Bye-bye Kindergarten, hello 1st grade!

Were were so blessed to have found the best group of homeschool friends! One of the moms, Marci, put a great graduation ceremony together.
Here is our "class". We met once a week for play or a lesson. The moms are great, the kids are great. I'm overwhelmed at how God put the group together.




After the ceremony I asked Sarah what she wanted to do and she said "cut my hair!!!". "Really? How short?"
She wanted it up to her ears. So I said "OK! Off with the kindergarten hair!"
And we cut it. Right then and there.

Here she is just before we cut it.


And here is the first cut!


Here she is a couple of days ago. Man, she grew up! Ok, I know. The hair is not exactly straight. But my daughter thinks her mom did a bang up job and I don't have the heart to tell her it's not straight. :)

Dance unto the Lord!!!

I'm sorry to all of those that had children in the Ballet Magnificat recital...but my Sarah was the prettiest ballerina up there!!! See.....



The recital was incredible. All to the glory of God. To see each level reaching up and praising the Lord with dance...it was unbelievable.
Sarah was so excited to have done her very first recital. And even more excited to move towards being a bumble bee in A Christmas Dream in December. So, again, my apologies to all you other parents with children in A Christmas Dream...I have the cutest bumble bee in the hive!

What do you eat when you are two?

Mommy's Yum-O baked chicken. Sophie took over the entire serving bowl!! Mommy is just glad she picked a meal she'd eat. Sophie is not the easy-pleasy eater that Sarah was. It's luck of the draw with Sophie.


Then it's cake time!! I started the tradition of a Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cake with her. And, ummmm, she was all about it! She totally thought the singing to her was awesome and sang "Happy Birthday to You" for days afterward. She even "let" Sarah blow out her candles.

What do you do when you turn two??

You get a Slip-n-Slide!!! Sophie LOVES the water. Sarah likes to play in it, but hates getting it on her head (well, until now that Sophie likes it...now it's the best thing ever *sigh*).
For Sophie's birthday we just did Sophie-stuff. Pretty low key. She and Sarah had a blast in the backyard. I was surprised how much Sophie actually tried to slide. As you can imagine, it's the stuff giggles are made of. Make-Mommy-cry giggles at that.





Earlier that day she went to breakfast with Daddy. Sarah and I decorated. I honestly can't believe she's two. The days are long. Very long at times. But the year flew by and I already find that remembering that tiny little 8 month old that was placed in my arms a year and a half ago is hard.
At her well check-up she was on target. Ok, well, she doesn't know her colors yet...but I promised to work on that. :)
She is 34.5 inches tall; and 27.6 lbs. (That's 80th percentile for weight and 70th percentile for height) She's coming around to the doctor, but she still goes insane when she is laid down! We are having her hearing checked this week at a pediatric audiologist. Yeah, good luck to them! I'm 90% sure she's fine, but there is just a nagging bone in my body that wants to be sure. Not real concerned. Even if she had a problem she's practically fluent in ASL already!

She will start Mother's Morning Out next week! She's going to love it I think. And Sarah is going to love having me to herself.

Here is the precious 2 year old and her big sister.

Bug-o-Rama

Bugs fascinate us. Especially ones we can catch. Right now, that's "love bugs" around here. I have no idea what their official name is, but they are the ones that are often seen stuck together in pairs...you know... "loving" each other. :)
Here are some horrible shots of Sarah catching them and Sophie doing what ever big sister does. :) I don't even think Sophie ever saw the bug she was pretending to catch. All that matters is that big sister was doing something, so she was doing it too.
Oh...and Sophie does have clothes. It just so happens we were cleaning up from the mud pie bake-off.

Sophie is featured over at Totally Tots right now. This is one of our "tot schooling" blogs that I LOVE! Tons and tons of ideas for play and learning.
I hope to start blogging more about our school adventures. I hope it won't drive away my 5 or so regular readers! But it is life at our house right now. :)

Happy Birthday to me!!!

