Fun with A

Well, first off with some family help we loaded two IKEA shoeboxes with tons of art supplies (paper, pencils, crayons, markers, colored pencils, coloring book or colored paper), princess dress-ups, hair clips, nail polish, brain puzzles like a Rubix cube, games like Uno and the jumping pegs in a wooden board game, mini candy canes, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, soap, pink washcloth, and mini scriptures. We sent them out for Operation Christmas Child!

A caught a slug, a worm, a millipede, a caterpillar, a pillbug, and several snails in the last week. They all died, as did her fish. And her underwater snail, which climbed out of its waterbowl and escaped behind the dresser. Bad pet luck.

A invented her own version of "There's a Hole in the Bucket" today:

There's a hole in the fan, dear Liza, dear Liza
There's a hole in the fan, dear Liza, a hole.

Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
Then fix it dear Henry, dear Henry, fix it.

With what shall I fix it, dear Liza, dear Liza,
With what shall I fix it, dear Liza, with what?

With metal, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
With metal, dear Henry, dear Henry, with metal.

With what shall I stick it, dear Liza, dear Liza,
With what shall I stick it, dear Liza, with what?

With tape, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
With tape, dear Henry, dear Henry, with tape.

But the tape is too loose, dear Liza, dear Liza,
But the tape is too loose, dear Liza, too loose.

Then glue it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
Then glue it, dear Henry, dear Henry, glue it.

But the metal's too little, dear Liza, dear Liza,
But the metal's too little, dear Liza, too little.

The End!

Baby G again

He is smart and helpful. It's so cute. He's one but he will use a rag to clean spills (and will mime using a rag when he finds a spill until someone gives him a rag, then he uses it on the spill). He unloads the dishwasher (and sometimes gives me the dishes), and when I say we're done/ready to start the dishwasher, he used to play with the soap tray but now he goes to the undersink cabinet, pulls on the locked door, reaches for the soap when I open the door, and tries to hold the box to pour the soap in the tray. Then he closes the door and sometimes reaches for the settings to turn it on. When I'm doing laundry, he pulls the lint trap out of the dryer, pulls off handfuls of lint, and then puts it back. (He can almost get it in correctly.) If I say "clothes" while doing laundry, he tries to "close" the dryer door. That's one of his favorite jobs. He'll help putting things back in a container if you show him.

He can also climb pretty well--the bathtub, the kid chairs, pulling himself up to chairs at the doctor's office by pure upper body strength, climbing correctly off the bed, etc. He is great at getting caps off markers and pens within seconds. He gives the BEST hugs still.

I'm "mam" and J is "da." He's very clear with signing "milk" (for milk only now), "all done," and pointing to what he wants. He will drink out of anything--anyone's cup, any beverage, will swipe soda cans, rice milk boxes, coconut milk boxes, cups with straws, anything. Just not bottles, LOL. He is very, very clear about what he wants generally. He can run now! This week he started dancing to music, and now if I say, "dance" he starts dancing, even if there's no music playing. He can reach almost anything--if it's on the table or the counter, he can usually figure out a way to get it. He can reach a large percentage of the table from the floor. He can reach the counter from the computer chair or in someone's arms (diving down at what he wants). He also loves sweets.

In other news, I'm doing NaNoWriMo and I'm at 22,282 words right now. Woohoo!

Heehee

Today we went for a walk. During the walk we discovered a secret passage, were chased by pirates (cars and flower spies), became invisible princesses, avoided the fences of electricity (but if you have a puffy coat or grapes from a brick wall you could touch the fence safely), followed a secret path, found a secret park (seriously!), acquired the 4 Leaves of Prophecy that would protect us as long as they remained on the branch (we lost two!), a magic wand, two curvy swords, a bow and three arrows, the Leaf of Prophecy that teaches bad guys to be good, looked for the Greatest Superheros (grasshoppers), climbed The Wall before the guards came, avoided the black moth spies, saw the black birds that could rip us in half, ran home, saw pirates coming, went inside, locked the door magically, then C and I cast protective spells on all the windows, A looked through the Crystal (prism) to see if the pirates were coming, and then we withstood a direct pirate assault.

Also, baby G loves to make faces where he purses his lips, wrinkles up his nose, and snorts loudly out his nose. He also adores anything related to cooking. He plays with his cooking toys, with pans, with pots, and especially using kitchen utensils IN pots. If I'm cooking he tries to get up to the stove, and if I'm holding him he will grab for the spoon and try to stick it in my pot. He uses the potty too, sometimes. :D

New stuff

Baby G can RUN now! He's 1, so he's not really "Baby" G anymore, either. He can climb the couch, the bathtub, off the bed, etc. He loves the wooden puzzles with the big knobs, esp his shapes puzzle. He is getting his Tooth the Fourth.

A is flooring me with her mind again. She was pretending to be a mermaid from Mexico this morning, and is explaining to me the differences in tail shape between Mexican and traditional mermaids, and explaining her diet and her interactions with the migratory Monarch butterflies there. I didn’t even know she knew what Mexico was!

Mexican mermaids have tail fins that are positioned almost vertically, while the other mermaids have tail fins that are almost completely horizontal. She provided a physical illustration for me. Monarch butterflies in Mexico swarm to the Mexican mermaids and lift them to the tree branches, but the mermaids fall back to the rivers because they can’t fly.

Heehee.

