All About the Smiths

This past week started a different chapter in the Smith house, we started Homeschool.  We chose to use the My Father's World curriculum.  So far, we are really enjoying it.  Cynthia is in Kindergarten this year and Molly is listening in on that and doing some Preschool work.  Elsie walks around getting into things and stealing anything she can off the school table!

Our first week was spent reviewing the first 5 days of creation, numbers 1-5 and letters A-K.  We've been focusing on letter recognition and sounds.  Cynthia has been focusing on learning to write each letter and reviewing what she already knew.  Molly is focusing on learning sounds and learning pre-writing skills. Both girls are doing great and even asked on Saturday to do school!

We converted part of our basement into a school area and it is working out great!  I like the fact that we have a designated school area.

Our School Area

 

Love our owl alphabet!

Working hard!

Elsie likes to be sitting in a chair too.

We'll the Smith's have officially joined the ranks of childhood injuries.

Tonight after church, Cynthia decided to take on the stairs on her own. Unfortunately....she didn't quite make it!! Our church has two stairs from one level to the next, next to the stairs is a wheel chair lift. Cynthia fell going down the first step and hit the back of her head on the corner of the lift.

We heard great wailing and crying. Another mom was close by and picked up Cynthia. I took her when I got there and immediately noticed blood! We took Cynthia to the bathroom and someone went for Josh. Her head was bleeding pretty badly, so we decided to go ahead and take her in to get it looked at.

My friend Nina ended up driving us to the ER because Josh was holding Cynthia and my pregnant self was feeling pretty queasy at the sight of my baby bleeding! (Thank the LORD for good friends!!)

They got Cynthia cleaned up at the ER and looked her over and decided against stitches. She does have a nice gash on her head, but she's going to be fine. Whew!!! We're so glad she's ok! We'll be keeping an eye on her head over the next few days and putting antibiotic cream on it. I'm sure she'll have a nice bump back there too.

And here are the pictures to document this momentous occasion!

I can't believe I'm already 32 weeks pregnant! This has just flown by!!

I'm feeling fine. Don't really have any complaints besides the fact that I have trouble sleeping at night, but that is to be expected. This baby moves around a ton which is nice to know she's moving, but sometimes I wish she'd just slow down a bit!!

In case anyone doesn't know, we're having another girl. She's due March 9th and we plan to name her Molly.

Somehow taking belly pictures isn't quite as exciting with baby #2 as it is with #1. Maybe I'll be brave and get Josh to take a picture soon though!

Josh and I had the great opportunity of going to visit his parents in Florida for Christmas this year. The trip was awesome and for me a welcome reprieve from the snow and cold of Illinois! We flew down on Christmas Eve and flew home on New Years Eve. I was slightly worried about how Cynthia would do flying, but she was great! We ended up hanging out at the airport for 5 hours on Christmas Eve and she was an angel the whole time! She slept our first flight down and was awake during the 2nd flight, but played nicely the whole time. On the way home, she basically slept the whole way!!

Cynthia enjoyed getting to know her Smith Grandparents better and we all enjoyed the opportunity to visit with family. Josh's sisters Julie and Jenny were also home!

Here are a few pictures from our trip. You can see more here.

I thought I would give an update of all the things Cynthia is up to these days. She jabbers all the time, although a lot of it cannot be understood! :) She is walking, almost running! She is starting to learn to climb on things...I'm not really encouraging this one though! Daily she entertains us with things she comes up with and things she does. She is a very smart little girl (and it's not just me being a biased mommy!)

On the down-side, she's into EVERYTHING and I think I tell her no about a million times a day!

We're working with her to tell her she's a big girl now so hopefully the transition to having a baby sister in about 8 weeks will go a little smoother!

Playing wise, Cynthia loves to play with her dolls and it's neat to see her with them. She also has a little toy piano that she loves! She will sit for quite a while and look at books with us. We get tired of reading long before she does!!

