Joy's 18 month check-up

Joy is at the BEST age right now. She is starting to say a few words (Mama, Dad-n, Wo00lll (Will), Oyive (Olive), Pa, Bye, Hi, MEEEE (whenever she wants something), and Baby.

My favorite "moments" with her are putting her to bed when she snuggles on my shoulder, and when I pick her up from the nursery and she runs full speed into my arms. She loves dropping Will and Jane off at preschool with me and likes to line up with Will while they wait for his other classmates to arrive. She wears her little Dora back pack like she is part of the class. She also loves to dance and "sing" the "B-I-B-L-E" song where she yells "BIBAAA" at the end.
She is such a sweet girl.

She had her doctor's appt today and is a healthy 27# and 34 inches long. I had Dr. Roskin look at her thumb, which has been inflamed and puffy with a little blister on it for a few weeks (but hadn't been bothering her noticeably). She patiently let him lance the blister open and out came a nearly INCH LONG sliver. Poor girl!

Will and Olive

Jane and Joy share a bedroom and Will has been saying lately that he wants us to have another baby so that he can have a roommate. Our solution:

Kids' Hands

I love the sweetness of kids' hands. While these pictures don't do them justice, I thought I'd at least try and document them:

Skiing Novice

My Dad took Jane skiing a few weeks ago and here are some adorable pictures he took of her on the hill:

Kindergarten Registration

We're so excited about the school that Will is going to attend in the fall. Its a small Christian school in Fall City (only an 8 minute drive from our house) called Summit Classical Christian School (http://summitclassical.org).

We first visited Summit last spring just to check it out. A friend had mentioned it to me, and I thought I'd take a look since I didn't know anything about it. John and I were both very impressed with the school and this past fall decided to submit an application and continue to pray about what would be best for our family.

The application process has been drawn out. Besides the actual physical application that we submitted, we also brought Will in for a kindergarten readiness assessment, and then our whole family went in for a group interview where they asked us questions, and answered the questions we had about the school. Despite our three hooligans running all over the place during the interview, the staff at Summit seemed to think that we'd be a good fit.
I thought John was going to reach over and hug the board member interviewing us when he said, "Although students at Summit do really well on standardized tests, etc, Academics are NOT our main priority at Summit." Rather, Summit's mission is to "assist faithful parents in educating their children to the glory of God applying Christian principles through classical methods."
How refreshing and Amen to that. We can't wait to be a part of it. On a side note, Will is going to continue seeing an OT through the school district (we do pay taxes afterall!) next year which we are happy about. And now you know what I know.

Rather than feeling anxiety about next fall, I feel eager anticipation. We'll take it a year at a time, but for now this is where we will be. We feel blessed that God has lead our family to this point and will continue to seek His guidance as we parent our three kids together.

FISH!

We told Will that he could get another small pet for his 5th birthday. After talking him out of a guinea pig which is what he wanted, we convinced him to get two guppies instead. Jane took advantage of our goodwill and got herself a Betta fish.
After making several house rules:
1.) Don't put toys into the fish bowls 2.) Don't "go fishing" 3.) Don't try to pick up the fish 4.) Don't 'make an earthquake' by shaking the bowls (thought this was obvious but apparently not to 3 and 5 yr olds..so glad we went with fish and not something else!)
the new fish settled in and survived their first night.

Maui 2012 with the Axenes

Highlights:
-Plane trip with nothing to do but read and watch movies
-Eating out every night (sushi, steak, fresh fish, it was awesome)
-Sleeping in every day
-Warren and Annabelle's Magic Show
-Laughing with Josh and Tiff
-Snorkeling and watching the humpback whales jump
-Spending tons of uninterrupted time with John!