we are an EXERCISING bunch!

josiah is such a good big brother- he lets sissy tackle him and he is pretty gentle back (most of the time)- this day she tackled him and then started pouncing on him...so his sweet self decided it was time for the parent/baby sit ups :) i mean, why not get a good work out instead of a beat down!

oh, oh Evie Joy!

one of my bad habbits is following sissy...i mean she doesn't always have the brightest ideas, but i don't really care, i don't think too much about it, i just do what she does...why??? maybe because i'm 3, it looks fun, i'm a little boy....
so here we are reorganizing underwear?!!

oh no! sissy is climbing up to the top bunk and playing!!! ahhhh, that girl!

and she still loves crawling through bro bro's chair...

And PWAY-DOH...oh yes, she spends many a hours playing PWAY-DOH

it gets us through many trips out and about!

very wonderful since she is still unwilling to watch a show

evie joy loves these books!

These are EJ's fav books at 17 months...

Pete & PJ (she loves to sing Wishy Washy Wee)

My Many Colored Days

Jesus Loves Me (Debbie Anderson version, whole book is read/sung to this tune- this was her original favorite so she sang this to every book she opened for awhile)

Jesus is With Me

Hands, Hands, Fingers, Thumbs

Brown Bear Brown Bear

The Night Before Cmas (recorded by MiMi & Poppe)

I See the Me God Made (She loves going through every page and pointing to the different body parts in the picture and then on her)
This Little Piggy (every time i change her socks, she says 'Piggy...Wee Wee Wee' and giggles with glee)

And of course her old time fav, Pat a cake ( she loves to rollllll it....)

here she is acting out "Hands Hands Fingers Thumb"
maybe i will try to get it on video

some oldies but goodies!

my teacher took these the night he came over for cmas dinner

i thought they were good enough to add as a late cmas post :)

i love her beautiful natural smile and laugh he captures!

welcoming new friends to our home

this is our friend Summer & her friend

they came over to play, we had lots of fun cooking and...

these are our friends who came over to 'practice' english :) i was a very good teacher!

yay for new pals & for jo's hospitable attitude!

We love the Dinosaur Playground!!

dressed for the game...watching Mickey Mouse :)

my kids love to help clean! yippie!

they are so funny, if they see a broom, they will sweep

this day they saw a stack of cleaning rags and decided they couldn't resist the urge to clean....

home-pre-school...what are we doing?

so i finally gave in...

my kidos, they love structure, they have both put themselves on feeding and sleeping schedules as babies, not me...and well now they've been crying out in so many ways for a more scheduled day at home, ugh, i really didn't want to do it, but now that we've been kicking for a few weeks, we are really having a good time

our day goes something like this (of course each day with it's own flavor):

8-9 free play

9 listen to a book on cd

9:30 music

10 free play

10:30 art

11 exercise

11:30 reading/bible

12:30 lunch with chinese lesson (cartoon)

free play or any other activity they loved from earlier that day

2 nap

we have gotten tons of wonderful educational type books/cds/dvds/toys from our wonderful supportive family and friends in america so i try to spice it up and plan ahead, alternating what we use to learn and play each day/week

jo goes to chinese preschool still 2 days a week and we do this 3 days a week

evie joy is learning tons and loves it, she is a little learning sponge

it has been good also for them during the cold since we can't just go for a buggy ride or play outside so easily; i'm very thankful for my kidos who love to learn and play and enjoy time with their mama

this is jo and ej reenacting jesus calming the wind and the waves...
art time, jo loves it!

ej enjoying our reading corner

exercise time! we try to do different activities everyday...

more exercise time!

i'm sure we'll have many more of our home preschool pics to come...

some things we've especially loved so far is our thomas the train day, making cookies, playing with scissors and glue, studying math on the chalkboard!

josiah's i'm 3 years old haircut

so this was a pretty fun family outting over to the hair place, we just choose the one mommy went to before that has a cool jeep for me to sit in...i was very excited about that

this is me and my new 'big boy' dew

sissy wanted to get in for a ride, not a hair cut

so of course i let her!

handsome me!

random evie joy ness...

i love going with my bro bro to preschool

because well i love the attention and they all love me

they like me to jump in and participate

like this day, they had some new years party/competition

it was a parent/child competition but one of jo's teachers and i competed...we didn't really do that great :)

this is daddy's teacher's little girl. she came to my house to play
we ate noodles and played with my toys :)

i love the sheep cartoon...and this cool fun sheep toy i bang around and it makes fun noises

me and uncle ivan :)

"cook cook" as i call it- this is my new kitchen and i'm all about doing some cooking these days!

i love practicing making cookies :)

and i love my slide! lately one of my favs is going down face first!

oh yeah, everything in my world is just about wonderful!

except...mommy decided she wasn't going to request me to try a sippy anymore so she just took my bottle away, yup i'm not a baby anymore, i'm over 16 months old, i need to be drinking out of a cup, so i am...the first day i cried 3 hours, second day 1 hour and from there it got better of course...and i only get my paci at sleep times which is funny bc sometimes i ask to lay down randomly bc i want my paci :) i'm so funny :) the pic above was of course when i was allowed to have my paci and when i see pics of myself with my paci, i sure like to talk about it :0 but of course i like to talk about EVERYTHING...mommy and daddy suppose that is bc i'm a girl or something but oh my goodness do i over communicate about EVERYTHING! yup....that's me!