Really almost Christmas

I can't finish Christmas until the girls fall asleep and that is taking... awhile. So I might as well put up some pictures from church this afternoon. For once, A- didn't fight me on what to wear. G- of course did because she had to wear a diaper and she's been diaperless during the day the last week or so. We went to the family service at 4:00 and had a busy day before that making Rice Krispie treats and sugar cookies and playing hide-and-seek.

Here they are after church:

Can you feel the sisterly love?

This was G- yesterday helping her new stuffed animal to go potty:

Almost Christmas

It's almost Christmas and I never posted about Thanksgiving! R- was working so the girls and I went to Ohio. We seem to be on a once a month plan. The weather was unseasonably warm when we got there but turned colder. G- got to see her favorite horses again.

The girls are playing with rice in the laundry room right now. Unfortunately, they poured kool-aid into the bin of dry rice so it's sticky now. I'm ignoring it for awhile before I throw them in the bathtub to de-sticky. They both have colds, and I think A- has pinkeye, but it does look a little better today than yesterday.

We (meaning me) did a lot of cleaning yesterday and today made some chocolate covered pretzels for gifts. I'm psyching myself up to make some sugar cookies. We're also babysitting a friend's beta fish.

I've been wanting to record G-'s word list. It goes something like this (not necessarily by frequency of use or emergence):
mama
dada
more
nur-nur
stepstool
uh-uh (for "no")
no
baby
ball
guh-guh (for "car")
two
bye-bye
'lo (for "hello")

Halloween

Halloween was exciting this year. Net-Net was here and the girls dressed up like Ohio State cheerleaders. A- wanted to trick-or-treat with her neighbor friend so we met a bunch of kindergarteners at another neighbor's house and A- went with a big pack of 5 year olds.

This is the girls before we left for trick or treating. G- is trying to smile for the camera.

We went with Net-net to the Pumpkin Patch for our annual picture with the measuring stick.

On Saturday evening, we went to Trunk-or-treat at church. A- got her face painted and we got this awesome picture of her and daddy.

Miscellaneous

Some recent photos:

The girls loving daddy reading time. Sometimes he even reads the actual words.

Preschool, daddy helped her make a stairstep with the number rods.
From the child that used to never be able to play by herself. "Look mom, I made a ship." Looks more like a train to me, but if it's a ship, it's a ship. The counting bears are passengers.
Completely on her own, from the idea to the execution, I swear. She learned to spell exit while on airplanes to and fro from Ohio.
On the Pumpkin Express train last weekend.
G- on the Pumpkin Express. She got woken up to get on the train so not her finest moment, but boy, doesn't she have pretty eyes?

G- today. She took the carriage from the Fisher-Price castle and drove it all over the house. Then disappeared. I heard noises coming from the vacuum closet and opened it to surprise her and got a gorgeous smile so I talked her into hiding again so I could capture it. Yes, she's wearing a bathing suit in October. No, it's not warm outside. Yes, she has purple paint on her chest. I was cleaning and left some paint out that A- was using while G- napped. G- decided to use it to paint her left hand, her chin, and her chest. Yesterday, the girls were playing in the car where I had inadvertently, and stupidly, left my purse. G- got my lipstick out and had it smeared over one leg and her face and A- had put some on her lips, sort of, and had gotten A-n-n-e written out on her leg by the time I got there. Hey, at least they were sharing.

New words

G- has some new words:
dauto is auto (German for car)
high-wo is hello, she really likes this one lately
squeak squeak sound is bird, she says this when she wants to read her Find the Bird book
poo-poo, really means potty, she says this when she wants to read her book with the girl sitting on a potty

Can you tell we're into books lately? A- is also enjoying reading books. Her favorite lately is Puzzle Town when she has to do something on each page to help the kids find the party. Last night we didn't get to bed until late so I told her we didn't have time to read but I could do a quick story. She requested the story be about Katy and Tim (the characters in the book) and I said what was on each page and she pretended to do each action in the dark (e.g. match up the people with their shoes in the shoe store, or find the cakes and cookies on the sign with the cakes in the bakery).

And of course, we have some ballet books to look at because A- is in love with ballet. Every day she asks how many days til ballet class.

