Letter Factory

A long time ago, Auntie Lorie gave us a Leapfrog "Letter Factory" DVD - and when we returned from Christmas, we thought that this might be the prime time to bring it out and let Zachary watch it - he's been interested in his ABCs to a large degree the last few months, and sure enough - the DVD was a huge hit!  So much so, that in the space of about one week, Zachary has mastered all of his ABCs (he knew them about 90% before, but he would occasionally miss one or two when you would point them out in a book etc).  Not only did he master the ABCs, but he has mastered the sound that each letter makes.  It's so fun to see your kids learn new skills!  He loves to tell you the letters and the sounds that they make now.  Amy has started having him guess what letter certain words start with by emphasizing the first letter of the word for him - and he's batting just about a perfect score so far!  He thinks that it's a quite fun game, so it's a win-win all around.

Kaleb's language is exploding - we've been including his new words in the weekly "phrase of the week" but truthfully his vocabulary has just taken off like a rocket.  He's trying to say Zachary, "peek" (very handy for playing peek-a-boo, and socks!  We hesitate to say it, but we also think that he might be crossing over into the "independent year" aka "terrible twos" so we're beginning to experience shrieking (shrieking enough to wake the dead) when he doesn't get his way.  Such fun (almost as fun as getting a shot! :))  Ah well, at least we know that it is just a phase.

This week we have seen a fair amount of rain, and one day as Karis was leaving Miss Jennifer's with the boys, Kaleb discovered the mud puddles - and before long the boys were jumping and playing in the mud puddles!  One of the true joys of childhood!

Phrase of the week:  Mom, you're the best in the whole world.  Ahh, phrases like that make up for the ones in which he tell Mom to leave early from Miss Jennifer's! :)  Kaleb's phrase this week "heese!" - he has already picked up the habit of saying cheese when the camera comes out!

A sweet moment with the boys reading their books together in Zachary's room - Kaleb is in the middle of shouting "heese!!!" in this picture!

 The boys are being quite good playmates, and were enjoying the remote control car that Auntie Lorie gave them for Christmas. (P.S. - thank you Auntie Lorie for the correction - this gift is actually from Gram-Z! Mommy's age is finally catching up to her, and the memory is beginning to fade! :))