Aquarium

Being that today is MLK day, the Fort Fisher Aquarium has free admission. So I bundled the girls up and headed that way. Being that I am prompt, we arrived at the Aquarium before it opened... so after 5 minutes of sitting in the car, we made our journey inside.
There were so many wonderful (and some icky) animals to see. Some of Hana's favorite, despite my quietly made faces, were the alligators. They were very still since it was so cold, but they didn't mind being right next to the glass. Hana didn't seem to notice. (you should click on this picture so you can see just how close they were!)



We saw many other exciting fish, turtles, stingrays, jellyfish, and the ever popular Nemo fish. I could add pictures of those, but they pretty much all look the same, Hana looking at tank... and how many pictures of that do you really need to see?? (I thought 2 would be sufficient)




Brooke spent much of the day in the stroller, looking at (and waving to) fish and friends. She did not seem to mind.


She did get out a couple of times to see some fish.


We ran into some friends, Monica (with Josh and George) and Mark and Emily (with Noah). We decided to check out the alligators one more time one the way out (the reason for this was Hana's previously mentioned affection for alligators).


All in all it was a really good morning and totally worth free!

Sisters

After Hana got up from her nap yesterday...

The girls had some nice sister playtime!



Hana shared her "baby" with Brooke. This is a BIG deal because it is Hana's favorite baby (who's name is Baby).

Hana played with a baby of her own (who's name is Daddy).


All of this sister fun, makes me miss MY sister :)







Brooke pulled up to standing for the first time yesterday. She was sitting on the floor playing with the "table of fun"... and she slowly pulled herself up to standing!! Yea Brooke!!
This is a picture right after she pulled up.

Brooke says "dada"

Brooke has just started saying things that sound like real sounds. Don't get me wrong, she still loves to scream... but she is finally some real making sounds.

In this video she is saying "dada"!! Of course that would be the first thing that she would say. But here you go, crank up the volume and hear Brooke speak!!

Hana's (and my) First Parent-Teacher Conference

note: this is going to be a bit boring, if you are not interested in Hana and her preschool progress :) (please feel free to skip this if you want)

I had my first parent-teacher conference today being on the "parent-end". It went really well :) She is growing up!!
I got a progress report that had about 40 different areas that they should have accomplished by the end of the year (and it is only January!). Out of those 40 Hana had accomplished all but 4 of them! They are things like "learning control over emotions", "answers questions about story as it is read", "uses language to communicate wants and ideas", "manipulates various art media correctly", "runs", "jumps", "put toys away correctly", and other academic areas. She was accomplished in all but one of the academic areas which were things like "recognizes colors" "beginning to recognize letter symbols", "rote counting", "identifies basic shapes" etc etc. The teacher said that she was "blown away" by the way Hana knew her letters (on the paper it showed that Hana knew about 1/2 of the letters and I was thinking "but she knows ALL of them!!"Maybe my standards are a bit higher than I thought ;). She said that she was above the rest of the class in academics. She also said that she was a very sweet child who loves hugs and that she listens and follows directions. She said that Hana was doing A LOT better with learning to play and share with others (one of the 4 areas that she needs to practice more!). The teacher said that she had made a lot of progress from November in that area.
All in all I felt that it went really well and that the preschool is a great fit for Hana!!!

I left and went to Moms group where Emily asked if I had the smartest kid in class... I said "kind of"...

I just had to share these, oh so sweet and innocent, sleeping pictures of Hana :)

January 14th

When Hana turned one and we went to the Doctor for her check up I read in the "what to do with your child at this age..." papers that she was supposed to be drinking milk and she was supposed to be doing it from a sippy cup. I went right home, took away her bottles and promptly replaced them all with cups. This came as quite a shock to the one year old (who had not read the "papers"). So in order to avoid the same mistake twice, I have started giving Brooke a sippy cup now. Keep in mind that she has NO idea what to do with it, but at least at her one year check up I will know that she has at least SEEN a sippy cup before :)

(And the child can not keep her eyes open for a picture to save her life- but she is happy!)


We went to the park today with Monica and KJ (and their kids of course) and had a really nice time (most of which I did NOT catch on camera). I did get a couple of cute pictures of Hana riding (or should I say, sitting on and walking with) her bike :)







Also on a happy note! Those of you who are not in "the know" will be happy to find out that Jack got his Promotion/ New job!! After months and months of waiting (OK really it was like 2 weeks, but it FELT like months- since waiting is just one of my many strong points!!) he found at he got the job!! We are so proud of him!! He will be finishing up some work and training a new person in his old job, so he will be starting the new job February 1st (it is still with the same company, just a new job and more Benjamins). I just wanted to share with everyone how proud we are of him!!

Way to go Honey!!







Also just wanted to share that after a visit to the Doctor last week, they think Hana has a hernia and will most likely need surgery. We are going to the surgeon on the 25th of January and should know more then. I will keep everyone posted to her progress!

70s in January

Since it has been in the 70s for the last few days (IN January), we had to enjoy some time outside!

The girls played together :)

Brooke liked to touch the sand and...

She ate some :) (Where have we seen that guilty face before... her sister maybe??)




Hana ran around the yard... stomping like an elephant

as Brooke watched

she also flew like a bird and hopped like a frog- this must be something from preschool, as we do not do much of this at home ;)

Happy 2008

It is so hard to believe that it is 2008 already!
Christmas went by so fast. We had a great time with everyone and we were really sorry that we had to go! The good family times just don't seem to last long enough.

To change the subject, we got back our activity table for Brooke to play with. Needless to say she had a great time standing and playing with it.





I found a couple of old pictures of Hana playing with the same table and I thought I would share them as well... it doesn't seem like it has been two years since she was standing there playing with the table! (It is so amazing how fast time goes!)





Here is a picture of the two of them just hanging out :)

And a cute pictures of Hana as well!


I have to share another Hana-ism (but a good one this time). I went in to get her from bed one morning and she was sitting up in bed. I asked her want she was doing and she said "I was scared so I was praying to Jesus." It is nice to know that some of the good things (not only the bad) are getting through to her!


Much love from the Cornwalls!