Micah with Daddy on his first birthday

Our little man is already one year old. It's crazy how fast his first little year went by. Micah is doing phenomenal. He is so close to walking and took his first official step last Friday (3/16/12). He's quite the talker; his absolute favorite word is "ball" (anything that is remotely round is a ball) closely followed by Dada, Mama, Jada (he's only said it a couple times so far & it sounds like "Day-duh") and baby. As of just a couple days ago, he loves pointing at babies or photos of babies (including himself and Jada as a baby) and saying "baby, baby, baby". I'm currently trying to teach him to give kisses to babies. :-)

He's fully mastered the art of signing "please" and "thank you", which I'm very proud of; my boy has learned some manners! Whoo hoo! Now to just keep it up... :-)

He adores his big sister and just lights up whenever she enters the room.

His favorite activity is probably taking a bath; his splashes are quite impressive and although he can barely breathe when he really gets going (as water is pouring into his eyes and shooting up his nose), it's quite obvious that he's very proud of himself. He also enjoys throwing balls, rolling balls, and just identifying any balls in the vicinity. :-)

He hasn't had any seizures since June and we are just praising the Lord for His incredible healing. We are so blessed by our little guy.

Micah with Mommy right after his birthday party

Pictures of his Rubber Ducky themed party (I had so much fun decorating!)

Today, we visited Pigtails & Crewcuts for Jada's first haircut. She did fabulous. Here are a few pictures of the big event. :-)

Here's Jada standing at the top of the stairs outside of her new gymnastics class. Her first class was this morning. She is in love with it. After class, she told me all about how her "teacher taught her how to do gymnastics" and she "met lots of new friends".

Once we arrived home, she promptly started dancing in the kitchen and informed me that she was doing "gymnastics". After about 5 minutes of intense dancing, she said, "Mommy, I'm exhausted" (yes, she used the word exhausted), then walked over to the couch, laid down, placed her head on the throw pillow, placed the blanket on top of her, then asked asked to watch "Lord of the Beans" (a Veggie Tale movie). ha ha. I think it's safe to say that gymnastics class actually wore her out! :-)



Running laps for warm up


Waiting on a dot for her turn


Walking the balance beam


Just a snapshot of the room



And here are a couple of videos... can you tell that she loves structured activity? And doesn't she just look so adorable in that little outfit?

His first tooth (bottom, front, right tooth) broke through on Gabe's 30th birthday (12/24/11). His second one (bottom, front, left tooth) came in two days ago. :-) What a big boy!

Today is Jada's 3rd Birthday. The past 3 years have been such a blessing and we are incredibly thankful that God chose us to be her parents.

We celebrated by going out to dinner to Red Robin tonight, as a family. Both of the kids were fantastic. Here are some fun photos of our family along with a video of everyone singing "Happy Birthday" to her. So fun!

Miss Jada is turning 3 years old in just a few days. I can't believe how fast time is flying.

We had a little birthday party for her at our house last Saturday (12/10/11). Because she loves Dora the Explorer and has an equal, if not greater, love for crafts, we decided to throw a Dora themed party with "decorate your own backpack" activity. So fun. Here are pictures from her party.

Jada is potty-trained! We're SO proud of her!!!

Last Wednesday morning (8/31), Jada told me that she wanted to wear her Dora underwear. Immediately, all plans were cancelled for the rest of the week and we started potty training! We are so, so excited that she doesn't want to wear diapers anymore. I think she's been physically ready for a while, but she's a little strong-willed (I have no idea where she got that from... ha ha), so we were just waiting for HER to make the decision that she was ready.

We started Potty Training Boot Camp on Wednesday morning and pretty much just stayed home for the next 6 days. Thursday morning, Tracy and her sweet girls came over for a play date, which was awesome. I get stir crazy very easily (which is why the kids and I usually go somewhere almost every day). It was great to have another mommy over to hang out with and to help hold Micah for me when I had to run Jada to the bathroom a couple of times.

On Friday night, we met the Marson family, at a park for dinner. It was perfect. So wonderful to spend time with friends AND a safe, outdoor place to visit during potty training. :-)

Jada had about 4 accidents the first day, 2/day for the next few days then NONE yesterday or today!!! Whoo hoo! She is doing fabulous.

Here's a little look at Potty Training Boot Camp... a painting station, a "picnic" lunch in the living room, the classy potty chair in the middle of the room & Micah just hanging out trying to suck on his toes. Pretty hardcore training, huh? :-)



Also... today was Jada's "First Day of (home)School"! I started a few days before Micah was born and had a few scattered lessons during the spring (then took the whole summer off), but now we're officially starting. My friend, Brianne and I are following the same curriculum (which is awesome because I need someone to hold me accountable with the lesson planning!) for our kiddos. The plan is to have a 20-30 min. lesson every Mon., Wed., & Fri. morning. I'm going to try to coordinate that with Micah's morning nap... we'll see how successful that is! :-)

Jada really thrives on structure (again... I wonder where she got that from... ha ha!) and I'm looking forward to having a scheduled, intentional one-on-one time with her. She absolutely loves it. She even invited her friend Fiona to school tonight. "Nona, you want to go to school with Jada tomorrow?" (I might just have to throw in an extra day of school this week because she's so excited about it!) :-)

One of my favorite pictures of Jada is her 5-month old shot that I took in front of our neighborhood playground. I thought it would be fun to take a similar picture of Micah, since he's 5-months old, in the same location.

Here's the outcome:


Taken 5/19/2009. My little chunky monkey.




Taken 8/17/2011. My long & lean little man.