Crazy day

Our A/C has officially bitten the dust. So today we've had an indoor temperature of 83-86F. Needless to say, we didn't spend much time here, and have all been a little cranky because of it. We have a new unit being installed on Friday so we only have to make it through one more day of this.

We visited the dollar movies and R- very nicely took the girls to see Evan Almighty while I went to see License to Wed . G- Slept through their movie and A- liked the part where the guy kept growing a beard "God made him, but I don't know why."

Our bedtime, while of course a little edgy (86F at bedtime), had it's usual cute moments. When I tell them a bedtime story, A- always wants it to be about a bad guy taking something and she has to think what he takes. While she's thinking, G- says "bah bah" because she wants it to be a ball that he takes. Then the girl needs to have a "conversation" with the bad buy (which A- thinks means an argument) and G- says "ba ba" for the girl saying to give it back. And "no no" for the bad guy saying no. It's kind of an interactive storytelling. Meanwhile A- interjects things like "make him have a mean voice" and "make her find evidence."

Wildlife

The girls have gone to Kids Kastle two days in a row. We all went yesterday and R- went to Target and bought some picnic fixings and we ate on a picnic table. They do some serious playing, lots of climbing stairs and sliding and watching out for witches. A- has a thing about witches and bad guys and monsters these days. But she's not scared because she's a karate girl. G- has apparently graduated to be a karate baby.

They love to feed the ducks. G- gets right up to the edge and throws the piece of bread and says "dat dat" for "quack quack". It's quite a nice wildlife lesson - we see ducks, turtles, big catfish, small minnows and about a week ago there was a white egret hanging out also. We looked at the footprints from the egret in the mud and we even saw what looked kind of like a big kingfisher? I need to take my bird book with me to look up the species.

R- took them today and they were there for 3 hours. G- fell asleep in the bike trailer on the way there and slept for two hours while A- found a playmate. I cleaned some floors in the house and did yoga! We had a lovely dinner and even made peach cobbler. A lovely, peaceful evening with happy, tired kids and the whole family spending time together. It made for a relaxed bathtime and bedtime.

Pictures

Here are some pictures:

G- and A- with their babies before we left for church. Notice G-'s pigtails that got lots of oohs and ahhs at church on Sunday. She took baby and the kittycat purse too. Baby got left behind when she went up with A- to children's time but she took the purse. A- actually sat up with the other kids on the steps for the first time (and she can say "first" now instead of "worst", she catches herself and repeats if she messes up) and G- went up with her but stood in front watching. She started to go back up later in the service but I intercepted her in time.

G- at bedtime one night. Wearing A-'s pj's, with the hairband, with the baby in the sling, with the necklaces, and the bracelets. It takes awhile to strip her of the accessories so she can actually go to sleep. She reached the real toothpaste that was on the counter with the elastic arms and had the lid unscrewed while I was checking A's teeth. I can always tell when she's doing something she's not supposed to be doing, because she gets very very quiet. And then has a guilty, "am I going to get in trouble" look on her face when I finally notice.

A- polishing silver during her preschool time today which was very brief due to a distracting daddy. But she had lots of fun playing to make up for it.

Some pictures

A- with her thank you letter she sent to Laura. Notice the decorated side borders, in matching order on each side, pink, then yellow, then blue.

A- working on punching a geometric shape out with a push pin. She traced the shape from the geometric inset and then punched holes very close together with a push pin. Notice the concentration.

A- working on cards and counters. She needed help to get the number cards (1-10) in the right order (she can do 1-5 but gets confused on 6-10), she then counts out the right number of counters (flower arranging stones aka gems) underneath, making sure to match up each partner in sets of two's. She really liked this one and wanted to show daddy what she was doing.



A- made a line of trucks and cars on the counter tonight. Apparently they were all getting ice cream. G- came by and helped them move along a little faster in line!

A- is also in a writing explosion! She traces letters in the air quite often with her finger at random times (in the carseat, at church). We were riding back from the lake today and she had two "walking sticks" that she and daddy found that she crossed and said "look it's an 'x'". Yep, it sure is. At my suggestion, she then madea 'T' and an 'L' but then lost interest at 'v'. I think she couldn't remember how to do a 'v'.

She also wants to know what things spell. We were winding down at bedtime, after lights out, but before story, and she traced letters in the air and asked me what it spelled (she does this with pencil and paper also). I made the sound for each letter (pha I think it was) and she asked what that meant. Nothing, I said, but p-a-t spells 'pat.' She was fine with that, then did another one.

