The new reader?

Sara has been taking huge steps towards reading and sounding out words.  She walks around all day sounding out things with everyday words that we use.  If it say let's go take a walk to the park.  She says, "p...p...p...Park".  She does this with all kind of sounds and she always guesses them right.

So far, she has read three signs by herself, she read the words "no, Stop, and Trick or Treat" on different signs that we passed by in the car.   I think she will have this figured out in no time.  I think she is ready and self motivated, two good things that will help her succeed.  I'm not the kind of parent that is driven to have her read as early as possible so I can brag to everyone.  It really doesn't matter to me how long it takes her but I'm happy for her and willing to help her because I know how much she loves her books and I think it would open up a whole new world for her if she could read to herself.

Today we sat with one of her Thomas books and I asked her to pick out certain words that I had read her in a paragraph, she got every word I asked her right.  Then we went word by word through a long books, sounding them out together.

She is making leaps and bounds at preschool too.  However I'm starting to feel slightly disappointed that I think the other kids are either younger or behind her in preschool and maturity.  They are quite a bit smaller in size, even though they are supposed to be 4 year olds.  Is she really that tall or are there some 3 year olds, not sure yet.  I've been meaning to ask the teacher.  Sara looks 5 and they look 3 and it's quite drastic.  Also Sara tells me every day that the kids have behavior problems.  Today she said that a kid got sent home for kicking, biting, and screaming.  So I think there are some kids that are having issues.  However every time we see the kids going in our coming out of preschool they seem nice enough and they always say hi and bye to Sara.

I was hoping that Sara would really learn a ton at pre school this year and I hope she still does.  Her teacher evaluates them and we even have parent-teacher conferences.  So far we've only received one evaluation on paper saying she knew all her colors, she can count to 11, and she can write all her numbers except for the number 10.  I know her teacher praises her every day and Sara tells us she is happy in the class so I hope everything is going well and she feels comfortable there and adjusted.  So far she has really loved going this year and she brings home really cute things.  We have expanded her art wall in her room to accommodate more art.

A necklace she made today at preschool :

Slightly expanded art wall, still needs work:

Sara has also been helping out tremendously around the house.  She is on a kick to prepare all her own meals.  She actually puts together some good food for herself.  We guide her telling her how many veggies, how much cheese, or fruit she should have and then she puts it together.  She uses the toaster but does not use the microwave yet.  She also has no problem getting in the fridge, pantry, or freezer.  Here she is in action putting a meal together and here is the result.

Pretty nutritious, yogurt, cheese, Cheerios, and dried apples.  She has also decided she likes to eat at the kitchen cabinet like a big girl, not at the table where the "kids" eat, is what she says...

Here she is showing off her dance moves.

Here are some pics of the sibs being cute.  They get jealous every now and then but mostly she goes way of out her way to be kind to her brother.  She will share her favorite foods with him and treats, she gets him things that he needs, and comforts him when he's upset.  He has a great big sister.

 
The one last one of sweet Sara.  She has really gotten in to drawing chalk on her face like face paint.  At least it comes off easy.

The best part for me is I really feel like the time we've put into Sara for the last 4.5 years is really starting to pay off.  She is a great, compassionate, active, and fun little person.

Messing around in the yard

Since Moosey is healing up pretty well now we are playing in the yard a lot.  Sara and Brennan were wrestling, swinging, and playing in the dirt tonight.

Sara things the swing is a jungle gym.

Today she had school pictures at pre-school and she dressed up a little.  I told her to smile normal because when she is told to smile she usually makes a funny face. I hope it worked out because we bought a large packet of pics. 

She likes to pick up her brother and drag him around while they're playing and sometimes he's not so happy about it.

They like to wrestle and roll in the yard.

Sometimes it's fun to put rakes down brothers back too...

They love the bubble blowing bucket that their Auntie got them too.

Her brother is her little shadow.

I hope they continue to play well because it really gives me a break.  Also I hope they are friends someday when they grow up but only time will tell.

Painting and Color Cakes

Sara surprised me this week by painting a picture that wasn't just a random scribble.  She wanted to paint if for Benny's Birthday.  it has candles, grass, a sun, and an apple.  It definitely had a theme and I thought she did a great job.  I hope she has some artistic skills, I'm excited to see what she comes up with next.  Her fine motor skills are improving.

She had her first music class for Fall this week and I noticed that the quarter notes and quarter rests she drew looked much better.  I'm excited for her to have a year at pre-school also, I think it's going to be astounding how much she changes and grows in the next 6 months.

She has also been trying harder at home to be helpful. She has decided that watering the garden and the plants on the front porch is really fun.  She goes out at least once a day and waters the plants without being told.  Most times I still water after she does but that's beside the point she's doing the job as best as she can.  Also, another one of her jobs is picking up the apples every morning.  She has learned if she goes out early enough that the wasps aren't eating the apples.

Today, as a special treat, we decided to make rainbow colored pancakes, why not.

Sara was super excited to help, she loves the colored batters.  She also said that the various colors had different flavors, funny how the brain plays tricks.

