The McMillins

Many of you know Zach has been reading since right before he turned 4 years old. His teacher told Gretchen last week that she started giving him harder words, to try to challenge him, and he was reading them with no problem. The only one he got stuck on was the word "Shoe". She also said that him and another little boy in his class are the only ones in the class that can read all the numbers from 1 to 100. Corey has been working on Zach with reading numbers in the 1,000's. He's been doing so well. It's just a shame that he can't start Kindergarten until next year with his birthday being right after the cut-off date. Gretchen is definitely going to take advantage of the time with him next year and home school him. She's hoping to get him to the 1st grade level by time he starts Kindergarten.

Zachariah has also been taking piano lessons from Gretchen since January 1st of this year. He has been "flying through" the books. There are some weeks when Gretchen doesn't get a chance to give him a lesson but Zach does so well. He's on the last page of his 3rd book and then will be going into his 4th book. The picture is the song that he is playing right now (the last page of his book). Talk about a smart and gifted 4 year old.

Gretchen has been slacking on working with him on memorizing verses. So far, these are the bible verses he has memorized: John 3:16, 17; Phillippians 4:13; Romans 8:28; Romans 6:23; and Psalm 23:1, 2. She's hoping to work with him more this summer when she doesn't have to teach at his school anymore. Then again, with being so tired from the pregnancy.... we may just "veg" a little. lol :)

Gretchen went to the doctor yesterday, the first one since finding out she's pregnant. She is officially due November 24th. What is it with these November babies? lol

Everything is normal. The baby measures perfectly. As of today, she is 8 weeks and 5 days. She got to see the heart beating on the ultrasound monitor. There is only ONE baby in there. We were both praying for twins and were a little disappointed to see only one but God definitely knows best.

We're so excited about this new journey. Fortunately, Gretchen saved most of the baby items from when Zach was a baby. So, we don't really need a whole lot. The big things that we need are a stroller (or travel system), maybe a travel swing, a high chair and we'd really like to have a baby video monitor (although it's NOT a necessity).

Gretchen has already started to do a baby registry list at both target.com and walmart.com. She keeps an eye out on craigslist to find people in the local area selling baby items real cheap. As she buys things, she will be deleting things off of the baby registry.

The pregnancy, so far, has been great. No sickness.... just being tired and hungry a lot. She gets nautious when she gets hungry but fortunately hasn't gotten sick.

Our fence is finally finished. After several months of trying to get a fence put up, it's done. We love our privacy and we love how big our backyard looks. We are looking forward to the summer when we can play in the backyard and be outside more. It's VERY exciting! Also, now that we have a fence we can get either a swingset or a trampoline.

Gretchen has been feeling very tired lately. She used to have problems going to sleep but now she's tired all the time. It will pass, tho. :)