Am I Scared of Lizards?

No. But I sure screamed when I saw this guy in the diaper pail. It was just so unexpected. I about gave Derek a heart attack with my screaming. Silly girl!

My Helpers

Firstborn

This child is really growing up. It is actually hard for me to believe that he is STILL four. He'll be five in the beginning of June. You know what that means - kindergarten this fall! I have spent some time waffling back and forth between sending him to public school or home schooling him. I have plenty of reasons for both, but right now we are feeling good about sending him to public school.

He is learning how to read and it has been easier than I thought it would be. He's picking up on phonics quickly. He actually really enjoys doing worksheets so every day he does some handwriting worksheets and math worksheets. Today during dinner he insisted on doing math while the rest of us were eating. Funny boy.

He and Katie are playing extremely well together lately and I'm glad they are such good friends. He is trying really hard to be obedient and does two jobs every day in our home. I love to see him grow up - he's a neat boy and we're lucky to have him.

Jesus on the Bus

A few Sundays ago we were waiting to receive the Sacrament and Katie was looking at a little booklet that she had been given in nursery. It was a booklet about "Our Sacrament Manners." Each little page had a picture and a way to act during Sacrament Meeting. Things like whisper, bow your head, listen to the prayer, think about Jesus, bread, water, sing with the heart, etc.

Katie saw the "whisper" card which has a person putting their finger up to their lips. She starting singing super softly to herself, "The mommy on the bus says, "shhh shhh shhh"" then flipped the page and sang another verse (though I can't remember it now) and then flipped to a picture of Jesus (think about Jesus) and sang, "The Jesus on the bus says.....(pause). Mom, what does Jesus on the bus say?"

I turned to her and said, "I love you."

"Oh, just like the Dad says!" and she resumed her singing.

Exciting to Me, Boring to You

Sometimes I forget that people read my blog. And I feel like I am on the computer too much and I'm trying to "quit." So I think less about blogging these days. I apologize to those who religiously click on that bookmark to see what we're up to.

Here's my Millie. She's almost 9 months old now.

She still only has two teeth on the bottom. Doesn't this cheesy gummy grin just kill you!? I can't stop laughing when I see it. She doesn't usually look like this which is why it's so funny to me.

She is crawling really well and still pulls up to standing next to everything. She says "mom," "ma-ma," "da-da," "mmm" (for "more"), and is pretty close to "baba" (baby). She likes to blow spit bubbles and moves her mouth like she is practicing talking but doesn't let any sound come out. She eats a LOT - cheerios, bread, yogurt, oatmeal, pasta, tofu, egg yolks, and baby food.

In the past two weeks she's become attached to a baby doll and a blanket. Her separation anxiety is minimal. She likes to see me, but as long as I am nearby she is usually happy with other people holding her. She seems to feel especially comfortable with men. She will sporadically give me kisses when I ask her to, and she has waved good-bye a few times to Derek.

Handwriting

Katie really enjoys drawing and coloring. Recently she used some glue and glitter and then told me that she made it for her best friend, Lauren. She wanted to know how to write "Lauren." I was a little busy so I tried to appease her by just telling her the letters and hoping I wouldn't have to stop what I was doing to write it out and show her (lazy mom). She surprised me though, since it was the first time I had ever seen her attempt to write a word. I didn't expect her to be able to write the letters from memory either, but she did a decent job for being 2 years old (ALMOST 3).

You can see that she wrote the "U" upside down, and the "r" is above the U. It is lower-case and she didn't like the curved part at the very top so she corrected herself to lower it slightly. Don't you love the "E" with a million lines on it?

I asked her to write her OWN name - and this is how she did. It was her first time writing her name, but I spelled it for her so she knew what letters to write. Not bad.

On a related note, here is Ryan's handwriting. He made a picture for one of his best friends, Sarah. She's 8. He's 4. But they get along really well. And my kids have good taste in friends because Lauren and Sarah's mom is one of MY best friends too.

And here's the back of Ryan's paper for Sarah. He drew a picture of Dazzle. She's one of the Planet Heroes and he LOVES her because she has a lava gun.