Brennan tried the green.

Lastly, today Sara and I painted our nails.  I did a first coat of dark purple, then we put a coat of silver and blue sparkly on top of that.  It looked pretty cool.  I think it was a fun experience for her to go to the nail salon but I don't think we'll be going back very often.  The smell in there probably took years off our lives.  They must have had some cheap nail polish to get rid of because it lasted less than 24 hours an by the next day she was super sad that it all peeled off.  So we bought some Revlon colors and I was surprised by how cool the really sparkly one is, it has huge different bits of glitter in it, so I painted my nails too.   I didn't get any pics this time though.

Now we are going camping with our glittery painted nails and our colored pancakes, there were lots left over.  Great Basin here we come!

Yard Saling

Sara and I have really come to love yard sales this summer.  We started out with $80 budget in cash earlier this year and today we made it down to our last $10.  There are tons of yard sales just in our neighborhood, so we never had to travel very far.

We start looking for neighborhood yard sales on Friday morning because some of them start early.  We always look forward to Friday mornings because of this. Some of our favorite ones are where the whole street or neighborhood is having a community yard sale.  It's almost like going to a carnival.  The kids are selling home baked goods and drinks or homemade jewelry and people just park at one end and walk from house to house.

I usually give Sara a cloth reusable bag to carry around and gather toys or books or clothes that she wants.   She has picked out lots of really nice clothes this summer, all by herself.

Also, I have hit several garage sales where they were giving away bags of boys clothes, so I got them for little or no money.  Brennan has a wardrobe to last him until he's 6 years old I think.  While Nanna was here, I really scored and got him a huge amount of clothes for this Winter.

Here were our finds today, Sara got some much desired butterfly wings and Brennan got two new dump trucks that even make sounds.  Cost $2.

We like yard sales and It's pretty harmless fun, a good way to teach reusing and recycling things, and way better than going to Wal-Mart wandering around like zombies for crappy things.

Getting her nails did

Sara has been begging to paint her nails for several weeks.  I'm really not into such things so previously, Dan painted her nails and so did her Auntie.  I know that even though I'm not into it, that does not mean that such things should be ignored.  So I buffed up my courage and took her to a nail salon when I saw that they had a kids special.  It was $5 for nail paint and sticker.  I figured she really love going there anyway and I was right, she really liked it.

She chose the pink polish with butterfly stickers.

It was the first time I've ever been in a nail salon, I guess there's a first time for everything.  I would be willing to go again because she loved it, it was cheap, and they did a way better job than either Dan or I would have done...

Summer camping and star party

Sara went to her first star party to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower this year.  She has not been camping in a very long time and has been begging us to take her.  Also, she had never seen a meteor shower before or a shooting star.  I wasn't sure she'd really understand or get the star party but she really thought it was very cool and she was very excitedly spotting meteors on her own in no time.  Maybe she inherited the eagle eyes.

The star party went really late so we didn't get back to our camp site until 12 pm.  Sara got right into her sleeping bag and listened to her music while we stayed up and watched for more meteors.  It got really cold in our tent at about 2 a.m. and she ended up pushing me off my sleeping pad and I stayed up most of the night covering her back up every time she shifted around.

 I think the outing was a really good experience for her though and I really wish we went camping more often.  I will try to think of at least one more place we can camp out this fall. It was also one of the few trips, maybe the only trip I've ever taken with just Sara and I, I think we need to do more of that too.  I love to spend one on one time with her.

Also, she had fun camping with Granny Karen and Grandpa, the doted on her of course and she loved it.

Sara is a lucky kid!

Nanna's Visit

Nanna has stayed with us for a month or so and Sara has been eating it up.  They have done many fun things together.

We've been to story time at the library lots.  As well as all Sara's swim lessons. 

Nanna has been reading to Sara quite a lot and spending lots of quality time with her, special time that we sometimes find it hard to give her now with Brennan and I know it's been really good for her.

We went to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum while Nanna was here.  Sara loves that museum and was super excited to go.  Every time we go, I think she gets a little more out of the experience.

She even climbed into an exhibit because Brennan was doing it too.

While we were at Thanksgiving Point, we decided to head on to the petting zoo since it's right in the same place.  Sara loved riding the ponies, she rode all by herself and was having a blast.

Sara LOVES scarecrows too.  She wanted to take a pic with a real scarecrow that they had in the gardens there.  She was really studying it trying to figure out how they made it.  We may have to go to the DI and get stuff to make a scarecrow next year for our garden, she would really love that.

A few days later, we went up to Park City with Nanna so that she could show us where she used to live during the summer.  We rode the historic trolley around the main street.

Waiting on the trolley with the golden bear.

Sara was amused by the moose with the boots on.

Riding the trolley.

Sara had her pink sparkly ruby slippers

Sara is going to be so sad when Nanna leaves.  I think she will remember forever that they watched the Olympics together and all of the time Nanna took to explain things to her.  She is a lucky little kid to have 3 very nice and very attentive grandmas in her life.