Literacy!

Andrew wrote his very first word while making a Valentine's Day card to send to his Grandpa and Grandma in Pittsburgh. Again, sorry to my parentals that he refused to work on a 2nd card--we'll make it up to you.  :)

Here it is!

I showed him how to write the letters on a separate piece of paper and then he wrote them all by himself on the card!  And, he cut out the heart, glued it, and made the face!  So excited about all these steps toward a literate Andrew!  That's gonna be great!

Matthew's pretty eager to become a little reader himself.  Here he is doing one of his favorite things:

And, here's Andrew reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Matthew:  

"Look! He ate strawberries. Then he ate all this other food.  Then, he made a cocoon and stayed in it for 2 hours, and then became a beautiful butterfly!" ~Andrew

I guess that's a good cliff note version of the story, except the changing of 2 weeks into hours.  That's one fast metamorphosis!

Have a very Happy Valentine's Day everyone! 

Growing Up

Andrew recently started going to preschool one morning per week.  We wanted to get him used to being dropped off with a "teacher" and hanging out with other kids since he will be starting preschool for real in the fall.  So far, Andrew loves school, which was made very clear by the mother of all tantrums he threw when I picked him up on his first day.  Luckily, he's now accepted that he can't live there, and happily comes home with me.

When I picked Andrew up this week, his teachers were excited to tell me that he's the only kid in his age group that actually draws faces when they give him blank pictures.  They said everyone else just scribbles all over the picture, but look what Andrew did:

What a happy snowman!  I was actually shocked that he drew that--I've never seen him draw more than round-rounds (spirals) when he colors.

One morning this week, we headed to Barnes and Noble for story time and I bought Andrew some workbooks for preschoolers--we got one on writing the alphabet and one for cutting and pasting.  Andrew and I get some quiet time together to work on the workbooks after Matthew goes down for his nap and Andrew seems to like feeling like a big kid doing school work.  Ha!  The former teacher in me loves that I'm tricking him into doing homework!

Here he is getting some mad scissor skills--

This morning, Andrew and Matthew had their first dentist appointments.  They both did great, but man, are they spoiled!  This is a dentist office just for kids and they have TV's above every seat, so Andrew actually watched a movie while his teeth were cleaned.

In other news, this little guy turned 16 months old this week:

Here's what happens...

...when you:
1.  Give your 3 year old your cell phone to keep them quiet for a few minutes in the morning, then
2.  Forget that you've given them your cell phone, then
3.  Head to the kitchen to make coffee, then
4.  Sit down at night and look at your photos.

And, here's what happens when that same 3 year old spends their entire nap time awake: