Friday, March 25, 2011

Gaining knowledge

Today we learned that if you reuse a rocket balloon, it explodes.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

A new title

A has declared herself Princess Pi. Pi is spelled Pila, with a silent "l" that makes the "i" use the long vowel sound. Ah, the concept of phonics in the hands of a 5-year-old. A made a comment that she loves to tell stories (which she does), so I asked her to tell me about Princess Pi. She answered, "Princess Pi is me. I don't need to tell stories about myself." This was of course accompanied with the "DUH, mom" look. Princess Pi is also spoken about by A in the third person. Princess Pi only needs a bath when her hair is dirty (as A is about to get in the bath).

G randomly has two rashes on his face. I have no idea why. Typical. He's always got some weird rash going on, lol.

The kids' step-grandma is coming out to help with step-sister's new baby today! I wonder if we'll get to see her sometime.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

It's snowing.

Right now. March 22. Snow falling like crazy.

I just got over what looks like strep. I am not quite 100% yet but I should be in a day or two. Or three. Blech. I'm SO glad to "not be just laying on the brown chair all day not moving," as A put it. I kind of ruined J's spring break with all of that. :(

The girls learned about snakes & armadillos as preschool today, so they are playing armadillo roll into a ball when a predator comes, and they already played rattlesnake rattling in warning to make me run away to a safe distance, and armadillo eating ants with a long (straw) tongue. Good times! I love their preschool.

I turned in A's paperwork for her charter school. Hooray!! It's near a park so I'm already making plans for weekly park trips on the way home from school & park time with C after dropping A off, etc. The school is also in horse territory so that will be fun to see.

G is trying to crawl. As of two days ago he's no longer just pushing up on his arms & looking around but instead he's madly thrashing around with his arms & legs, acting rather desperate to GO somewhere. It's so cute.

J's younger brother got us... oh, something I can't say quite yet because it's part of a Hofer surprise... thing... but we love it. Love! More on that later.

Jeremy's step-sister had her baby!! Yay!

Monday, March 14, 2011

Huh.

Yeah, our kids are unique, LOL. The girls were playing "my sister is dead and my mother is not dead," also known as "dead and not dead" earlier. Apparently that means one of them lays down as the dead person & the other one pretends to be the mom & cries over the other's body. Alanna said she came up with it from her own head. Yeah.... Interesting....

On an up note, lol, the girls got some workbooks from Great-grandma Betty today! They both wrote thank-you notes and hopefully I will remember to mail them.

Sunday we went to the Provo temple & walked the grounds, sat & ate a snack while playing a game & reading, & then the girls joined another family with kids for a kid-run game of hide & seek. Fun times!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

YAYNESS!!!

Yes, yayness is a word. I declare it to me so.

Even if it may only land in the Urban Dictionary where invented words live.

:D

A got into QR, the super awesome amazing charter school (read: FREE) that really emphasizes the arts & where I think she will be absolutely thrilled. We toured several & this is the one that even just from the tour, she really wanted to attend & she has been telling many people all about it, and what she'll learn there, & what they start teaching next year, etc. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (It was a random lottery so we had no idea if she would get in or not. I just opened the email that says YES!!!)

Okay, now for exclamation point part the second, A has been reading a lot this week. Besides Frog & Toad, she also has been reading through (slowly, carefully, & with a little help) "The Enchanted Castle," which features words like "disappeared" and, well, "enchanted castle." This isn't something she would have even tried to read say a month ago. She's doing beautifully--sounding out everything she doesn't know & not having any issues when I show her what it does sound like (and she's sounding it out properly--it's not her fault English doesn't follow its own rules). It also has new interesting concepts like a "sitting room" and a "fork" in the road. It's been a lot of fun so far.
So, while I was helping A read "The Enchanted Castle" this evening, C looked over and said, "Will you teach me how to read?" Okay!! She's been dabbling with it lately, sounding out letters in words & guessing what they turn in to, and I've been teaching her a bit on purpose and playing some letter games with simple words, etc. So we sat down & read through a very basic book (it uses three words in various combinations for easy reading) and she enjoyed that. After the first couple of pages she started, "I can do it myself!" and she sounded out the words, asking if she wasn't sure, and she did beautifully herself. Then I wrote a couple of simple words (bat, bed) and she read those correctly as well as one that A wrote for her (aldo, which was her phonetic version of "I'll do"). They wanted to do more but it was already past bedtime. Go go, super readers!

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Da Future

My very long term plan is to become fluent enough in ASL to foster (or even foster-adopt) a deaf child. That would be in probably 5-10 years of course--we plan to have at least one more "of our own" first & we'd need more space & Jeremy would probably need to be finished with school 'cause we like to have food/good job, lol! But I like that as a long term plan.

As of Friday's mail we still haven't heard from any charter schools. I'll update when we do, of course!

Saturday, March 5, 2011

:)

The girls went to the Fairy Tea Party (with no tea, lol) at the library yesterday. However, I forgot the camera, and when we got home A said she did NOT want me taking a pic of her costume. Oh well--everyone has probably seen pics of their dresses already on PhotoBucket. They dress up for a princess fairy pretend session pretty much daily. I actually wasn't there, because babies weren't allowed. G, not me :p They went with a friend & her mom. I know they saw a ballet dance, some fairy ceremonies (lol), had some fairy treats, and got a sealed vial of "fairy dust" pink sand and a fairy charm with a silver ribbon necklace. It looked like lots of fun--definitely worth $5.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Hmm

We were going to make thank you notes and maybe cookies today & go to the library, but instead...
I have a migraine and we have visiting teaching (done), preschool, playgroup (debating on that), and a birthday party (just A, so C will probably be extremely upset). But it is raining (yay!) and I am almost done with A's hat, and J is doing well in school. He's still cranking out that 4.0 and was top of his math class last time it was tallied. Hooray!! It's midterms this coming week, and I'm sure he'll do fabulously.