We’re entering new territory with Anna—we’re starting to read some chapter books aloud to her right before naptime, and sometimes in the evenings. I thought we might get through a couple a month, but we finished FIVE in January. Since David or I need to read them first, we’re going to have a hard time staying ahead! It’s a bit of a challenge to find books written on that level that also have content appropriate for a not-quite-5-year-old. Many of the classic children’s favorites are, in my opinion, better suited for kids at least a couple of years older. Anna is loving it, though, and she’s SO ready.

In January, David read her The Boxcar Children and Surprise Island, and I read Helen Keller, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, and The Courage of Sarah Noble. Up next? David started The Blue Bay Mystery with her today, and I will start Little Sioux Girl, a book I loved as a child and borrowed many times from the library. And I have a large stack and an even larger list of books to peruse for future read-aloud time. I’ll try to keep the blog updated with what we read!

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The girls and I managed a little trip to Tulsa for my youngest niece’s first birthday party this past weekend. The girls had fun playing with their cousins, I stayed sane (mostly due to the fact that my parents were there in the same hotel to help!), and overall we had a good weekend.

Anna and Addie are good buds!

Hopefully Kendall and Sarah will be too, when Sarah gets a little older. They’re only 6 months apart.

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Anna got to take the “Star Board” to school this week and be the class star! Every week a different child takes it home and brings it back filled with pictures and things. Then they get to tell their classmates all about the things on the board. Anna and I had fun picking out pictures that represented some of her favorite places, events, and moments.

I thought, since I need to blog more and all, I’d just post the pictures she chose. (Click “more” to see them all.)

Riding her bike (this was on her 4th birthday):

Reading to Sarah (she does this a lot and we all love it):

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We are learning Spanish around here. The whole family. Well, Sarah is still working on learning English, but she’ll probably pick up some too. I totally used Google Translate for that title sentence, so if it’s wrong, blame Google. :)

I studied Spanish for several years in high school, and I actually got to a point where I could read and write it pretty well. I never could speak or understand it nearly as well, and I’ve since forgotten most of what I learned. But as I study, it is coming back to me. I think it’s still in there somewhere.

I’ve been wanting to brush up for several years, but now I have a new motivation: Anna wants to learn. And why not? We can learn anything we want to, right? Learning a second language as a family sounds like a great idea to me.

So at the dinner table, we’re going through a little e-book that introduces some very basic common words and phrases. I’ve bookmarked some websites that have free video/audio lessons. We have a couple of Spanish-speaking friends who would love to help us out. So that will get us started. And for myself, since I’d like to progress at a faster rate? I’ve pulled out my old high school textbooks—which were an old edition even back then, dated 1984—and have started going through them. I know learning from books will not create fluency, but it should help build enough vocabulary to converse a little. And I’m a visual learner; hearing it is necessary, but I HAVE to see it as well to get it cemented in my brain.

Well, ¡hasta luego!

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… because that’s where the book bags were sitting after our trip to the library. That’s where the girls just plopped down and started looking at them. My, how these girls love books! And I’m so glad! We have a lot of good times reading together.

Anna is reading picture books and easy readers very well on her own. We read plenty of them to her as well, of couse. I’m about to start reading aloud some chapter books to her. Sarah still loves board books, but more and more she is reaching for “real” books to look at and be read to her. She’s pretty good about sitting through the whole thing, although sometimes it’s hard to get through it because she is so excitedly pointing out things on every page! But that’s wonderful as well.

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Wow, it’s already the start of another year. Last year, I made it a goal to read at least 24 books. I did. I also made it a goal to blog at least once a week. I didn’t. Maybe I’m only able to handle one resolution per year? So hopefully this year, I can keep up the reading AND add some blogging (and maybe even go back and blog about things that happened that I should have written about but didn’t).

I either need to blog or scrapbook. And being the type of person that feels anxious and overwhelmed upon entering Hobby Lobby rather than giddy and excited, blogging is probably the better option.

Hmm, so what’ll it be? The beach trip, playing in the snow, the school Christmas program, playing with the cousins? Or how much Anna has grown and learned and changed, or how much Sarah has grown and learned and changed, or how much I wish I could un-muddle the thoughts in my head and write or do something that actually makes sense?

But not tonight. Time for bed. Let’s see what the next few days bring…

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Sarah turned 2 today! We celebrated with a family outing to two of our favorite places—The Wonder Place and Chick-fil-A. It went well and we all had a good time. We love this little girl of ours!

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I imagine there comes a point in the life of every mother of a girl when she feels the urge to sew a dress for her daughter. And I suppose that every mother of more than one daughter wishes to put them in matching dresses at some point. While mine are still too young to balk at the idea of matching or at my sense of style (or lack thereof), I decided I’d better get on it.

Due to my self-imposed limitation of sewing only straight lines and right angles, I bought 2 matching t-shirts and made gathered skirts to attach to them, naturally turning what should have been a 2-hour project into an all-day affair. That is what I do best, after all.

They came out looking like dresses, so we’ll call this a success. Anna loves hers, and even though Sarah is in an “I’m going to freak out about trying on new clothes” phase, she got used to it, so I’ll take that as a compliment. :)

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Anna started 4-year-old preschool yesterday! She’s grown so much since last year!

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This morning I took Sarah to her first “Mother Goose on the Loose” story time at the library! It’s a fun time designed specifically for babies and toddlers with lots of motion songs, rhymes, props, etc. I started taking Anna when she was about 11 months old, and it became a weekly thing until she was 3 (by which time we had transitioned to regular story time). I planned to do the same with Sarah, but as parents of two or more know, each child is different! Sarah has been a much more independent, hands-on, “put me down and let me get into that” kind of kid, and I felt that it would be a frustrating rather than an enjoyable experience for us. Until recently, she has played quite happily in the children’s play area while Anna has gone to the regular story time. But about three weeks ago, she started wanting to go in too, and she has actually made it through! So we decided to give Mother Goose a try today. Anna went too and brought her favorite baby doll do to the motions with.

Mother Goose has a lot of repetition. There are some things that change weekly, but the pattern stays the same, and a large part of the content is the same. Children learn what to expect next. Sarah is really getting into routines lately, and she’s becoming more and more particular about doing things a certain way. I think (and hope) she’ll really get into this and enjoy it! It’s amazing what the children learn when they go consistently.

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