Activities!

Every Tuesday morning Ayden has Kindermusik, and this week Grandma Wendling came to watch. Ayden has been going to Kindermusik since he was 6 months old and loves it. It's been fun watching him progress the past 2 years. Ms. Judy is an excellent teacher and Ayden really likes her. During class we sing lots of songs, do circle dances, play with bells or other instruments, and do a lot of action things to go along with songs. One thing I have really noticed is that when Ayden plays the drum in class he has an almost steady beat, which for his age is amazing! One of Ayden's favorite things to do is play the echo game. Ms. Judy uses a wooden rhythm stick for a microphone and gives each child a turn to sing her echo. She usually will sing "Baaaa-baa," and then the child echos back. At the beginning of the semester I would have to go up front with him and he would listen to me do it. Now he will go all by himself, sing the echo back loud enough that even I can hear it across the room, and he even wants to do it more than once.After Kindermusik on Tuesday, we went grocery shopping with my mom and then she took us out to lunch at Hickory Park. I ordered Ayden his first kids meal ever (he usually just has a little of whatever I order, but has been on a huge hot dog kick lately so we got him that). He ate the whole hot dog minus the bun, and some fries.

On Thursday mornings I take Ayden to Tumblebugs at Success Gymnastics. Our friends Amanda and her daughter Eloise talked about joining a month ago and asked if we would be interested. I took Ayden to try out a class and he really liked it. The kids are constantly moving for 45 minutes and it's a great way for him to burn off some energy, especially when we are stuck inside most days now since it's getting cold out. Every week we start with stretching warm-ups, which is the hardest for Ayden because he has to sit there and wants to get up and run around. Then every week there are different obstacles set up for the kids. There are mats set out to do front and back hopping on, then they do donkey kicks, and cartwheels (with help) over some stacked up mats. There are ladders to climb up, balance beams to walk across, bars to swing on, different mat tunnels to climb through and do somersaults down, and Ayden's favorite is the trampoline. He could jump on that all day long. At the end of class today we played with a huge parachute, which Ayden loves from Kindermusik too. He has a lot of fun and we will probably continue to go until the baby arrives.

Ayden has been helping me bake in the kitchen since he was about 18 months old. He used to just watch, but now he helps by pouring ingredients into the bowls and helps putting batter into the muffin cups. It's so funny, but whenever he sees me get the mixer out or hears me turn it on he comes running. I think he really just likes when he gets to lick the spoon or beater at the end:)
I'm now 23 weeks pregnant (as of tomorrow). I go for another ultrasound next Friday, and hopefully the little guy will cooperate more than he did last time. I can't believe I only have 17 weeks to go (15 if he arrives 2 weeks early like Ayden did). He's moving around a lot more now, which is fun to feel, and also is starting to wake me up at night and keep me from falling asleep some nights. We've decided on the name Caelan, and are still working on a middle-name, perhaps Michael. We'll nickname him Cael for short:) We had the name Cael picked as a possibility before we found out we were having a boy and Joel really like it. I liked it too, but I wanted something a little longer and found the name Caelan in some baby name books, and thought it was a cute name. It's Irish/Scottish and means "powerful warrior" in Irish and is the Scottish form of "Nicklaus" and means, "Victory of the people."