Reading, Rolling, Bouncing and Bubbles!

I'm just amazed at how fast my kids are growing. Everyone warns you that it will go by in a blink of an eye, but until you live it, you don't really realize how fast time goes by until you look up one day and suddenly your NEWBORN is 5 1/2 MONTHS old! And James is not only talking up a storm, but he is READING words, for goodness sake. He's not even 3! I'm just astounded at what my kids are capable of... you think of them as those helpless little babies who can't do anything for themselves... Ellie may be a bit of that, but by the way she rolls across the floor to get a toy, she's creeping ever closer to bigger milestones and pretty soon she won't be a baby anymore...

Ellie found her feet this week. She doesn't grab them all the time, but sometimes she manages to get one in her hands. She's also reaching for just about everything... toys, my smoothie cup, food, my cell phone, and basically anything that looks interesting to her. Ellie has excellent head control and is working towards sitting up... she also loves bouncing in the rainforest jumperoo and strengthening her legs. She is always looking for Eliot and will follow him around the room with her eyes and turn her head to see him... she's daddy's girl indeed!

James is letter/number crazy these days. He looks for them everywhere and tries to read almost everything. He's been spelling out words... last night he did WOW and COCONUTS and UP. I've been reading a book about baseball to him (a book that has the original Take me out to the ball game song in it) and he LOVES it. He learned how to say baseball and he does the "one two three" strikes you're out part of the song. I called my dad yesterday and told him about it, and he said, "Next he'll say "Opening day!" Well, guess what he said today? Yep...Opening Day! He's just amazing. :-)

James also helped me plant our sugar snap peas and lettuce in the garden yesterday. He did a great job digging in the dirt, putting the peas in a line, pushing them into the dirt, patting the dirt over them, and watering them with a watering can! I was so happy to be able to share this part of my life with my son. He kept talking about the "seeds" that he and daddy went on an adventure (to the local home improvement store) to go get. James also likes "mowing the lawn" with his toy lawn mower.

The other thing James is into these days (besides Jake and the Neverland Pirates... he is REALLY into that) is airplanes. He loves watching them fly overhead and excitedly says, "I sit on that!!" I told him we will be flying on an airplane soon, and he got all excited (we are going to a family wedding in June). So we've been reading books about the process of getting on an airplane. He saw a picture of a kid eating a snack and having juice on the plane and he said, "I sit on that and eat!" Apparently the idea of dining at 30,000ft is a dream come true for him. :-) I made up a little calendar he can put a sticker on every day until we go so he can learn about months, days of the week, and develop a sense of time.

We will also be potty training James this month, which I am dreading but know it needs to be done because he's ready. Sigh.

In other news, I am singing again with the Oregon Chorale starting this week, and Eliot will be playing in a concert at Benaroya Hall in Seattle later this month on the 24th. Then on the 25th we will be celebrating 7 years of marriage... hard to believe it's been that long. Time flies, I suppose...

Eliot also hosted an Art Show at the college he works at this past week. He even performed a few tunes on the pipes... Here is a short clip from that:


Here are two videos of James spelling some words, followed by a couple pics!



This one... we did NOT tell him the word before Eliot started spelling it.