A-B-C
I sat Paulchen down and made him work some more on his writing today.  He usually fights me and I cannot get him to do his letters properly.  Today he surprised me.  He sat down and got a little distracted, but for the most part, he wrote A, B, C, D, H and I.  And he did them pretty darn well.  I was so impressed.  I'm hoping this is a sign that he is ready to sit longer and has better concentration now and will be able to learn better.

Leaps and Bounds

Ava has made some wonderful progress with her vocabulary over this past weekend.  Suddenly she is using more words and she speaks clearer as well.  She used to call me "Mama", but now it's "Mommy".  It's so cute.  She'll look at me and call to me.  When I ask her what she wants, she just looks at me.  Then when I look away, the whole process is repeated.

She also received her first hair cut.  I had been arguing with Paul for months and he finally said he's been trying to get me to cut her bangs.  Of course that is bull, as I had been telling him that, but at least it is finally done.  And Ava is so adorable with her bangs.  Now we can see her face and those adorable big brown eyes.

She is also amazing with her splits.  Today she was on the floor, sliding into almost a perfect split.  Then she'd get back up and fall into one very quickly again.  It was so cool.

Climbing Up

We are really impressed with Aveline right now.  She has decided that she wants to ride her brother's springing horse no matter what and she will not let it's large size deter her.  She uses the window ledge and then the handles on the horse, to pull herself up and climbs up to ride.  Then in keeping with her no fear mentality, she likes to stand up on the seat of the horse and bounce that way.  It scares us parents, but it's also so cute.

Ava has also decided that gates are no deterent for her.  Paul had the gate in the kitchen up and was making a bottle behind the gate.  Ava really wanted to get into the kitchen and began to climb up the gate!  She didn't make it fully over the gate, but she got pretty close.  We were very surprised, because even at 3, Paulchen still hasn't tried something like that with the gates.  He usually finds a way to knock the gate down, but he hasn't climbed it.  That was pretty neat.

Come out please?

Whenever Paulchen gets sent to his room, when he tries to come back out, we ask, "What do you say?"  He answers with "Come out please?"  The other day, when he was in his room and began to come out, I asked him and instead of Paulchen, I heard a little voice by my legs say, "Um ow pease?"  Ava was so used to the routine that she asked for him.  It was so cute.

Then yesterday was an interesting day with Ava.  First, at work, the kids were playing in the backyard.  After a while Ava came in and I saw she had something in her hand.  When I glance for an extra moment, it looked like she had a rock and I let her keep it.  It was too big for her to choke on, so she walked around the store with her rock.  After a while, I was going to take the rock and give her something to eat, when I looked at the rock again.  It wasn't a rock.  It was a snail.  Not just the shell, but the whole snail.  I lifted her by the elbows and carried her outside.  Then I shook her arm until she dropped the snail.  Her hand had slime on it from the snail and I recalled she also had sucked on the "rock" a little.  EEEWWWW GROSS!  She was thoroughly scrubbed.

But on a cuter note, she was nagging me while I frosted cookies last night, so I asked her if she wanted one.  I had cut out Ps and As for Paulchen and Ava, so I gave her an A and told her to say please.  After she said please, she looked up at me and said "ookie".  WOW!  I didn't even know she knew the word.  It was so cute.

Resourceful
While I was in the bathroom today, I took my time and dawdled a little.  Ava was complaining and I thought that I should get her a bottle.  I was almost finished and would head to the kitchen.  Suddenly I heard a crash and I heard Paulchen say, "It's okay Ava, I get you food."  EEK!  I realized he knocked down the gate to the kitchen and was heading in to make heaven only knows what mess.  But I must admit, he was rather resourceful.