Reading-A Different Lesson in Patience

Arianna has been very interested lately in letter sounds and has been practicing sounding out words. I am not big on pushing things too fast but she is so motivated, that we decided to embark on the journey of learning to read. I got this book called The Reading Lesson. It recommends doing one page a day for children as young as Arianna. So that was my intention. Each day as we complete a lesson, Ari gets to put a sticker on that page. We finished the first lesson and Ari begged to do another. She finished five lessons and I finally encouraged her to go wrestle with Daddy to give her brain a break.

She did amazingly well. The lesson was on the letter sounds of the five most common letters in the English language C, O, S, A and T. It talked about a letter, a letter sound, a word and a sentence. Then she did various activities with these five letters and their sounds individually and combined. I was so proud of her determination and hard work.

Chasing Butterflies-A Lesson in Patience

My two kids are so different. Arianna is patient doing activities such as art or writing. She will sit for the longest time mastering these skills. Ryan isn't into sitting still for too long for this kind of activity. However when it comes to animals he is very patient.

Recently there was a small yellow butterfly in this large field. Arianna first begin to chase it. She ran and ran and ran until she was exhausted. She would get close and clap her hands together. I told her that if she caught it, it would be squished by how she was reaching for it. She never caught the butterfly.

Ryan on the other hand begin to chase it and quickly figured out if he was patient and moved slow that he could get closer to the butterfly. He worked at it for a while and then brought me the little yellow butterfly. He was so gentle with it. He didn't harm it at all (minus his skin oil on it's wings). He decided he was going to take it to the play structure for a swing and which time it flew away.

Yesterday a different large butterfly showed up in our yard. Again Ryan calmly and patiently followed it until he caught it. Ryan has my intense love for animals and seems to have great instincts when it comes to thems.

Family Fondue Night

I LOVE the Melting Pot. It is my most favorite place to eat. Unfortunately since kids came along, we don't get to go much anymore. We tried our own fondue on Saturday night. It is so awesome that the internet has any restaurant menu item's recipe. We made Cheddar Cheese Fondue with apples, celery and bread. We also made the coq au vin fondue with mushrooms, brocoli, potatoes, steak, shrimp, chicken and pork. It was YUMMY! We had lots left over so we had some of our friends over the next night to enjoy it two nights in a row:)

Happy Birthday My Love

I am slowly catching up on the blog entries. We have been spending so much time outside with friends that I haven't had a chance to post.

Chris celebrated his 33rd birthday recently. Arianna and Ryan really got into planning for it. They did a great job picking out presents and keeping his presents a secret. They picked out their own birthday cards for him. Ryan's was Superman of course. We continued our family tradition of not having a traditional cake. We "made" him a carmel cheesecake!

I "kidnapped" Chris and took him away for the night to a quaint little place called Country Squire Inn. He thought we were just going out to eat:) The restaurant that was onsite was delicious but even better was spending time together without the kids!

Happy Birthday my sweetheart!!The kids helping Daddy open gifts

Greensboro Train Trip

We had the wonderful opportunity to go on a train trip to Greensboro with some of our friends. We visited the Greensboro Children's Museum which is a few blocks from the train station. We had so much fun! One of my best friends in the whole world lives in Greensboro and met us for dinner.

Before: at the beginning of the trip (calm kids in their seats)

After: Wild kids

Everyone in a big red chair (not big red car)
Ryan grocery shopping

Glenda the good witch

Prince Charming putting on Cinderella's lost shoe

Arianna the race car driver

Blowing bubbles within the big bubble

Ryan and Mommy inside giant bubble

Arianna and Mommy in giant bubble

Chasing Bubbles

Teach them when they are young and they will not depart from their ways (lucky future wife!)

New meaning to the term Cone Head

Three Weather Forecasters

Cute Firefighter!

Two worn out kids!

Thanks Nana!

I love to come home to a package almost as much as my kids do. The other day we came home to this large box on the front porch. It was a new swing from Nana. My hard working husband comes home from a long day at work and then begins to work on the play structure to install the new swing hardware in the 100+ degree weather. We are so lucky to have such an amazing man to lead our family.

Thanks Nana for the new swing. The kids love it!