We were eating supper and A- was finishing a bowl of cantoloupe and says "there are 4 pieces left". I asked how many there would be when she ate one more and she did it with her fingers. So of course, not to be left out, G- holds up her fingers too and gives us her little grin.

Anyone need mail stickers?

A- just got a letter in the mail from Oma and Opa and she just wrote a lovely thank you letter with pictures and decorated sides. She said she needs a mail sticker for it (aka stamp). She wrote her name out and got every letter to look quite good except for the 'k'. She sounded it out afterward.

Preschool today was lovely... R- took G- on a bike ride for an hour so A- could work uninterrupted and she did lots of works (insets, lacing, what's missing game?, geometric solids, art 3 part cards, window cleaning, mystery bag with geometric solids). She wasn't interested in numbers or letters today but that's one of the beauties of Montessori - she works on what interests her at the time.

G- was just in here playing with her bus she got for Christmas last year, pushing it around and humming a little tune. It's close to naptime and she usually has one of two imminent naptime behaviors. She's either really cranky or really cute and plays by herself. I think she's trying to fly under the radar so no one will remember to get her down for a nap!

Some pictures from last night:

Finally, a good bedtime!

Finally, a good bedtime! With no crying from anyone, especially me! The girls are currently sleeping basically on each other in a single mattress next to my bed. At least it's better than in my bed! Although last night G- woke up saying "mama mama" and stood up and crawled up into my bed. She's so sweet though that I didn't care. A- finally had a good night last night. Her eczema itches her so bad that she wakes up and freaks out and it had been an hour several nights in a row before she'd go back to sleep. So I don't know if it was being nearer in the single mattress that made it better last night or the fact that I gave her some of the antihistamine that the pedi gave me for G-'s eczema. But I was glad!

A- asked me today on the way to La Leche League about why the rain falls, so I launched into a lovely explanation of gravity and why things fall toward the earth. So, she follows with "Then why don't the clouds fall too?" Hmm. They're light and all, but really, why don't the clouds fall too? To really explain that gets pretty complicated about fluids and bouyancy and floating. She keeps me on my toes.

And G- tries to imitate A- and me when we make letter sounds. G- points to the letters on my Ohio State t-shirt and makes letter sounds, usually "duh duh"s but I'm impressed she knows letters make sounds! She loves to turn the pages in books too and make noises for all the animals and point to and say "ball" for all the balls or anything that looks remotely circular. And of course, to sign "baby" for all the babies.

A- was showing me at bedtime today how her babydoll could stand up, she just had to hold its hands. So G- does the same thing with her baby.

A- and I played the geistlein (little goat) game that she got in Germany today while G- was napping. I beat her twice and then I read the directions and realized we were playing slightly wrong and she was well on her way to beating me the third game when she lost interest.

It's never dull!

First day of homeschool preschool

Yesterday was our official first day of school. While G- was napping, A- and I sat on the line and talked about the rules for school and we played the silence game. Then she chose to do sandpaper letters (c and m) and she traced them successfully and said the sound and wrote them in colored sand so we added "t" and "a" at her request. She can't get the sounds correct 100% of the time, but she has the idea. She then chose to do the spindle box and counted out popsicle sticks for spindles correctly but she wasn't sure about 6 through 9. She finished the very abbreviated first day with some lacing cards.

Today we babysat her neighbor friend so we didn't officially do school but she did a number tracing sheet for fun. She makes a great 4 and is getting the idea that you have to start in the same place each time and not just make marks til it ends up looking right. Hopefully that will progress with letters too. She writes lots of letters but not always in the correct order.

G- is still obsessed with babydolls and bathing suits. She's sleeping in one of A-'s bathing suits right now. She lets you know when she wants her baby by signing baby and if she's upset she signs it emphatically. She is saying da-da more, and she makes shhing noises to tell me A- is sleeping. She communicates an awful lot. She also shakes her booty like A- does, sort of, with a big smile on her face. She wants to do everything A- does, of course.

On Sunday, A- had a nametag from Sunday school and she told me about it on the way home. Pause. Then she says "It doesn't have an A for A- on it." I looked and the teacher had written the A kind of like a cursive A or a large lowercase A with a loop so it didn't look like what she's used to. I thought that was pretty insightful.

