First Snow Day

We got a very early snow this year so I decided to take the kids up into the mountains to play in it.  we headed up Nebo to Payson Lakes. 

  Sara wanted to throw snow balls and make snow angels.

She also wanted to shake all the trees to get the glops of snow down.

We had lots of fun hiking around. 

In other news, Sara is on week 2 of her ice skating lessons.  She is already doing really well and her teacher is thinking of bumping her up to the next level.  I'm not sure how much longer I will keep doing ice skating lessons.  We are just playing it be ear.

Her piano lessons are going really well.  I'm really impressed at how fast she is progressing.  Also I've been really impressed that she will practice by herself and actually do a really good job. 

School is going well too, she had her first field trip the other day.  They went to a park and she said they saw a big frog.  She was telling me about sitting on the bus with a boy name Arbor.  I've asked her if she's made any really good friends yet and she has said not really, that she makes new friends every day.  I have notice that a lot of the kids are clickish an don't talk to people they don't know.  I'm hoping there are ones that will include Sara though and as the year goes on they will loosen up.

She is in a book club at school where she brings home a new reader book every day.  She was really proud of herself that she could read an entire book that she brought home.

Sara is also full of tons of questions lately and the questions are getting harder and more complicated to answer but I really believe that kids can learn a ton by having their parent patiently explain things to them.  We've been singing Christmas songs at night and she has asked me what certain words mean such as the verse "Don we now our gay apparel", I told told her it means "Put on your happy clothes" and she liked that.

The other day, we were driving and we saw a person laying in the road with a crowd around them.  Either they were hit or they fell.  The rescue personnel were just arriving and Sara asked me what happens when a car hits you.  I don't believe in pulling any punches and we've already talked about death and she handled it really well.  I told her that sometimes you die if a car hits you and if you're lucky, they can take you to the hospital and put you back together and fix your bones.  She wanted to know about broken bones and was in disbelief that you could break bones and that doctors can fix them.  She didn't understand how they got into your skin to fix it so I explained it.  She was kind of amazed by it.  Then she said what if you hit your head and break it.  I said maybe your brains will fall out.  She said that would be bad and I said, yes if you're brains fall out then you won't know who you are and she said yea, but as long as everyone else still has their brains then they will know who you are.  I thought it was funny.

She has been asking tons of questions about dinosaurs and wants to know if humans used to be dinosaurs or if humans will someday turn back into dinosaurs.  Yesterday she wanted to know which was worse, tornadoes or hurricanes and how they are made.  So I explained all that in detail.  It takes time but I'm glad to do it most of the time.  She is very curious and smart and we want to encourage her and definitely not do anything to discourage her. 

When people ask her what she wants to be, she now says she wants to be a writer.  She has such a great imagination I'm sure that is something she could do.

Lastly, I ordered them a huge purple bean bag.   Sara was so excited for it to arrive and it finally did, it came from Florida.  It actually ended up being foam and not beans, which I'm not sure how I feel about but whatever.  They really like it and it's large.

Nature art

We've been out trying to enjoy fall and for some reason fall makes us want to do nature crafts.  Sara and I have been carrying bags on our hikes picking up some cool nature stuff to use for crafts, things such as acorns, helicopters, sticks, fall leaves, snail shells, sage, etc.

Sara is thoughtful and always helps Brennan on our hikes.

We came home from our hike and did fun leaf rubbings

Also, we made a nature tree mural on canvas using the acorns, helicopters, and various other nature things to hang in Sara's room.

We are going to try to make another one with animals and mushrooms too.

I love this pic of Sara on our most recent hike.   She is pretty awesome.

Berry picking

Sara is doing OK at school.  She does not come home and talk about it like she did her pre-school that she loved.  However she has said that she has made some friends and her teacher is nice and says nice things to her, like that she has good handwriting.  She passed her first Core Curriculum milestone, there are 7 or 8 of them throughout the year that she has to pass.  This one was that she had to memorize her phone number, retell a story, count to 20, say all her ABC's and stuff like that.

I work with her at home every day just to make sure she's getting a little extra help and to let her know that we think her school work is important.  We usually spend 10-15 min a day practicing writing, reading sight words, and counting.  The school sent home lots of good material that helps her practice her handwriting and sight words, she has flash cards and we keep it all in a binder for her.

Dan has mostly taken over her piano practice which has been nice, he does a great job working with her.  She also passed off her first piano song this week, she had to play it all the way through with no mistakes.

For fun, last week we went to a berry farm just right down the street from us to pick raspberries.  Sara really got into picking raspberries, she carried a bucket around her waist and picked a half a pound.

Little chuck-O was walking around eating all the berries he could stuff in his pie hole (not a single one ended up in his bucket) and Sara was singing songs about picking berries.  Cute vid  Sara really loves picking berries, she still remembers picking berries in Oregon last time we went.