Here's a list of some of her accomplishments for those who are interested in reading my bragging! :)

Talking - here are the words she can say:
uh-oh
cracker
cookie
mommy
daddy
baby
puppy
cat/kitty
milk
juice
up
down
night-night
car
Papa (for Grandpa)
Julie
Jenny
Mark
yummy (nummy)
bath
banana (nana)
no
go
monkey
bear
more
please (in sign language)
thank you
all done
Honey (referring to mommy sometimes)
No no (when she's not supposed to touch something)
fish (fsh)
chair
rock
tummy
candy
happy baby
ball
owie
.....
I know I left some off, and the list grows daily!


She can also make some animal sounds:
cat
dog
sheep
lion
bear
hyena ("ha ha")
fish (we ask her what a fish does, "go" she got a fish tank for Christmas!)


She can identify some body parts:
eyes
ears
nose
mouth
teeth
hair
head
toe
fingers
tummy
knee
wrist
elbow

I am so excited! I usually NEVER win anything, and this week I actually won two things! At a church ladies Thanksgiving Feast this week I won a doorprize.

Today I found out that I won a giveaway over at 5 Minutes for Mom. I won this really cool looking Hair styling tool. I can't wait to try it out!!

She still isn't using walking as her primary mode of transportation, but she takes a few more steps each day!

I posted new videos. I'm too lazy to upload them here too. So, here are some links if you want to check them out.

Cynthia blowing her nose

Park

Waiting for Daddy

Daddy's HOME!!

Cruising #1

Cruising #2

Peek-A-Boo

Hippo #1

Hippo #2

Birthday Present

Mall

Ball Tent

Story time! Ready....

So tonight Josh and a bunch of the teens from next door were burning a bunch of junk.




They were having so much fun that they decided to add to the fun and burn a mostly empty spray paint can.


So they thought, that was COOL, wouldn't two cans be cooler?? So, they put in 2 more cans, but these had a little bit more paint in them!

We had all (except Josh) just taken a few steps back when BOOM the cans exploded! Josh was knocked to the ground. He got up holding his ears and I rushed over to see how he was. He had blood streaming down his face but we couldn't tell how bad the cut was! We rushed him up to the house to further investigate while the others put the fire out and found Josh's glasses.

He has a pretty nasty cut on his face near his ear and a nice chunk missing from his ear. We decided he didn't need stitches, but Tammy (neighbor "mom") and I went and bought some butterfly bandages and stuff to get his cut cleaned out.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.


And for all of you that are wondering...Yes, Josh is ok and nobody else was hurt.

Go here to read Josh's version of the story.

Here are some pictures of our new house. It's still a work in progress and as soon as we're all unpacked I'll post more pictures.







PS: The stork will be visiting us in March!

A lot has happened in the month of August for the Smith family! Here's a brief recap.

• We moved out of our house and put all our stuff into my parents garage and Cynthia and I are currently living with my parents.
• Josh started his new job the first Monday in August. He's really liking it and is also loving living in the Chicago area.
• Josh's sister moved to Northern Wisconsin to teach at a Christian school so Cynthia and I went and spent a few days helping her get settled into her new apartment. We also went along with her to pick up the car she bought.
• My mom, Cynthia and I spent a weekend down in Chicago with Josh. We got to go to the Air & Water show. We basically saw the air part of the show and got to see some really cool planes.
  
• During the trip to Chicago we got to meet Josh's boss and have a cookout with them. We also got to go look at the house that we're going to be renting.
• A friend of mine is moving so last week her kids came over a few days so their mom could get some stuff done. Cynthia enjoyed having other kids around to play with!!
• Last weekend we had a very unsuccessful garage sale. But in the end we donated everything to a thrift store so at least I got rid of a bunch of stuff!
• Also last weekend we all drove over to visit Jenny and see how her apartment ended up.
  

So, there you have it. That's basically what we've been up to!

For all those who are wondering, the Lord has worked it out of us to rent a 3 bedroom house. The house is bascially the same size as where we were living before. The neat thing is, it has all the "stuff" I wanted in our next house. Washer/Dryer, Dishwasher and A/C!! I'm so happy , and it's been so neat to see God work out all the details.

Now, I leave you with a few pictures (somewhat out of order!).