Tonight's bedtime discussion was about God. A sampling of her questions: Who wears the orange dress again? (this is referring to Jesus in the children's Bible we have) Where is God? Is God real? Does the rain get on God?

The conversation then moved to being powerful and she said she was powerful. I said but not as powerful as God and she said she was because she is a karate girl. And that she needs tennnis shoes for being a karate girl for kicking monsters.

Yesterday she said "Who are the weak ones again?" Referring to "they are weak, but He is strong" in Jesus Loves Me.

Her questions are amazing but unending. By the time R- gets back from a 3 day trip I'm usually tearing my hair out. But I love her curiosity!

Flowerpot

Here are A- and G- today. A- made a beautiful flowerpot with foam from a kit we bought at Hobby Lobby. She did it all by herself while I made lunch.

And G-'s life has been defined by wearing bathing suits lately. She has scarily decided that she's interested in what she's wearing. And she learned to spray a spray bottle all by herself. Over and over and over.

A- and I have been test driving her Montessori materials for our home preschool this year. We're officially starting on Monday. Today we went to the park with a friend and it was about 99% humidity but only 80F and so bearable, but sticky. Good for the girls to get some fresh air besides our daily playing in the driveway time after supper and before bath.

Pillowcase dresses

Well among other things to update on, I made two pillowcase dresses for the girls! These were obtained from R's grandma and he was using them for pillowcases! I was aghast at this waste of hand embroidered and hand crocheted pillowcases. I waited until this year to make the dresses so G- would be vertical and could show off the dress better. This project should have been done earlier in the summer (or spring) but I forgot about it! The blue seam binding came from Grandma Freda's stash and I used elastic I already had for A-'s. I did have to spend $1.29 for more elastic for G-'s, but not too bad for two cute dresses! I used directions from this site: http://rowena.typepad.com/rostitchery/projects/index.html

Can I just say how much I love the Internet? There is so much information out there from regular people that are so generous with their time and talents.

Also, we are babysitting the neighbor's bird so that's been quite exciting for the girls. We have two chairs in front of the cage because they like to sit and watch him. G-, of course, saw me take the tray on the bottom out once so now she does it whenever she drops something inside the cage. Poor bird is never going to be the same. Actually, he seems pretty content, only chirps occasionally and plays with his toys.

I've been test-driving some of the Montessori activities I'm preparing for A-'s school this year. It's going pretty well so far - she loves to walk the line (masking tape on the sunroom floor) and the sandpaper letters but I've having to hold her back on the letters. She wants to trace all of them before she has learned the sounds of the first two. She's not too into the practical life activities, I think I need to make them harder because she already knows how to pour and transfer and use tweezers.

She was playing with the foam geometric shapes the other day and came up with this person

and matched the trapezoids around the sides of the hexagon all of her own volition. My geometry loving heart was so proud!

A birthday to remember!

A little late, but I never mentioned my awesome birthday last week. R- outdid himself by managing the following:
a) I got to go shopping by myself. I went to CCA and got a ton of stuff for A-'s Montessori homeschool preschool next year for all of $13. Then I went to Dollar General and got some more stuff, and stopped at Home Educator's Resource where I found a book I've been wanting to read for less than half-price and geometric solids used for $7, and stopped at Staples for their 1cent deals and spent 15 cents on 10 folders, 3 packs of pencils, and a hand pencil sharpener. I felt a little bad about not buying anything at full price but I got over it. Overall, a banner shopping morning.
b) I came home to a chocolate birthday cake with balloons on it (chosen by A-) and three presents and a handmade card.
c) After lunch and cake R- tooke them for a bike ride and I got to do yoga for an hour by myself.
d) We went to Nick's and had Italian and the girls were very good and it wasn't crowded so it was easy to have kids there.
I have a picture but I can't seem to get it to upload.

My hummingbirds have arrived! It took a week but I've seen them there three times already today.


A- calls me "mamma-mia". I swear we haven't been listening to ABBA or anything. I don't know where she gets it, a few months ago it was "mee-mee" both of which are better than when she was calling R- "doo-doo". He nipped that one in the bud. I can't imagine why.

