Writing

Sara has been working really hard on her numbers and letters.  She can spell out our names mostly now.  Still she does not read yet but that can't be far behind if she's spelling words I suppose.   She is also memorizing "sight" words, words that can't be sounded out.

I took some pictures of the things she has written lately.  Her writing looks kind of funny, almost like Russian but she's getting closer.

She hung these upside down on our wall but they say Rosey, Daddy, and Brennan.  We did not help her at all with these.

Here is another one with her scribbling.  She wrote Benny in the middle and Dan, Rosey, and Brennan again.  We never told her how to spell our names either so she figured that out phonetically I guess.

Sara has also learned her phone number and her street address.

We are really proud of the progress she is making at school.  Also I love her teacher Mrs. Amber.  Mrs. Amber tells her how special she is every day and I know it's been great for Sara.

Day at Thanksgiving Point

We spent the day at Thanksgiving Point at the Dinosaur Museum with cousin Benny and Uncle Ben.  The Dino museum is one of Sara's favorite places and she was really excited to get to share it with Benny. 

We got to see some reindeer. 

First we went to the sound exhibit before going to the Dino museum.  Brother tried on the bat ears in the sound room.

Fun time playing with the sound oscillator

Diagnosing the car engine by sounds

Sister was trying to keep track of her brother, who was running everywhere.

Climbing around

Uncle Ben trying to appease angry Brennan

Everyone had fun digging in the sand pit and finding fossils.

After the museum we had fun at the petting zoo.  These baby cows attacked the stroller, smelling snacks I suppose.  Brennan like it, he loves animals.

Hopefully we can meet Benny and Ben for many years to come at the museum.  It was a great day where everyone got to spend quality time together and we are really thankful for it.

Sara does funny things

Tonight Sara took a spaghetti noodle over to Brennan's tray and held it up for him to see.  She said, "Brennan, here is your worm. You need to eat it because we are pretending we are birds and I'm your Mama bird."  Brennan happily ate the worm.

Also tonight, Brennan really likes to brush hair so he was trying to brush Sara's hair.  It's not very much fun though because he usually just ends up either hitting you with the brush repeatedly or pulling your hair really hard.  Sara was protesting but to no avail, so she got a small basket from her room and put it on top of her head.  Problem solved.  He pounded on the basket instead and everyone was happy.

Preschool Pics

Sara had her Pre-School photos this week with her class:

Sara is telling me their names as I type, starting on the top left : Cody, Sara, Becca, Aiden, Treygon, Tate, Morgan, James, Mrs. Amber.

We are really proud of her.  Her teacher is Miss Amber and Sara loves school and her class.  The kids love her too.  She is the hit of the party.  Once I dropped her off and she flung open the door to preschool and said , "Surprise!" and all the kids cheered.  I hope she is always as bright and cheerful in the years to come.

She is learning so much at school.  She is starting to sound out words, read small books, and do addition.  She can do all her 1+ addition now. 

Politiks are crap

Sara has been paying attention to the election and from articles I've seen on the internet pre-schoolers seem to have an interest in this election.  Maybe because they are picking up on their parent's sense of urgency and desperation and so they are paying more attention or maybe they are always that observant at this age, or the fact that it's all over TV and the internet.

Also I think that Sara hears about Mitt R. especially at pre-school from the other kids, and possibly the teacher.  She usually says she likes M.R. but I told her that Daddy and I don't like him as a candidate.  Then she started changing her tune a little.  However she did tell us that she might want to go live with Mitt R because he would let her have candy for dinner.

For some reason she went on this diatribe the other day.  There are about 5 parts but I only put 2 of them up so far, I might put the others up later or not.    This gives you the general idea and you can probably tell what her new favorite word is.

part 1 
part 2

Halloween

Sara was really sick today and missed out on most of the fun.  She was supposed to have a pre-school Halloween party, a birthday party at a friend's house, and trick-or-treating at Daddy's work.  We skipped all of that so she could take a nap.  She has a really bad cough too, so I was worried about her walking or running too much. 

When Dan came home he didn't think she was sick enough to miss Halloween all together, so we took her trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.  She ran excitedly from house to house, somehow putting her cough on hold.  It was all we could do to hold her back from running off without us.  She was really enjoying running with the other kids and even loved the people answering the doors.

She got tons of candy and then started to cough really bad so we went home.  She helped Dan hand out candy on the front porch for a hour.  She was really selling it, calling out to people to come get our candy and giving out handfuls of it.  She is so social.  She was having fun giving the candy out with wild abandon.

Then she came inside and was coughing so bad she was choking and throwing up.  I guess if she has to be really sick now, at least she will have great memories from Halloween as a 4 year old hopefully.  I will probably be taking her to the doctor tomorrow.

Here are all the cute pics:

A Big Help

Sara has really been trying to be very independant and extra helpful lately.  I think she is learning this a pre-school too because the teacher says she is very good helping with the other students because she is very responsible and observant.  Also, another thing about pre-school is the teacher says she's the most popular kid and all the other kids want to sit by her and they vie for her attention.  Also the teacher says that Sara is very polite and thoughtful.  Of course we knew all this, she is a great kid!

Anyway, Sara was helping me in the kitchen today.  I gave her the task of washing all the mushrooms and she washed each one and dried each one individually.

Then she helped me take all the sage leaves off of the stems

I asked her if she wanted to be my official sous chef and she said, "No thanks, I like who I am, I don't want to be somebody else."  Well , there you have it.  We like who she is too.  Don't ever change.

Also, Sara and her neighbor friend play every night in the back yard.  Last night they were singing very loudly making up songs.  I tried to record them so they wouldn't stop.  It was very cute.