Hi everyone. I'm Sophie. I'm here to ask for help. My whole family is crazy. They all keep saying "happy birthday" or something about "birthday". What is that? And why are they saying that to me? I just don't understand. But every time they say it I just giggle like mad so they think I understand. But, they are crazy.
They say I'm going to be 2. I can count to 10 so I'm not sure why they stop at 2. I skip 4 though. I've seen how hard 4 has been for Sarah, so I think I'm going to skip it for good.
I still moan when I am eating something really good. The entire time I'm eating it. Mommy says that's how she knows she hit a home run. What does that mean?? You got it, I just giggle.
I'm pretty sure I'm growing...or Sarah is shrinking. Mommy mixes up our clothes sometimes. I may be giggling, but that's little sister speak for "pay back is coming big sister!".
Have you ever seen bubbles?? These are the COOLEST things ever! Some one blows on a stick and these "bubbles" come out. And then I chase them until they disappear! Yep, giggles.
My big fear is that the world is going to run out of apples or bananas. Seriously. Sometimes there are bags of them in our kitchen, and then, in like 4 days...they are GONE!!! My mom is my hero. She some times goes out and finds more just in time! Wow. She's awesome. But seriously, do you think there are enough in the world?
What's a tantrum? My mommy will say "oh go ahead and cry, have your tantrum." She does this when I am clearly in distress. What's up with that? And doesn't everyone lose their marbles when you can't eat a rock that looks yummy? I'm putting this down in my journal that I call "What to Remember When in Therapy".
I better wrap this up before Mommy finds me on her Mac. She does NOT like me or Sarah touching it *at all*. There is probably a reason, but man-oh-man, these buttons make a great clicking noise. And I once saw Kai-Lan *playing* on here so I know it does more than she's letting on.
Have you seen these weird-o jammies I have to wear? I used to wear them in the winter but now Mommy has cut the feet off and puts them on backwards...making it completely impossible for me to take all my clothes off and sling my diaper across the room. How else am I going to get them to come in a talk to me when I'm ready to get up?? I keep thinking it's going to get too hot for this get up but somehow Mommy keeps making it colder in the house. How does that work? When I grow up I want to be a Mommy too, because they have so many tricks. Currently I'm working on sneaking out of my crib and scaring Mommy in the night with the pitter-patter of little feet on the kitchen floor. That's going to be soooooo funny. I'm still working on that big drop-off between the top of my crib and the floor, but once I get that....GAME ON Mommy and Daddy! HA!
O.K. I really do need to go. I heard Daddy telling Mommy that he was taking me to breakfast for this birthday thing. Whatever it is...I like it!
Thanks for listening!
Wuv Ewe!
Sophie, 1-2.

Ahhh, something successful from my garden comes

There will be an update of the garden adventure soon. We've had some success and failures. The main thing I learned is that those cute little lady bugs can not be trusted with your precious Monarch eggs. We had a little aphid problem and a little unidentified problem, neither of which should have been too costly to the butterfly eggs. Then one day, POOF, everything was cleaned off. Everything. Bug-wise I mean. I suspected the lizards. I researched on the internet and was sad to learn that little lady bugs eat little eggs. I knew about aphids, but who eats butterflies, ya know? Anyway, I sort of blew it off because I didn't find any lady bugs. I continued to inspect, hoping to find even a trace of hope for a buttlerfly egg. "Amazingly clean" I thought.
Then...as the orchestra in my mind swelled in drama...I found it. A lady bug. A big. Fat. Lady bug. Ugh. I paid a lot of money for those plants, weeds I remind you. So that the sweet Monarchs could flurish in our little sanctuary garden. Oh, but no, lady bug comes along and cleans me out! So sometimes home school science doesn't work out quite the way we plan. Instead of watching the stages of wild Monarchs, we'll watch the veracious appetite of the lady bugs. And next year I'll teach the girls how to move lady bugs down the yard to the rose bushes, where they will certainly perish from gluttony. I'll teach them how to wipe off said unidentified black thing with a qtip. And some how, I'll teach them that while we have to take ridiculous care to nuture something in our backyard...it all works in God's garden just as it should.

Sorry, I digressed....

These flowers are some of my successes! Hmmm, wonder why I was going to post about them?? Those ole lady bugs really did suck the joy right out of Milkweed for me. :)

I love these moments

I didn't even have to say "go read". I noticed things got very quiet so I checked on them. Wow. A mommy has to love finding both kiddos on the couch reading.
But not to give false impressions...sometimes I look in and find one on the sofa table and one jumping on the couch. Oh my.

Letting go, again.

I don't know if it's Sophie and her attachment to things, if it's because she's the second and I'm more aware, or if it's just because I know it's a phase we'll never be "in" again....
but man, it's hard to let go of the silliest things for me.

This aquarium hung on the same crib for both girls. (Granted, only one of them used it as a stepping stool to climb out. Any guesses?) It's the sweetest thing. The music from it is carved in my mind, sort of. I couldn't hum it for you if you asked me, but if it played the first note I'd be taken instantly back to a thousand memories.
Even the thumping of the levers makes so much well up in me. And I don't think I ever *saw* either of them play with it. I heard it on the monitors.
Well, it's been off the crib for a while, due to it's ability to aid escape. It's been sitting on the kitchen counter ever since.
I've got a clutter problem. And this is why.