A- now can not only make French toast, she can cut strawberries with a real knife (with supervision of course) and she made her own PB&J today. She cut off the crusts, then cut a shape with a cookie cutter, then spread the jam and PB on the shape and all the little pieces. And she ate the whole thing with no complaints. She told me she'd make my sandwich tomorrow.

Artwork

Here's A- wearing her sling I made her for her dolls. It's just like the one I use for G-.

And this is A- with her painting she did this afternoon. She told me a long complicated story about a witch and ducks and the hiding spot and a tower and the purple dots are duck footprints. It was cute.

We went to a Kroger today that has fountains the kids can run around in and met a friend there. The kids were so cute running around in their bathing suits!

6:30!

I hung up the hummingbird feeder today so maybe we'll get some visits. I also found a cool website that tells what species visit by state so maybe I can identify them! When I had the feeder up a couple summers ago, I didn't recognize the species.

I also fed the worms cantouloupe rinds, they love them. S- and A- helped me put in the paper strips. Apparently it's been awhile since I fed them because they were down to just a little newspaper to eat.

A- and I went to church and left G- with dad because she was running a fever yesterday. I tried to get A- to go to Sunday School but her regular teacher wasn't there and she freaked when she saw the husband of the substitute teacher there, even though we know them. So we went to 11:00 service instead and she was very good. They have those pads you can write on and then lift the plastic and it erases so she practiced writing letters the whole time after she finished coloring the kids bulletin.

Everybody went to bed early last night and consequently woke up at 6:30 this morning! That was rough, but I got up with them and R- slept more and then we switched.

Walking sticks

A- found some wooden dowels while I was cleaning her closet yesterday. She said she could use them for walking sticks and walked all around the house with them. Then she said she needed them when we were in Ohio and she hurt her knee (she was emotionally crippled by a skinned knee for several days). I asked her how she had ever heard of walking sticks and she said "in Deutschland". Amazing what she picks up, there were in fact people using walking sticks at several of the places we visited and apparently we must have talked about it.

G- stays forever in her bathtub. If A- is in there she'll very studiedly pour water on A-'s head over and over. Luckily A- doesn't mind, she just laughs. And G- loves to pour water, again, over and over. She fills up a cup at the faucet and pours it into another cup and when I turn the water off, she says "mor, mor". Last night, she washed Dora's hair (bathtub Dora, luckily) over and over. Unfortunately, she also likes to drink the bathwater, but that's another story.

Rain, rain everywhere

It has rained every day forever it seems like. Not all day, but every day. The lake is getting very high, in fact, one lane of the access road is closed today. We went for a bike ride yesterday to see the part of the lake closest to us.

The edge of the lake is usually about 20 feet out or so from the edge of the road that you can see on the right. Lots of water!

July 1st? Can't be!

I can't believe tomorrow is July 1st. June just flew by with us in OH for two weeks. We had such a nice time but we all missed Daddy quite a bit. But now we're back and R- is home for four days so we can get back in the swing of things. I got sick on Wed before R- left and felt bad all day, took a two hour nap, mustered energy to cook baked spaghetti that we ate while he was on his trip, then crashed at 7:30. R- got both girls to bed successfully and I slept off and on for 12 hours. Chills, fever, sweaty, coughing - I was a mess. R- left for DUS Thursday morning and the girls and I went into survival mode, just hanging out on A-'s bed and reading books all morning. S- wasn't home to play with but A- held up pretty well with just Mommy and G- to hang out with.

We're still having thunderstorms and rain pretty much every day. Very strange and makes for humid 90F days but we haven't had to water the lawn yet this summer. Usually we've started $100+ water bills by now.

A- got to play with S- the last two days. They play together so nicely, it's wonderful to see. They're both sweet girls and even include G- (most of the time). When I was tutoring in May, they were playing outside and through the open window I could hear them saying "What's gonna work, teamwork" (from WonderPets) and helping G- get up onto the slide so she could slide down. What cuties. S- came over today in shorts and a shirt and fairy wings. Gotta love this age when that seems like a perfectly normal thing to wear to a friend's house. It won't be long before they worry about what people think about them.

We did some errands this morning and stopped at Dollar General and got candy (amazingly they didn't have the kid's blowdryer S- got in Disneyland ;-) ) and A- didn't want to eat her Fun Dip because she wanted to wait until she could share it with S-. I told her S- wouldn't mind, she'd like any of the flavors but A- was insistent.

