Jazzy Bugs

Faith is loving dance/gymnastics class this summer. She is learning about tap, ballet and creative movement in dance class. Gymnastics class she is learning fwd rolls, safety falls, following directions, and having fun. Her face is lit up with a smile from the time she arrives till the time she leaves. I love the fact that she is staying active this summer. Last week was cowboy week. She danced with swim noodles and pretended they were partners, rode a runaway stagecoach, lassoed cows, galloped, smooshed bugs in dance, stomped in mud and patted a pony (the beam). Her teacher is so good with children. This week is pirate week at dance class. That will be exciting as they will probably go on a treasure hunt.

My friend Sally

Faith has a new friend. Everyone meet Sally, her make believe friend. When asking Faith about Sally I was told that she is five years old. She has blue eyes and purple hair. She is her best friend and is always having a birthday party or sleepover. It is so funny to hear her talk to her on the phone. Her conversation goes something like this.
Hi Sally. Oh Sally you are my best friend Sally. How are you today? You are having a birthday party you say? I'd love to come. Sure I can bring my sleeping bag. Ok, I'll see you then. Ok, bye bye. Love ya. (Then comes a hug to the phone with hug noises and then a big kiss). Ok bye Sally. See ya later.
When she doesn't have her pretend cell phone it is not uncommon for her to pick up her sunglasses and fold an ear piece down and begin to talk on it. She will ask everyone to be quiet because she has to make a phone call. That means if we are in the car, the music is turned down. You can ask her anything about Sally and she will tell you about it. Her conversations definitely have me cracking up laughing.

Time at home

Besides the usual game of tag or hide and seek, we are trying to do some learning this summer also with Faith so what she has learned in school will not be forgotten. Of course she loves anything that is fun so I made up a game in which we play letter BINGO or letter sound or word find with different words. She seems to get a kick out of it. Most of my kids in class loved playing it too. So today we did word find. We used the sounds of the word to narrow our choices down. When our choice words were narrowed it was up to Faith to decide which word was correct. Then she had to find the word on my board and mark it also. With Bud she did counting. She had to count the number of objects in the picture and then determine which number below was correct. She also got all of them right. She worked on her circling and Xing the numbers. Tomorrow I'd like to start back to more of a schedule like school. Otherwise by the end of summer I will have gone mad from playing hide and seek or tag so much.

Welcome home

Baby T was born on Monday June 15, 2009 at 3:36pm. He was 7lb 1oz and 21 inches long. Faith has been such a good big sister just like we both knew she would. She helps get things for her baby brother such as clothes, burp clothes, bottles, blankets, binkies, etc. She even read him his first story, Horton Hears a Who his first night home and helped brush his hair at the hospital. She has been waiting and anticipating his arrival for quite some time. We are all trying to adjust to life with a newborn again. No sleep. Emotions gone crazy. Trying to get ready to go somewhere in under an hour. Etc. I hope that the coming weeks bring a better schedule as dance and gymnastics start tomorrow and then library activities start on Tuesday. I'm excited to be home all summer with Faith and baby T. I hope that Faith grows as a big sister and learns to love T and develop some patience with everything.

A family of three no more

Today is the last day that we will be a family of three. With baby T arriving tomorrow I find myself with mixed emotions. Happy to be bringing another child into our world, sad to think that my time will now be divided. I'm not sure how to do it. Faith and I, as Bud says, have been glued together for quite some time. She is like a mini me. As we sat in the bathroom together yesterday at the restaurant she became so excited to see that my underwear matched her dress. I can't say that about baby T. I doubt that he will ever become that excited. Faith and I are like two peas in a pod. If I could be any where or do anything it would be with her. As I went to work three days this week without her I realized just how much I enjoy her company. I am so unorganized. I keep asking myself, can I make that much deserved time with baby T as I did with Faith when she was little. As our family grows so do we as individuals; all of us. We begin to learn about raising a boy and teaching about being a big sister. We begin to learn what it is like to share everything we have and to help each other out a lot more. We start to learn more patience and most of all we learn to to let our heart love someone else.

Homework time

Although homework doesn't officially start for a few more years, Faith has diligently set herself up for success by starting early. Last night we stopped into Border's for a nice reading time before bed and I ended up purchasing a Rhyming workbook. In it we read rhyming words, match rhyming words, follow rhyming mazes, and trace the letters of rhyming words. Faith wanted to again do her homework when we arrived back at the house and even th is morning. Last night she decided to do the alphabet tracing and to my surprise continued to write her name which I cut off the top here. It looks wonderful and come Fall time she will be ready for the big kid class at school just like her other friends.

Wanting to read

At story time last night I asked Faith to go pick out a night night story. This is usually book number 7 of the night and it is usually one of her old hard board books. When I came back into her room she had her alphabet picture slide book. There she lie in bed spelling each of the words starting with the Letter A word and then reading the picture. I really thought that she would only do maybe three of them and then get bored however she completed the book to Letter Z spelling all the words in between. She also picked out a new Level 3 reading book yesterday. Tink and the Hide and Seek Game. She called it a chapter book but it is just a long book to her. She told me her teacher had one of those types of books at school. When I asked her if her friends listened to it quietly she informed me "no, they sit and talk" When I asked her if she did she said, "oh yeah, i do." I guess it is about time to get her some longer stories to read over the coarse of the week long storytime.

Where a kid can be a kid

Faith asked me the other day, "Mommy, when can we go to Chuck E. Cheese Its? My friends go there." After mentioning it to Bud we decided that we would stop by one day and see if she likes it. So Faith had had a very good weekend complete with nice words and listening ears so we decided to take her the local kid zone. She ate all her lunch and headed off to the toddler and kiddie zone to play. I think that she would have had just as much fun with zero rides and just the curly slide. However she really enjoyed the real horse carasol and the princess carriage ride. Faith and I enjoyed dancing to Dance Dance Revolution the preschool version complete with the song "If your happy and you know it" and "The wheels on the bus." Bud went to the older children's side to play and earn Faith some tickets to exchange for a prize. As we left, she was still in a good mood, unlike most of the children there who had missed their naps for the day. She picked out a string necklace with beads on it and still managed to go down for an afternoon nap despite her continuing excitement from the morning.

Ride'em cowgirl

This week Faith has been learning all about cowboys and cowgirls at school. I really think that this was her favorite unit. She learned alot. Some of the activities included painting a cowgirl hat, decorating a banadana to wear, making stars that hung from the ceiling, making a toilet roll horse, and decorating a boot with sand to represent the dirt roads. She also learned what they wear, where they sleep, what they do, and what they eat. All the activities and learning led up to a hoe down and pretend campout on Friday. Anyone who knows Faith knows she loves pretending so this was an awesome adventure for her. On Friday she was allowed to dress as a cowgirl complete with pink boots and cowgirl hat. Her teacher tied her bandana around her neck and she galloped down the halls hollering "yeehaw" an she twirled her lasso over head. Her and her friends roasted pretend marshmallows over the class fire and settled in for a nap under the stars they had made. For the special occasion she brought in her TinkerBell sleeping bag instead of her napper. What a wonderful week for her. She was so excited about her Friday hoe down complete with Doe Si Does that she decided to not make it to my doctor's appointment. That is what I like to see; Faith having so much fun that she doesn't want to leave.