A Fun Preschool Day

We decided to take Ryan out of preschool in January. I was glad that he had something to look forward to, he loved the painting and projects and especially friends that he got to see regularly. BUT - I missed him. And I realized that this was possibly my last year with him before kindergarten and I wanted to take advantage of it. I wanted to take the opportunity to teach my OWN child. I feel like it is not only my duty, but it is something that I genuinely like to do. It felt silly to pay someone else to teach him when I am always talking to Derek about the time when I will one day open up my own preschool and teach other people's children. Hello! What about my own child?

SO... now we spend time each day doing different projects and activities. Ryan is learning to read and we practice his handwriting. He is very cooperative and likes to help me think of things to do in school. Thursdays are our field trip days where we take rides on the train, go to the zoo or science center, find a neat nature reserve and go on a hike, that sort of thing.

This was a particularly fun day for me because I could see my children learning. And it was completely child-lead so we were doing what THEY wanted to do.

They started off stringing letter beads.

Which then progressed into sorting colors.

Then Ryan wanted to know which color had the most letter beads so we decided to graph it.
Here they are putting one letter in each square (of this huge awesome pad of paper from Uncle Adrian.)

Here are the letters all lined up. We looked at it and could tell that yellow had the most, but Ryan wanted to know exactly how many of each color.

So then we used a marker to trace along the edges and made a bar graph. He counted each square in the blue bar and came up with 23. I showed him the line next to it and said, "If that one has 23, how many do you think this one has?" "23," he answered. I went along that way for each of the other lines and it was fun to see him subtracting one or two from each line to get the answer without needing to count every square each time.

Like I said, it was a rewarding day. Afterward, I couldn't help but feel like a pretty good mom. And I knew that teaching him at home was really worth it because I could watch him learn. I didn't know that he could count to 46. I also didn't realize that he could compare one quantity to the other like that. I probably would have just missed it completely if I had kept him in preschool.

Domestic?

I got this high chair from freecycle recently. I really like that it is smaller and wooden and fits nicely at my counter like a stool for the kids. The only thing wrong with it is that it didn't come with the cover. It's no big deal for an older child, but Millie just didn't sit comfortably in it.

Then, a few weeks later, I snagged some memory foam off of freecycle and I decided to try my hand at making a cover for the memory foam to go on the high chair. Not having a pattern or barely any sewing experience made things a bit tricky. Plus, I needed to have the top be vinyl so that I could wipe down spills. I also needed the cover to be removable.

Here's how it turned out. I am pretty pleased with it overall. If I had a do-over, I would make it slightly tighter because right now the cover sort of sags all over, and I would make a lip on the top back that goes over the back of the high chair, but it is functional, and I made it. So I'm happy.

A Few of My Favorite Things

This is kind of a silly post, but I just felt like posting a few things that I like.

Knitting. I am just barely learning, but I am excited for what I will one day be able to make.

Soap nuts. This is the fruit of a tree that is natural laundry detergent. I love it.

And these are some of the beautiful flowers that are found in my garden. These are the ACTUAL flowers - not just pictures from Google. Bless the owners of this house for surrounding us with such spring beauty.

Our snap peas are growing.

Millie's Milestones

Three weeks ago, I went into Millie's room in the morning and found her standing up in the crib. Mind you, she was not completely upright, she was quite hunched over, but it was an indication that I needed to lower the crib mattress.

Also, I have noticed that when I hold her on my hip, she usually will climb up me until she is in a standing position - my arm around her back with her feet straight and standing on my gut. Her body isn't against me - just her feet. This is how she prefers it and she'll stand like that for 30 minutes at a time. (Note to self: get a picture of this.)

She has to be watched much more carefully now because she will pull up to standing next to anything she can and we are in a house of all hard floors. She's had her share of head bumps already. She can crawl over the step from the living room to the kitchen area, and Derek recently walked into the kitchen to find her up on the dishwasher door. She is really not coordinated enough to be doing this stuff because she can't get herself safely down. Heck, I wouldn't leave her on the hard floor sitting by herself and walk away. She still falls over to the side half of the time. Crazy girl!