I had high and lofty goals for teaching Z his alphabet this year, and it’s been going great. I will say though that my previous post about the structured classroom setting with stickers and charts has slowly fallen to the wayside. Thus the reason I am not shy about the fact that I don’t feel called to homeschool.

Still, despite all of that Z has learned all of his colors. Well, not all the colors, but the ones that should be expected from men (according to this illustration).

And I am very happy to announce that he knows all of the letters and their sounds. Not just in order or through song, but by recognition. I can take credit for about 6 of those letters, but the rest he learned when I borrowed The Letter Factor from my friend who told me this educational Leap Frog DVD taught her daughter all the letters in just 2 weeks. I experienced the same results with Z and he loves it. The way they teach the letters by associating them with a sound that a child would already recognize is genius! For example the H’s are all panting because they are H H H Hot. Or Z’s favorite is the letter W because he raps like a skipping record W W W W What’s happening dude? So all of the sounds are easy for children to identify with. When I taught Z that the letter a says “aaa” I left it at that, but in the video all of the letter A’s are scared so they scream “AAAAH”. It just makes sense, and it works. I recommend this video to anyone with little ones wanting to learn the alphabet. In fact I need to go buy a copy myself so that I can give the one I have back to my friend!

Today I went to pick up the babysitter and as she was walking to the car Z said “she wore that shirt last time” and he was right, but I wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t said anything. His keen clothing observation makes me think of his dad. He gets a lot of traits from his dad.

For example I think he must have a 10 gallon bladder. I think it’s pretty common for most people to make a trip to the bathroom first thing in the morning, but Z can go hours before I realize he still hasn’t had a potty break all day after sleeping through the night. This is definitely not from me. Sorry if that’s TMI.

Also, Z is a totally cuddle bug, completely affectionate towards all of us and that has to be J too. J comes from a family of huggers, and he has a reputation of hugging. To him you hug when you say goodbye, even if you will see that person the next day.

I have also noticed that Z seems to have a profound awareness of location for a 3 year old. When we were in Kentucky we went to my brother’s house and my mom (who has been there dozens of times) pulled into the wrong driveway, so Z (who has only been there once or twice) says “this isn’t the right house”. It was crazy. I have my mom’s sense of direction Z has his dad. When he gets older he’ll probably be my human GPS.

He loves to make up songs like his old man. He’s a total night owl, that’s J too. He also likes scary stories and he’s a picky eater all stuff that comes from my husband. THE LIST GOES ON. The older Z gets the more of his dad I see in him, but that’s not to say he doesn’t have any of my traits. I definitely get credit for his brown eyes and love of chocolate.

Do you know of any traits from you or your kids that are directly linked with certain family members?

I should have posted this last week, but I was busy being out of town. Not much to tell for my couponing last week because I am kind of taking a break, but I did liquidate all of my extra bucks on this diaper deal were I purchase $25 worth of diapers and wipes for $6.21 using a print out coupon and my extra bucks (+ I got $5 EB back so it was almost like getting it for $1). Some people travel with cloth diapers, but I am not one of them so I figured that CVS would be the place for me to snag a super great deal on this rare purchase.

This brings my total savings for the past two months to $141.12

“It was the best of times it was the worst of times” -good ol’ Dickens.

In this case my two cities were Cincinnati and Dallas.

Z and my mom on the way to Cincinnati

I’m actually not back home yet, but I am back on the blogosphere for the first time in a week. The trip to Kentucky/Ohio has been a success.

I can’t wait to see J again. It’s hard to say goodbye for a week.

Z got his first set of wings
and the kids did great on the plane thanks to some bribes snacks. One of the first things I got to do was enjoy an awesome girls night. The guys watched the kids and my mom, sisters, and I all went out and painted pottery together.

My two sister in laws and me at Color Me Mine

We also got to visit with extended family

My niece with my aunt the one that does the paintings.

and I even got to go to my sister in law’s sonogram checkup where they discovered that they are having a boy! I don’t think I mentioned that “the other Jeremy & Natalie” were pregnant again. So my niece and nephew will be 14 months apart and Z will have a boy cousin on my side of the family. YAY!

It’s been a busy week full of good times. I will share more later.

This week I am feeling so much better and had a wonderful day spending time with my little family before the kids and I head out to Kentucky. Tomorrow is the big travel day. 2 1/2 hours in the air with both kids. It will be interesting to see how they do. I am not really worried about Z. SJ has flown before too, but that was when she was an infant that could take a bottle and sleep in my arms. It’s a different story now, but my mom will be with us so hopefully it will all go smoothly. Z is so excited about flying! Each year holidays, conversations, and everyday discoveries become more exciting for him, which make it more exciting for me, and more fun for all of us.

I probably won’t be posting too much this week since I will be away, but I am sure I will be adding pics to my Instagram. Instagram is an app that allows you to share little glimpses of your everyday life through snapshots taken on your phone. They have different filters to choose from and of course you can comment and “like” on all your friends photos too. You can also post them on Facebook or Twitter. I only have a few friends that do it, but it’s been fun. My profile name is messymom you can look me up if you have an account. Here are the last 4 pictures I have on my Instagram.

Fresh cilantro from our garden, which went straight into my guacamole. YUM!

SJ at the park with for this “little” guy’s first birthday.

I titled this one “Life at the zoo”

That’s J on the roof of our friends soon to be loft apartment. This has been his primary building project over the past few months.

More to come

In April a tornado touched down nearby and some high winds caused damage in our neighborhood. Well, a week ago we had a team of roofers come out and pound on our house for several hours and by sunset we had a whole new roof. Plus J and one of our friends built a gable. The roof over our front entrance was flat before and this addition was much needed to complete the look of this old house we have been renovating for the past 7 years. It’s not done yet and I do not want to claim any projected date of completion. I have been living with Tim the Tool Man Taylor J for long enough now to know that every project takes way longer than expected. I am excited about the little makeover though. Every step closer to completing our dream is something to celebrate.

I will do some before and after pictures of the gable when we are done. J still has to add the staggered shingles. I didn’t really like that idea at first, but we drove around half of the day on Monday for J to point out different homes that had this style. It’s a great strategy really, if he holds me hostage long enough I will agree to anything. I kid. It does amaze me though that I never noticed any of these houses before. And that is not the first time this has happened. I never cared about fences. You could have asked me about whether fence poles should face inward or outward and I would have responded “fences have poles?” As it turns out as general rule it is considered a curtosy to have the finished side of the fence facing away from your property. Besides, fences were created in part for protecting your home. It’s too easy for someone to climb or peer over when the rails are on the outside. However since we have done all the research we’ve noticed that a lot of people actually have the outside facing inside their yard. This makes sense to me because most of us are actually trying to keep our children or pets caged in more than anything. Then there are some people that have a bigger budget that have the picket fences finished on both side so the poles don’t show at all. As you can see from this photo of SJ we did not have that luxury.