We Have A Walker and A Reader (sort of)

Dylan is walking!!! Over the last couple of weeks Dylan has been walking more and more and getting adventures with taking more than just 5 steps. He has just taken off with his walking and I finally took out the video camera the other day to capture both Dylan's walking and Ava's very encouraging, cheering.

My updates on the kids have been pretty weak lately because we've been so busy with lots of fun events to post about. It's about time for an update. I'll try to keep them short, but I have lots to catch up on.

Dylan's Update:
1) Dylan is walking!
2) He loves to climb up the stairs, but now he can turn around at the top and go down backwards on his tummy without help.
3) His favorite outdoor activities are swinging, sliding down slide on his bottom or his tummy, crawling in tunnels, eating wood chips, and digging in the dirt.
4) Dylan can point to your nose, eyes, and mouth when you ask him and is accurate about 85% of the time. We're working on feet and toes.
5) When pointing, Dylan now says "this." It's not a clear "this" but we can tell what he's trying to say. Other newly added words are "eeee" for weeee and "uh oh". He's working on some animals noises, but most of them sound like "mmmm" for mooing like a cow.
6) Dylan takes two long naps during the day and sleeps at least 12 hours a night, thus he's a well rested, very happy little boy.
7) He's a very smiley baby (toddler) and loves to laugh really hard. He now squeezes his eyes closed and makes a funny face when he laughs.
8) Eating is one of his favorite activities, but when he's done he'll let you know with a loud scream. If he's not getting fed fast enough or there's not enough food on his tray he, again, will let you know with a loud scream. He's thrown the sign language for "more" out the door and instead just screams.
9) Dylan's screaming has climbed to a whole new level as he loves to scream with excitement about everything from dancing, throwing balls, running his train around the house, to, of course eating. We're now working on whispering and talking softly.
10) Bath time is by far Dylan's favorite activity; he just LOVES the water. Over the last three weeks, Dylan, on his own has started to lay down on his tummy and kick his legs, dunk his head under water, and blow bubbles.
11) Dylan is ok with story time if you catch him at the right moment, but otherwise he'll make it through about half of the story and then shuts the pages for you.
12) He's getting much better about putting the correct shapes (cypher, cube, star or triangle) into the correctly shaped hole in the bucket, but when he's tired of playing he cheats and takes the lid off the bucket and drops the shapes in.
14) Dylan's a little dancer and loves to turn on the iPod in Ava's room.
13) After having a girl, I must say Dylan is such a boy. He likes to wrestle, roll around on the floor and is simply rough with everything. Nothing is handled gently, however he sure loves hugs and blowing everyone kisses.

Ava's Update:
1) Wow! What a difference a year can make. 7 months right up to 3 years was easy and fun with minor tantrums and then 3 came and it was a little more challenging. About 2 months after Ava turned 4, we're now back to the fun, easy Ava with some minor tantrums and disagreements.
2) Ava can count to 100 and can also count to 100 by 10's.
3) She can write all her letters very well, both lower case and upper case.
4) Ava is starting to sound out words and trying to spell some on her own. The other day she spelt "lets go" and then wanted to write sunglasses so we sounded out the letters and she came up with the spelling of "sunglasis." I thought that was great.
5) She can read many site words like it, at, is, on, up, etc... and the other day after school she read to Simon and I the words hat, sit, dad, hit, sat, mat, cat, it and at. There are many words like dog and stop that she has memorized, but when we're reading stories she does a great job trying to sound out the words.
6) Ava has such enthusiasm to learn so we've been encouraged by her teachers to practice other activities outside the classroom that the students aren't learning yet, such as rhyming and opposites. Ava understanding rhyming and opposites very well now and she comes up with some of the funniest rhymes and opposites. They're great games for killing time in the car.
7) At parent teacher conferences, we were told how well Ava is doing in school and how bright she is. The areas we need to help Ava work on is reminding her that she doesn't need to worry about what the other kids are working on. Ava tends to correct the other kids and worries that they're not doing it the right way. We're working on Ava worrying about just Ava. Ava also tends to shout out the answers during circle time if she has her hand up, but is still not being called on. Yes, we have a little know-it-all, but I guess we'd rather have that problem than not.
9) Ava has a huge heart and has so much empathy for her friends, family and babies.
10) Ava is the hardest working little girl I know and LOVES to help others. She is such a hard worker both at home and in school and is always willing to lend a hand. If another kid falls, she's right there to brush off their knee and if Simon needs help outside with projects she's out the door in seconds to be his right hand man (girl).
11) Gymnastics, dance class, going to the park (daily) and show-and-tell are her favorite activities.
12) Ava loves to play pretend, read books, color, sing (lots of singing in our house), write her letters, do puzzles, and help me cook and measure for baking.
13) Ava's learning to be a little jokester and likes to make other's laugh and of course loves to laugh with her little brother, Dylan.