So finally I resolved to throw it away. "It's not like it's a wood toy that would last." I reasoned. "There will be something new out waaaaaay before a grandbaby came." I knew that.
I walked to the trash can.
I can't. It hurt my heart.
A few more days passed. Clutter got annoying.
I did it. It laid there in the trash can. And I was ok.

Then Sophie came in. And ran right for it. Ouch.
"Me see" she said as she got it out of the trash.
She sat down with it on the floor and began playing with it.
"Great," I think to myself, "I'll never ever be able to throw anything away again."
I had one of those deep memory moments watching her push every button.
Then she got up and said "tash" and threw it back in the trash.
Thank you, um, God(?). And I laughed at my sweet little Hurricane as she walked back out to play with Sarah.

It's gone now. But even when I look at the picture I do wish there was one more coming that could have played with it. And yet, I'm thankful I have the memories of two.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy mother's day to my mom! I'm very thankful for being able to still call and wish her a happy day. My thoughts are with those of you that wished you could and couldn't.

My thoughts are also with those mom's who have lost children and longed for a call today.

But mostly, I'm thankful to two very special birthmoms that chose life for little girls carried in their tummies...for whatever reason they had to make a choice that could not have been an easy one...

And I am thankful to my Savior who believes I can do this mothering thing...even when I'm not so sure...His love endures forever.

What's changed??

April 27th

May 6th


I haven't even been able to blog that Sarah lost her FIRST tooth yet...and she lost her SECOND!!!
She was soooooo excited. The tooth fairy came and left a dollar bill with glittery finger prints all over it for each tooth! Very cute.

Sophie, not being one to be left out, has been asking me to wiggle her tooth right along with her sister. And even brings "it" up to me in a kleenex like Sarah did. ha. Quite the character.

So now Sarah has a new tooth about 1/2 way in and a hole. Gulp. She's growing up so fast.

With kindergarten graduation on Monday we had to submit pics of them "then" and "now".
Gulp.

Every day learning

Other than a few odds and ends we are done with Kindergarten with Sarah.
I've been amazed at how much she learned and how quickly she got nearly everything we did! She reads everything. A natural "decoder". A huge vocabulary. Will listen to books on tape/cd non-stop at night. I told her one night that "books don't count". Meaning, if you want to stay up late to read it doesn't count as "playing". If she ever ran out of books to read we'd get more, it doesn't have to be her birthday or any reason special. So in other words...read as much as you want, when ever you want, and where ever you want. She told me she really enjoyed reading but didn't like to do it in bed at night. "Why?" I asked her. "Because it makes me fall asleep, I don't like falling asleep." I explained it wasn't reading, but her internal clock. She didn't believe me. :)
But there have been plenty of random pieces of information coming from all those "Read and Find Out" books these last few weeks. :) And Dr Seuss Learning Library. She likes those too. But her favorites are the ones she reads for school. Pathway Readers. They are written by the Amish and are all about life on the farm. They are unbelievably sweet to hear her read. Not Dick and Jane sweet. But just real life lived simply. Love them!
Here is Sarah reading to Sophie and me at lunch one day.


Of course, then there is Hurricane. I've been enjoying her just being a long for the ride. I'll pull out some development toys here and there while we read, but mostly just let her do whatever. For the most part that's worked. The other day she was coloring. This skill is emerging more and more every day. Her grip is nearly perfect. She studies whoever is coloring with her and mimics them. But sometimes, she just isn't ready to do what the teacher asks of her. :)
On this particular day she was more content to tear the paper off of every single crayon in her bag. She was amazed to see that they still "worked" after that, but didn't really care. She peeled for about 30 minutes.



But then she really surprised me. As I walked off to wash the lunch dishes she begins COUNTING her naked crayons!!! "uhnnnn, tooooooo, teeeeee, (pause), fiiihhh, tixxxx".
Agh! She *is* learning!! Holy cow! Now...trust me when I say she is very private about her genius. She will not count when asked (although she's done it more than once when she thought no one was looking), she will not tell you her name (despite knowing it), she won't even tell you Puppy's name(but she will scream it's name if you dare to think she's sleeping without it).
She has a favorite Mandarin song that she sings alot. Not sure if she knows what she's singing about, but I'm pretty sure a Mandarin speaker would get the gist of what she's singing.

And our biggest news for her is that she will be in Mother's Morning Out starting June 10th!!!! Just one day a week for 3 hours. I'd love to do two days a week but we can't afford it. But even just the one day will be a big deal for her. It's going to wear her out, but she'll love it. Sarah and I will be starting some of her more difficult 1st grade subjects on the days that Sophie is gone. Give us a head start on the year and Sarah some quiet time to learn. And honestly, it will give me some time not to feel pulled in two different directions feeling guilty either way.

I've got so many posts I need to finish and publish...my goodness!