Thursday, March 31, 2011

Beginning Writing...



Fellow teachers will understand my excitement from these photos.  Last summer, Jack and I tackled the big "learning to read."  It is something he picked up rather quickly given the task, and something he still continues to surprise me with everyday.  Writing however, has not been a particular area of interest for him.  A few months ago though, I began to notice him starting to add letters to the pictures he would draw.  I've had some field experience interpreting writing, but I couldn't make these out without his help and many times the letters did not match the sounds.  Lately though, he's been leaving me little "notes" to tell me things (see photo #1).  I loved this note, it says "My tummy hurts (and the heart means I love you)."  Phonetically, it makes perfect sense and I am so excited about it!!  The second photo is writing we did together.  He placed stickers on the top of the paper to make a picture and wrote a sentence to describe it.  We used this to talk about spacing, capital/lowercase letters, putting the vowels in our words, etc.. Clearly a "light bulb" is going off and I am so excited that things are starting to connect!  Go Jack!!

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Jack Is 5?!?!?!

It's bittersweet.  I would compare this year's Birthday (the big "5") to the first Birthday.  I still can't believe five years have gone by; where did they go?  I still feel like I had Jack, let alone Maren.  Those of you who know me well know I'm pretty sentimental about all of this.  Five sounds so big.  It means big things, Kindergarten being the biggest of course.  Despite all my trying, I didn't get out of it though, the Birthday came. I still don't want to admit that my little monkey is 5, but he is and I'm adjusting.  I'm continuing to try to "freeze-frame" everyday and ignore all those out there who tell me "it just starts to go faster the older they get."  It's already going fast enough; I'd really like a set of brakes that could slow more down than my Tahoe.

Unlike last year, Jack was very excited to have a new number this year.  He was so excited for his party and was not disappointed!  He got to play with cousins, eat pizza and cake, dress up like a transformer, and open presents!  What a day!  Here are a few pictures from the big day...
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Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Shame On Me...



Shame on me for breaking "mommy code" and blogging out loud that "everyone (was) healthy."  I should have known I was jinxing myself.  Last Friday we ended up in the Emergency Room with Maren.  She fell off her chair at lunch and split her lip open on our kitchen table.  Thank goodness Craig had just gotten home from his last business trip and was there to help us get to the hospital.  Four hours and two stitches later, we got to come back home.  As promised while the doctor stitched her up, Marsy got to wear her purple tutu and eat purple ice cream when she got home.