Also, there were lots of animals there, Sara had fun feeding them apples.

I think we might even go back to pick more berries sometime, it was so much fun.
A few days later, we made a raspberry pie from scratch.  She helped me make the dough and then she helped me weave the dough on the top and cut out the stars for the top of the pie with cookie cutters.  It was a beautiful pie that tasted great, and she wouldn't even eat it :(

Sara has been going to play with the neighbor's daughter.  She has gone over to play at her house and then this week, we had her over to our house.  They did bead and pasta necklaces.  Also, Sara has been painting lots of pasta, she mostly just likes painting it even though she did make a necklace too.

We've also been doing chalk art, she helped me draw all of this stuff :

Sara likes styling Brennan's hair and playing barber shop.

Also, Sara has been helping Daddy a lot in the back yard.  She is collecting rocks and cleaning up after the concrete people, she has actually done a ton of work.

Here is a pic I got of her on her way to school the other day, it was cute.

I was telling Dan just the other day that it is starting to feel like everything we have done with Sara is starting to pay off.  Lots of people compliment us and her on how polite she is and what a great personality and she also has great language and communication skills, she is very smart and funny and just easy going.

Beads are best

Sara loves loves loves doing beads.  We haven't done beaded necklaces in a while to keep choking hazards away from Brennan but we've recently gotten them back out.  We try to keep him in his chair while we do arts and crafts projects, otherwise he's trying to grab scissors or eat beads and glue.  This is how we kept him entertained in his chair today while we did beads.  We gave him large buttons all on a string to play with and we put tape on his nose, which he thought was totally hilarious, so much so that he wouldn't let us take it off.

Today we made necklaces with pony beads and sequins.  We both made necklaces and Sara gave hers to daddy and I let her wear the one I made to school.  Daddy wore his to drop her off at school and that made her really happy.

The kids love to sit at the new table, both of them on the same bench seat.

Also, I wanted to write down this story for her blog.  Dan has worked from home the last two days so he's been walking her to school and picking her up, which she loves.  The first day he walked all the way to school to get her and she was disappointed.  She told him next time not to walk all the way to the school to get her.  She likes the independence of walking home herself to the street corner, so today she asked him to please wait at the corner for her, too funny.

Odds and Ends

Sara has been going to Kindergarten a week now.  I think it was mostly a let down for her and for us.  Dan said wouldn't it be ironic if we move right next to her school and then end up sending her somewhere else, yes it would.  We aren't there yet but I won't rule it out either.

Sara had such an amazing pre-school experience that I think it set us up for a little disappointment probably.  She also says she does not like going every day.  We told her that she better just get used to that, that Mommy and Daddy had to go to school every day and so does every other kid.  It is kind of sad in a way that she's growing up and facing the real world, but I also believe that home schooling and basically hiding in your house away from the world is not the answer either.

We will be monitoring her school very closely and adjusting as necessary.  So far we've been doing lots of extra curricular stuff at home.  She's been diligently practicing forming her letters more precisely.

We practice something school related, read for 20 minutes and practice sight words, and play piano every day with her.

Here is her latest piano song that she had to learn.   She has been doing all of her practicing, even Daddy is helping now and coming to her lessons.  We are very proud of her.

Also in other news last week, we had her hearing tested to make sure she was OK.  She had to enter a sound proof booth and answer lots of questions.  Here is a pic of her with the audiologist.   He was giving her the results of her test, perfect hearing!

 This is an odds and ends post, which basically means a I dumped a bunch of photos off my iphone and I'm too tired to string them together in any coherent way, so it's totally random.

Here is a  photo of her sleeping in a random place.  She has been a lot more tired since she started school.  She fell asleep in her closet on top of her toy box.  I will have to make sure she gets naps on the weekends.

One day last week when Sara got home from school, I whipped up some fresh whipped cream from scratch and added cherries on top.  The kids thought it was the best thing they had ever eaten.

Last random post, the splash pad, we are thankful for splash pads, our summer would not have been the same without them.  We've gone so many times this summer, the kids love it and to think 10 years ago, there weren't any splash pads, they showed up just in time for these kids.  Today Daddy was working from home so we went to a park and played in a real river in the morning and then for the afternoon we went to the splash pad and played.  We have learned that if we go after 6 pm that we have the place totally to ourselves.  Brennan excitedly says "splash pad" now, it's cute.

Looking ahead, Sara starts ice skating lessons again this month and in October she starts back swimming.  She said she wants to do all this but I think she's going to be very tired.  If it does not work out, we'll drop of out ice skating and just do piano and swimming and see how that works.   At least ice skating is only one day a week for 6 weeks.