Flashback Friday

I'm pretty sure I have posted this before but it's just too good not to share again.
Happy early Birthday Kyle!!
I love you!

Earthquake

This morning I was downstairs doing my bible study when all of a sudden I felt the couch shaking. I didn't know what to think at first but quickly I knew it was an earthquake and not sure how long it would last I started to head back upstairs to check on Kyle and the girls but then it stopped. I turned on the T.V. and checked the internet to see if there was any information about it. King 5 reports that it was a 4.6 and happened around 5:27 a.m. Also, I found this site. I knew we lived in an earthquake region but I didn't know we actually have little earthquakes all the time. Did anyone else feel it?

Things I don't want to forget #9-11

9. How excited Liliana gets when Kyle get home from work.

10. That Talia has started to use the words "indeed", "suppose" and "brilliant". She will add them into conversation whenever she can and it makes me smile every time because she has the context correct each time she uses them.

11. Talia calls me "Mama" more than she calls me "Mommy". It used to bother me a bit because "Mommy" sounded a bit more endearing to me than "Mama" but I know love that she calls me "Mama". She uses it a lot throughout the day and it warms my heart that it is her own special name for me.

Lil's new trick

Lil has been doing push ups for a while now but this afternoon her little push ups turned into her putting her chubby feet flat onto the floor and trying to push herself up. I couldn't believe she was trying to do this so I had to grab my camera and take a few shots.

Semi-Wordless Wednesday

I love this scrunched up Lil face...definetly one I don't want to forget. It looks a bit silly but it usually comes before she giggles and it makes me giggle every time.

A tea party set for two this week. Taking advantage of Lil's morning nap to spend some time with just Tal.

Something new to play with

Welcome Home!

(*pictures pirated from Joslyn's blog)

Welcome Home Arns Family!!

We have missed you these last three months as you have done the Lord's work in China. We are so excited and thankful to be able to spend some time with each of you! We hope that this break will be restful, encouraging and peaceful too!

New Look

Tal picked out my new background. "Mommy it has pink and hearts...you should pick that one!"

Wordless Wednesday

How did that happen?

I just got done pulling a teeny tiny Barbie shoe out of Talia's nose. After some prayer and a little help from some tweezers it got unstuck just as I was on hold with the doctor's office. I thought that I only had to keep those shoes away from Lil. I guess we will be putting those away for a little while. When I became a Mom I never thought that "pulling out doll shoes from daughter's nose" would be something that I could put on my resume. I'm just glad it came out!

My girls

Just didn't want the picture of the dropped spagetthi to be the first thing you saw on my blog!

A real Wordless Wednesday

Whoopsy!! Guess we won't be having leftovers tomorrow.

Semi-Wordless Wednesday

Mom...today I'm going to be a Princess Superhero!
And away she went!

This is my FAVORITE Lil face....she scrunches up her nose and smiles.

I love it!!

Giggling at her sister....

Houston....we have a crawler...or a centipede...

Speaking of milestones.....

I couldn't leave Talia out of my blog as I'm bragging about my kiddos. Kyle poked fun of me last night after he saw my post on Lil. He said I should have added that she is also doing complex math equations among all the other things I listed.

Can I help it that I'm a proud mommy?

Well onto Talia....It has been very exciting and fun for both Kyle and I to see how Talia has learned and explored language and reading skills. We have seen Talia go through the progression of learning her letters and sounds to which has lead to pre reading skills, phonemic awareness, memorizing books, and making up her own words and stories. She has been able to read words in isolation for a long time now and recognize various signs/words (i.e. Target, Starbucks, etc....I guess you know where we like to visit) as well as put some simple sounds together to read words. However, this past week brought a new milestone for us when Talia opened up a book and started really reading the words, really reading the story. Last week as I was folding laundry, Lil was playing next to me and Tal was looking through a stack of books including some that I had out for Lil. I could see her starting to look at some of the books I had out for Lil including the book "Barnyard Dance" by Sandra Boyton. Tal started to name each letter in each word on the page. She was talking quietly to herself and I could hear her begin to sound the words out after she had gone through naming the letters. When I asked her what she was doing and if she wanted to share with me, she brought the book over to me and we started looking at the words together. I asked her if she wanted to put the sounds and letters together to make the words and read the story. Without hesitation she started to read the word "stomp" and then continued with some help from me to read the rest of the sentence on the page. I was so excited and proud of her! After years of working with first graders and teaching different children how to read it was such a joy to be able to experience this with her. After we finished "Barnyard Dance" I then got out some easy readers that I had used in my classroom and we began to read through them together. I didn't finish folding the laundry until later that night but it was sure a fun afternoon. I feel so blessed to be able to be home with my girls and to be the one who gets to witness these milestones.

8 months in....

It's hard to believe that my baby girl is 8 months old already. In the beginning it didn't seem to go as fast but that was probably because I was sleep deprived and trying to figure out how to parent two kiddos. It now seems to be flying by. Lil is such a sweet baby with a cute little personality that we are learning about more and more each day. Here are a few of her favorite things:

• Waves hi...if you ask her to say hi she'll put her hand up and down quickly and smile...too cute!
• Knows her mommy, daddy and sister by name
• Be bops to music
• Pulling open drawers and trying to get what's inside
• Starting slowly to pull herself up
• Loves to do push-ups
• Does a combination of the "army" crawl, hopping herself on her tummy, rolling over and scooting to get around a room
• Likes to drink water from her cup
• Learning how to feed herself finger foods, not always successful but fun to watch her try
• Says "Daaad" and looks at Kyle and "Mooom" and looks at me
• Has one tooth
• Has her own way of signing "more"...it's more like gimme
• Bangs two objects together (likes to make a lot of noise)
• Plays peek-a-boo
• Drops toys off of her booster seat and watches them land on the floor (and then sometimes gets frustrated when those toys don't automatically get put back onto her tray)
• Has clapped a few times
• Loves to stand up and push off with her chubby little legs
• Takes two naps (sometimes only one)
• Has a smile that lights up a room