Garden Faire, Being Crafty, and other random things

 Recently, Ian has been very interested in how things are spelled. We'll spend 5-10 minutes after dinner most nights spelling random words as Ian spells them back one letter at a time. Grammy had the idea of WRITING the letters while we spell them so Ian can see the words written out, too. What a great idea! It's easy to use the chalkboard easel (from Uncle Andrew & Aunt Sarah) we keep in our kitchen to do that. :) Ian also enjoys drawing on the chalkboard, especially lines and zigzags.

Last Saturday, Matt took Ian to the Mercer Arboretum Garden Faire. We stumbled upon this festival last year and thought it was so much fun! This year, Ian enjoyed the free train rides just as much as he did last year.

 But this year, he was able to ride in his very own car!

 Daddy and Ian stopped for a snack and then moved on to some of the activities.

 Ian wasn't interested in the arts/crafts activities this year, but he did like playing with random sticks on the ground as well as seeing the policeman's horse.

 Our little butterfly ... :)

 Riding on the train for the THIRD time!

While Matt and Ian were at the Garden Faire, Kim was getting some of the 150 professional development hours she needs to renew her teaching certificate next December. (Thankfully, she has only about 35 to go!) Kim went with some friends to the Houston Puppetry Festival. All of the workshops were "make and take" ones, so Kim got to be a little crafty!

 This dog was made out of two mini cereal boxes.

 This little boy is created from carpet foam, a paper plate, and felt.

 And this one is Ian's favorite -- The Itsy Bitsy Spider in a cup! He likes to hold up each puppet as Kim (and he) sing. See the below video.

Kim also got to be crafty when our small group had a baby shower for Martha! Even though the Wilton website considered this to be an "easy" pattern, they were a little tricky for this novice cupcake-decorator. Maybe part of it was that I modified a few things (using chocolate chips and Laffy Taffy instead of the candy chips recommended). They ended up looking a little creepy but tasting pretty good! :)

Ian continues to love being helpful around the house. One of his recent favorite chores is helping to gather the garbage from all of the rooms of the house and then dragging the garbage bag to the curb himself.

This video shows one of Ian's current favorite prayers. Notice that he's attempting to snap with the song. (Sorry Kim's voice is a little overpowering ... oops!)

Ian certainly makes us laugh with the things that he’s saying now. He wants to be involved in every conversation and gets a little disgruntled when Matt and I are having our own conversation. He’ll keep asking, “Are you done talking yet?” It’s especially funny to listen to what he says while he’s trying to fall asleep at night. He loves to sing himself Sunday school songs or retell things that have happened recently. There are two topics that he seems to talk about often. He’ll often talk about our eye colors, saying something like, “Daddy has green eyes. Momma has blue eyes. Ian has blue eyes, too.” He also loves to talk about an experience we had at a mall play place where I had to correct another little girl who wasn’t being polite. He’ll tell himself in the crib, “The little girl said (then he’ll make a spitting sound), and Momma said, ‘Don’t do that. It’s not nice.’” It apparently made a big impression on him.  Ha ha.  If any of his friends "get in trouble" during our time with them, Ian doesn't even seem to notice it at the time. But, he'll keep retelling me over and over about what happened when we get home. Not surprisingly, when he's the one that gets in trouble, we don't hear much about that ever again. :)