Computer literacy?

If you have a toddler you must try this website: http://hiyah.net/online.htm

It contains a bunch of slideshows for toddlers containing pictures, simple animations, and some music and speech. Your kid controls the slideshow by pushing the spacebar. I liked the nursery rhyme section best, but of course Gavin's favorite was the transportation slideshow:

Gavin's speech is coming along pretty well. He's starting to say more 2 word phrases, and once in a while he'll say a 3 or 4 word phrase. Yesterday he said "I'll do it." A few days ago he got mad at me when I turned off the tv and said "turn the tv on!" It was garbled, but he said it. His vocabulary is growing every day, but he has some favorite words he says most often: "cars", "choo choo", "bad guys", "dig!" (big), "tools", "dire ducks" (fire trucks), "bee-bop" (robot), "juice", "hero", "babies" (means little or diapers), "worios" (can mean cheerios or m&ms), "Melmo" (Elmo), "iders" (spiders) and of course "dig duck" (big truck).

weekly happenings

We had an ice storm overnight Sunday Jan 9. That's very unusual here, I can only recall one other time it has happened since we moved here. It's rarer than snow. After the storm our yard was covered in what looked like snow but was really ice. It covered the roads too, and shut down the town. School was cancelled for 2 days and the base was closed for a day and a half, so Jake got a snow day from work. We were all too sick to go play outside, but it took several days for all the ice to melt. On Saturday afternoon there was still a patch in a shady spot in the flower bed by our garage. It was a beautiful afternoon, so we all went out to play. First we took a walk on the wooded paths by our house. There are several, and we happened to end up at a dead end on the route we took. After that Gavin played in the remaining ice:

Then he helped me rake pine needles:

And Jake started clearing out the flower beds:

where we found this hiding under all the brush:

On Tuesday we took a trip to Lowes and found a tape measure keychain. Gavin claimed it as his own and has been busy measuring everything in the house:

Also of note this past week - I taught a couponing class at church last Thursday night. There was a large attendence - about 40 women, and they seemed to enjoy my presentation. Since then several of them have told me they have started using coupons, which is awesome. I love to help people save money.

The Best Toy Ever. Really.

We've been sick. Gavin got it first, then me. Now Gavin and I are still sniffly and Jake has it. Sore throat, low fever, runny nose, cough, chills and hot flashes. I really thought it was the flu, but Gavin's doctor said it was just a bad cold. She gave Gavin cough medicine, which didn't do a darn thing. There's even a warning label on the medicine bottle that states it has not been shown to be effective for children under the age of 6. He was pretty miserable for about a week. Finally the past couple days he's been feeling better. Yesterday he felt up to taking a spin in a toy I picked up for a steal in an after Christmas sale. And it's the best toy ever made. It's a remote control car...that your kid rides in while you control!

With the flip of a switch it can be controlled by the rider through a pedal and the steering wheel. Gavin hasn't figured out the whole steering thing yet. He does like to run into walls. We have to keep the car in another room because Gavin has a tendency to sit in it, buckle the seatbelt, play with the wheel a few seconds, then yell "stuck!" Repeatedly. I got tired of unbuckling him.