There’s this toy that I… I mean the kids… have been playing with a lot lately. It’s Magneatos! It’s very simple—just a bunch of magnetic rods and joints—but the possibilities are endless and it’s almost therapeutic for a geometry geek like me. Squares, triangles, hexagons! Pyramids, tetrahedrons, cubes! And of course, the cool stuff on the box that I like to… I mean that Anna likes to… build by looking at the picture. Over the past few weeks she’s gotten better at looking at the picture and figuring out what comes next. That’s some kind of good spacial-relations skill, right?

Anna now knows lots of shapes, including the difference between a square pyramid and a triangular pyramid. Sarah likes to play with them too, even though she isn’t trying to build things yet. She’s pretty good at tearing them down, though, and putting the blocks back in the box when we’re done. :)

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Surely everyone has heard about Operation Christmas Child... if you haven’t, go read about it! Anyway, I’ve been doing shoeboxes for years (for the oldest age range), but this year we decided Anna was old enough to sort of understand what she was doing if she packed her own box for a little girl her age. I told her we were picking out some presents for a little girl far, far away, maybe in Africa (because she knows about Africa), who doesn’t have any toys. She might not even have much to eat or many clothes to wear. Anna asked me what her name was. She wanted to take the box to the little girl herself. So, there are a few things she doesn’t quite grasp yet, but she understood the broader concept. She had a good time at Dollar Tree (we went there so I wouldn’t have to worry about prices; anything she picked would be ok).

Here she is packing up her things:

Sarah wanted to “help” too:

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Anna is reading. She’s 3 1/2. And I am one proud mama.

No, I’m not one of those moms who pushes her kids to overachieve and reach milestones faster than their peers. At least, I don’t think I am. Anna just has a natural knack for it. And I’ve guided her along the way, but really I’ve done very little.

We first figured out she might be an early reader when she was not quite 2 years old. We had given her a toy laptop for Christmas, designed for older kids, but we thought she would have fun pushing the buttons and watching the screen and hearing the sounds… typical baby stuff. Then one day I was watching her play the game where it was “raining letters” and she had to hit the button for that letter before it disappeared from the screen. And she was getting every one right. Upper and lower case. Very impressive, but I thought surely she had just memorized where the buttons were on the computer. So I asked her to point out specific letters for me in her books. And on t-shirts, and cereal boxes, and anything else in the house that had writing on it. And she knew them, almost every one. Upper and lower case.

She had completely taught herself her letters, before she was even two years old, while her dumb mama was totally oblivious (more…)

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Our big girl started preschool today! She’s so little and so big at the same time. We’ve been talking it up for a long time and she’s been getting excited about it, so she had a great first day. I really think she’s going to love it! Here are some of those classic “first day” pics:

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Have we ever had a Labor Day holiday with such perfect weather? Not in my recent memory, at least. This morning David and Anna walked the dogs around the neighborhood (in shifts) and ended up at the home of some friends in our community group. They mentioned that they were going to the park to fly a kite with another family in our group, and since we had planned on going to the park later anyway, we just met up with them. While the men put their brains to work figuring out how to assemble the kite, the kiddos played on the playground (and Sarah ate her lunch). Then we went out into the big field once the guys were ready with the kite. It was a wonderful day for it!

Doing something technical I’m sure:

The cheering section:

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Have I mentioned enough on here what a great big sister Anna is? No? Well, here’s more. Anna likes to “read” The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Sarah (you’ll need to turn your volume way up to hear it):

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It’s the 12th again… and it’s Sarah’s 9-month birthday today! It was WAY too hot to do portrait-type pictures outside, so we shot some everyday activities around the house instead. (LOTS of pics… click on the “more” tag to see them all.)

Waking up in the morning. “Awww, Mom! That’s not nice to snap a picture when I first wake up!”

As you can see, she’s holding on to the beloved Totopus:

Post diaper change, pre dressing:

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My brother and sis-in-law left their 4-year-old here when they went back home earlier this week. Well, not here, but with my parents, who live nearby, so Anna has gotten to spend some time with her this week. The girls have reached the age where they are great pals and love to spend time together. On Wednesday she came over to play for a bit, and we took both girls to the library for craft time and to check out some books. On Thursday, we went down to The Wonder Place. On Friday, Anna went to my parents’ to hang out for the day.

They have matching “Big Sister” shirts, purchased separately but a nice coincidence:

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We had a few errands to run in Little Rock today, so we decided to find something fun (and preferably free) to do as well. Thanks to Sue at The Joyful Chaos, I read about the great things to do at Riverfront Park, including the water feature you can play in! I think Anna was a little unsure at first, but she quickly grew to love it! We stayed about an hour. And for those of us not getting wet, it was actually pretty nice in the shade, especially when the wind blew the mist over.

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We had Anna’s 3-year birthday party this past Saturday. It was her first “friend” party and she had two little girls over, as well as all the grandparents.

We started with “stick the candle on the cake” (like “pin the tail on the donkey”):

And, while you’re at it, take a look at those curls!

Anyway… next was the stamp-a-bag craft. I borrowed foam stamps from a friend and bought fabric paint and canvas bags from Hobby Lobby:

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