Reading!

Lia has been very busy this school year learning the monumental skill called reading.  I have mentioned before that we struggled so much through our first book that I was left looking for something that would be a better fit for my little girl and I am still so happy and grateful we found 'All About Reading'.  (Thank you Blair!)

 

We spend a lot of time at our huge magnetic board manipulating letters and sounds to make words but I love that this program also includes phonetic readers, fun games and worksheets too.  Yesterday's lessons had Lia cooking sunny-side up eggs in the frying pan and reading the words on the bottom of each egg as she flipped them.  If she could read the egg, she got to put it on her plate.  Yes, the stove is off!

 

Generally, Lia doesn't like to do things in the ordinary way... so her eggs were colored with blue and purple yolks and rainbow whites... but that is part of her charm.  ;-)

And you phonetic readers out there can celebrate that we made it through all the basic one letter phonograms last week and have moved on to 'qu' and the two sounds of 'th'.  This is huge for us as we practice for a short time every day and slowly this idea of blending sounds is starting to gel in her brain.  I know we will get there.  Patience is key... but it is also a blessing to find activities that make the practice fun.

Lia's Little Mermaid Dance

And here's her Little Mermaid dance!
(She's right in the middle with the long ponytail.)

Lia's Ready for the Show!

Lia continued with ballet this fall at the YMCA.  She's still in the 3-6 year old class and continues to enjoy it.  I love that the instructors are all high school teens who just really seem to enjoy the little girls and love to teach.  We attended class on Wednesdays and Fridays so Lia got lots of dancing in this year.  Last year, her end of class recital was an informal affair for the parents in her ballet studio.  This year, however, she got to perform her dance on stage in a real youth theatre production of The Little Mermaid.  It was a really fun experience and we enjoyed getting to see the show as well!  Here she is the night of her performance.  Does she look just a little bit excited?  She's got a little bit of make-up on too... adding to the big smiles.

 

 

This is a picture from the dress rehearsal on Thursday.

 

 

With her classmates... (who also proudly announced they were wearing make-up)

 

A few family pictures...

Family get-togethers are always good opportunities to take some pictures... especially since my kiddos were dressed so nicely.  ;-)  Look... David is in a button-down shirt and nice pants.  And he's not sticking out his tounge!

 

Pretty Lia

 

Me and my Mom

 

 Emily with Nana and Grandpa

 

 

And this one taken by Lia... my personal photographer.  She's pretty good, isn't she?  I think her trade secret is the fact she is under 48".  It's all in the camera angle you know.

 

Happy 1st Birthday Hudson!

We spent the morning and afternoon celebrating Hudson's 1st birthday.  Hudson is my cousin's son, so Chris says it makes him my cousin once-removed... regardless, he is super-cute and we enjoyed being part of the celebration.

 

 

Presents!!!

 

 

And more presents!!!

 

I didn't get too many pictures because Hudson was in constant motion.  I did get to see him take some steps, which was really cool... but right now he still crawls most of the time and cruises around all the furniture.

He was infatuated with Emily and gave out lots of hugs... though here he is trying to break out of the hug.

 . 
And here is the coolest baby toy ever.  We were calling it a modern hungry hippo... though I was informed it is an alligator.

See... everyone loved it!

 

Happy Birthday Hudson!!!

Cub Scout Bird Feeder

Friday night, David made a bird feeder with his cub scout den.  The boys had a lot of fun and were very proud of their handywork... and the fact they got to use all sorts of power tools!

 

Chris's World Travels

Chris has been in China for the last 10 days!  I know he is generally super-busy but he got to do some sight seeing this time.  Here are some pictures of The Great Wall of China!

 

 

And Tiananmen Gate in front of the Forbidden City...