More cute A- stories: R- helped her get dressed the other morning (which consists of standing there while she asks you what you think she should wear and then her completely ignoring your input) and when I got up (Wed. morning when I was sick, usually I'm up first) she told me "Look mom, I'm wearing Capri Suns" known to the rest of us as Capri pants. And today she told me "We're both wearing Capri Suns". Reminds me of when she was learning to talk and she would want her "ooshies" also known as shoes. I remember at the time thinking I wanted her to learn to speak correctly of course, but it's so darn cute when little kids say thing wrong sometimes you're tempted to reinforce it by calling shoes "ooshies" yourself!

And little G- communicates so much with so few words. She can tell you she wants her shoes (points to her feet and grunts), she wants her hat (pats her head), she wants food or sometimes drink (points to her mouth), and she has many variations of head nods and shakes for yes and no, emphatic yes and no, mean yes and no (it's all in the look in her eye). She also says "mor, mor" (more) and "nur, nur" (nurse) with accompanying signs. In the bathtub tonight, she wanted me to run more water in the faucet when I was trying to get her to finish and she walked to the faucet, said "mor, mor" and I told her no so she dropped her bath toys and pointed to the faucet and said "mor, mor" while doing the sign for more just in case I didn't get it the first time. The look on her face when she's trying to communicate is so funny, a combination of concentration and "what kind of idiot are you?".

More pictures from OH

Many hours were spent on these garage sale big-wheels.

Sweet sisters!

Here is G- running laps through the garage in the rain.

Photos from OH

This is us after church on Sunday.



And A- playing with her doctor kit Aunt L- got her. The girls have played with this more than you can imagine. G- picks up the dropper and tries to stick it in her eye because she remembers getting drops in her eyes when she and A- had pinkeye. A- checks G-'s ears with the aurascope and does surgery on G- and on babydolls with the test tube holder. She's also pretty into giving shots.

Swimming

Some pictures from swimming today. You can't see A's face but that's her with the pink noodle. She LOVED the water and jumped right on the noodle and kicked her legs to get all around the pool.

Kid speak

A- says today "I'm a big girl" and Opa said "You're a bagel?". She also drops her "s" at the beginning of words so "smell" becomes "mell" as in "Let me mell me" to see if I need to take a bath. And "Snow!" becomes "No!". Sometimes it's hard to understand her.... but she does pretty well. G-'s still in the grunting and pointing phase. She says "ball", "bird", and "mama" but only when I ask her to say mama.

A-and G- were wearing glasses today and Oma got some good pictures. G- couldn't keep hers on.

We went to pick strawberries today and made strawberry shortcake. Nothing like fresh strawberries still warm from the sun.

Lots of outside time

We've sure been getting our fresh air quota lately. The girls keep playing in the rainwater that R- collects (they LOVE to help him collect it too and work very carefully to pour it into buckets). It's better than a pool! A- pours water on G-'s head and then R- pours water on A-. She laughs. We also took a walk/bigwheel/bike ride to the nearby park yesterday after supper. I pushed G- in the stroller and A- rode her bigwheel and R- rode his bike. A- kept wanting to stop and take a rest and we would read the house numbers. They both climbed all over the playset (no swings thank heavens) and G- climbed all the way up and went down the twisty slide all by herself. She also learned to go up the pirate chain ladder and then A- did because she saw G- doing it.

R- took them to the library this morning while I went to the chiropracter and TJMaxx. It's very windy but a nice day - I love the new bike trails, I hardly have to be on the road at all.

Dallas Zoo

The girls and I went to the Dallas Zoo today with friends. A- took a notebook to make a list of all the animals she saw (Daddy's suggestion), the list all looks remarkably like loops and scrawls but she was very dedicated about writing down each animal. G- pretty much wanted to just look at birds and climb stairs. The Dallas Zoo has a children's zoo area with a water feature that the girls liked to wade in and a place to do crafts - A- made a "turtle" that she cut out herself and glued pieces on for the legs. There was a pattern but hers was a bit more freeform!

Popsicles

The inaugural post! Here is a picture of A- and G- eating popsicles. It's actually from April - but this is a pretty typical look for our family! Notice the lacing shape necklace G- is wearing courtesy of A-.