A also wants to fly to the rainforest and tell people to STOP cutting it down, to "adopt" a Monarch butterfly through the World Wildlife Fund, and to go to Costa Rica and catch a butterfly. We are planning a neighborhood recycling program as a more local way to help the deforestation.

A is learning multiplication and division right now, and enjoying that.

C got her "BOB books" that are all easy, 3-letter words, and she's thrilled that she has books SHE can read ALL BY HERSELF.

I've been doing more temple work, found some names (yay! story later), and got my hair cut finally. I've also been spinning more, and knitting. I'm getting ready for NaNoWriMo next month.

Jeremy is having a stressful time with his English class (rough professor), but the other classes are going well! Registration for new classes are next week.

AWESOME day

So, baby G is 1!

But today's post is about our AWESOME day.

I've felt like I really need to go to the temple & do the initiatories my dad gave me the last few weeks. So I finally figured out a way (slipping out before J's morning class on Sat) and went to the temple yesterday. I noticed one name had no parents listed, and "sealing to parents" was blacked. For some reason, I felt like I needed to go find her parents. I looked on familysearch.org when I got home (the fact that I even remembered to was a miracle, lol), and I found her marriage record with her parents listed! I guessed that the work was already done for them, but I sent the info to my dad, and the next day we checked. She was in "the system," with no parents listed. We found what appear to be her parents, but with no children listed, and their work is not done. Everything matches. I'm going to the family history library tomorrow to verify (see if we can find the family together on the newly indexed 1880 census records), and then we can connect the family lines and seal them together. YAY!!!!!!

Next cool thing today: I've been sitting baby G on his squishy potty seat in between diaper changes recently. He likes it, and has started peeing most times I do this. Today J called me in to the bathroom to see G trying to put the cushy potty seat up on the potty himself. I took off his diaper and sure enough, he was peeing. Wow--he really seems to understand this!

Last cool thing for today: A has been in vision therapy for a little over two months. When it started, she generally had to be forced to read even one page of an easy reader or picture book (not including reciting memorized books). She would get very upset at the idea of reading. She said she could NOT do it, especially not with small letters. Today, she asked me if she could read a page of the chapter book we're reading at bedtime. It's an abridged version of "The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells. It has the slightly larger, more spaced type typical of the abridged/easier versions, but it is still a chapter book, solid pages of text with interspersed pages of B&W illustrations. She read EVERY PAGE of the chapter except one. I read the third page, and by the time I was done she was excited again and read the rest of it herself. She is over the moon that she "can read CHAPTER books!!!!!!!!" She did wonderfully, reading words like "aluminum" and "delightful" herself. Awesome!!!!

Baby G

Before I forget, I want to write a few little things about baby G. He will be a year soon and won't be doing all of these.

I love how when he smiles, his cheekbones sail up, his eyes crinkle into quarter-moons, his whole mouth opens in a giant grin and he just glows. His eyes sparkle, I swear!

When he is happy, he sits up, bounces once, throws his arms in the air, leans forwards and lands with his hands SLAM on the ground, and crawls forwards with is head wiggling back & forth and his bum swishing around behind him as he crawls as fast as he can, giggling.

His hair goes into a natural faux mohawk whenever he gets a bath.

Right now he is doing a lot of walking sideways, like he used to along the walls/couch, but across the floor. It looks like he's dancing, and sometimes he goes in circles sideways.

He loves to tip over containers, put things back in containers (esp crayons), eat crayons, play with pots/pans/utensils, turn book pages, and draw (as best as he can).

Updates!

It's been waaaaay too long. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

1) Charter school did NOT work out well with A. Long story, the school psychologist never really even entered the picture (tried to contact for two months, still never got name/schedule/phone number/email, no response to email-forwarded-to-office-manager, etc), A was bored out of her sweet little mind and starting to detest school, etc. J actually told me to go pull her out, and he is one who wanted her in a school, any school! So we are in a homeschooling charter school now--weird, huh? They pay for a part of your homeschooling materials, and A goes there one full day a week for fine arts classes. They also do the sorts of things you associate with 1st grade (she's in 1st there--they had less hoops to jump through, lol)--catch and observe praying mantises and a grasshopper, have a class rabbit to feed carrots, eat snack & lunch outside on the grass, etc.

Baby G decided crawling was lots of fun, but walking is where it's at now. This week he's been testing out walking short distances on his own more often, even more yesterday, and today he decided it was FUN. He was walking from chair to counter, chair to chair, table to chair, halfway across the kitchen (he celebrated with giggly victory laps crawling), halfway across the kitchen again, etc, etc. He can also crouch down or lean over and then stand back up.

C is back in her preschool plus doing some homeschool. She loves both, and her preschool teacher loves her to pieces. She wanted to learn about earthquakes so we did that last week, along with volcanoes. This week we all learned about maps and directions, followed a map to deliver birthday invitations, and made a map of our house. (Both of the girls--they do the fun stuff together.)

The girls are a year older! Hooray! Their party is Saturday. I hope I find the camera charger before Saturday. It is lost agaaaaaaaain.

We saw Bill Nye. Squeeeeeee!!!!! We heard him speak, answer questions, met him, and got pictures taken with him. He is just like you'd expect from his show--funny plus hard science, for over an hour. It was awesome. He's currently big on global warming, personal ways to go green, and space exploration/studies. Also sundials... (long story).