They Grow So Fast!

One of my favorite parts of having children is watching them learn new things and reach different milestones. Philip is at a wonderful age. He comes up with the funniest stories and says just the silliest things everyday. His recent phrase is "That's so funny! Ha Ha!" He says it at random times, not always when anything funny actually happened, and he doesn't laugh at the end but actually just says ha ha. I've got to get it on video! While visiting Jonathan and Lori last weekend, Lori and I compared stories and she said Hannah has make believe tea parties. I look forward to hearing who Braewyn invites to her parties, but in the meantime, I hear almost daily about which game Philip is off to play and then if his team won or not. He'll say, "I'm going to play ball with the boys." (He's not aspiring to be just like his Daddy or anything!) The funny part is that half the time, he'll come back and say his team lost. I guess I should be glad he understands how the world really works. But I was concerned when earlier this week he told me, "I was playing soccer ball (he can't just say soccer), and the other guy kicked me in the face." Oh, I hope that's not a sign of inner turmoil or something.

Anyway, a few of the new things Philip is learning these days is how to cook and what school will be like. He is always asking what we're doing when preparing dinner so Matthew and I try to let him help out a little whenever possible. Tonight, he mixed the Italian dressing and spice pack together for our Pasta Salad. Overall, he does quite well.

I just don't feel like God is leading me to home-school my children, but after seeing the workbooks Hannah is working in these days, I was excited to buy one for Philip. As smart as he is, I may as well teach him all I can so he's ahead of the game when it's time to really go to school. We've had "school" twice this week and we've both had such a great time. I bring out his workbook (Preschool Scholar with a farm theme which he picked out himself at Walmart), and he picks a crayon from his crayon cup (it's actually a Moe's kid cup but he loves it because you can put the crayons away through the straw hole!). We sit down together at the coffee table and do as many pages in the workbook as he wants (each time we've done 3 pages). Here he is after "school" today. This page shows a lesson in size comparison. He had to circle the largest object from each line. The extra lesson at the bottom of the page instructed us to find a pair of shoes from each person in our home and put them in largest to smallest order. Philip was really excited when I told him we were going on a "shoe hunt"! It was a lot of fun.

I cannot thank the Lord enough for this wonderful little person He has blessed my life with!

Braewyn is my beautiful, sweet, baby girl. I say that because I get so mad at myself for not being as excited over her accomplishments as I was with Philip as an infant. I know that sleep deprivation has a lot to do with it as well as the frustration that occurs when I'm trying to feed her rice cereal and Philip is running around, singing, throwing things in the air and it is all REALLY interesting to Braewyn who could really not seem to care less about the spoon in front of her. This photo was from the first time she had rice cereal. If only she were always that excited.

Now having a FULLY VERBAL toddler, it's just that much harder to have a baby who can't tell you exactly what's going on and why she's crying. I wouldn't trade my life for anything, but I hope there are other moms reading this and agreeing from the same experiences.