shred with Jillian Michaels along with our point counting and whew! It's a great work out!

That's about all with our lives. Here are some pictures.

Happy 18 months, Gavin!

Gavin is 18 months old today! Hard to believe!! He did great at his check up! He was very talkative. Impressed the Nurse! He said, "Sticker. I want one. thank you." He even responded to her by saying, "oh" that's his latest. The other 2 kiddos, they would reply with an "ok" however, Gavin responds with "OH" IE... I had to get Gavin his drink last night. He was really fussy and so I said, "Gavin, I have to get your drink bud." He stops crying and says, "OH" LOL. It's really funny. Probably just one of those, "you have to be there" moments.

Gavin is 32 1/2 inches He weighs 24 lbs. we forgot to get the percentiles but I'm pretty sure it's still in the lowest! I think percentiles are over rated. How can you honestly compare when all babies are different.?!. He did great with his shots.

I had Olivia's parent/teacher conference last night. It went well However, there are some areas of improvement she needs to work on and mostly talking and following directions. We have that same problem with her here at home. I did speak to the DR about it today at Gavin's check and she gave me some papers to fill out to have her tested for attention disorders. Then again, they aren't too concerned b/c of the age but better safe then sorry! When I brought the school papers home for Olivia to go over. She went through it and passed with flying colors. I told her teacher that I would like to get Olivia into speech therepy. She still has a hard time pronouncing words and some letters. I would rather have this corrected now, then later!

Channing's favorite movie to watch is "Wizard of Oz!" I think we watched it 3 times today. The weather hasn't been the greatest so we have been cooped up inside. We love having our playdates with friends.

Yesterday, we went to chuck e cheese with some friends and the kids had a blast!

Olivia LOVES picking Tomatos from Grandma and Papa's garden! Everytime we go over to their house, she runs right for the garden and knows which ones to get! The tomatos were so delicious this year!

We find out Thurs. what the teacher has to say about Olivia! Hopefully, we get some good reports!

Friday, Gavin will be 18 months and will have his 18 month check up.

Channing is going through the lovely terrible 3 phase right now. It's not too bad but it's there!

I will post a new update on Friday!