Thursday, June 24, 2010

Toy Story 3

Grandma Nita took the girls on a fun outing to see "Toy Story 3" last weekend. They had SO much fun. Who could blame them? They got to see the movie AND eat at McDonalds AND  pick out a Toy Story toy from Walmart too!!!!
(By the way...isn't my Mada looking SOOOO old?? She has entered into a new stage and is SO adorable!)

Writing Experiences

Amelia has entered a new stage in her writing . She has started to sound out words and write them phonetically. I first noticed it when she was playing. She was trying to write the name Sarah. As I watched her (without her knowing) she said the word slowly and wrote the letters SRU. 
Want to try a few more???
Gramo
Sale
Butrfli
 (Grandma, Sally, Butterfly)
At this stage she is exploring with sounds and writing them as she hears them. It is really fun to watch her explore this new found skill.
This picture does not really show her writing, but shows the detail she has started to put into her illustrations.

Thanks for letting me share!

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Sun Bathing

The girls have been having fun in the little plastic pool. Here they are relaxing in the sun!

Summer Garden

There are beautiful Hydrangeas in bloom right now in the garden!
This picture below is of our baby hydrangea bush that we planted (and then replanted two weeks later because it was about to die).
Here is what it looked like when we planted it in its first location. I didn't get a picture of it when it started to shrivel up. But it looked aweful! I think it was getting too much sun and not enough moisture.
So we replanted it in its new location near the garage by the pond. This area has drip irrigation so the soil is always moist. I tenderly cared for it daily for about a week. I piched off the shriveled leaves, watered it and kept a close eye on its progress. It really paid off! Now it is flourishing. Take a look at the newest Annabelle Hydrangea in our garden...
Close up of our baby Hydrangea
Here are our GIANT Annabelle Hydrangeas
And finally a surprise in the garden!
Okay...now remember I dont know much about gardening and I am learning as I go along. Ever since we moved to this house 2 years ago, I have tried to stay on top of the weeding in the main garden area back by the pond. It is not hard to pull them if you get them when they first come up out of the mulch. They arent coming from underneath, but are seeds that have fallen on top of the mulch so they are super easy to get out. But there was one plant that always looked like a big weed to me. So for the last two years I have cut it down to the ground but not pulled it out from the roots. This year I was a little behind on my late spring/early summer weeding. So as I made my way around the garden beds, I found a beautiful surprise!
The "weed" I kept cutting down was another Hydrangea bush (I think). This one is a pastel pink with light green (almost white) petals. The leaves are not solid green like the Annabelle Hydrangea but are veriegated. Absolutely Gorgeous!
Thanks for letting me share my garden with you!

Memorial Day Trip to San Antonio

Over Memorial day weekend we drove to San Antonio to visit Daniel (Stan's brother who is in training there). We had such a wonderful trip! The girls were SO good. It is a 10 hour drive so we weren't sure how our littles (3 and 5 yrs) would do. We decided to go ahead and buy a portable dvd player for the car. Stan and I had both said in the past that we would NOT have a dvd player in the car because we wanted them to look out the windows and watch the landscape just like when we were kids. But, we found out that watching the scenery leads to throwing-up (at least for our kids) and so we ditched that and bought the player in hopes of making the trip smoother. SUCCESS!
We stayed on base in Temporary Housing (kind of like a hotel) and only paid $40.00 per night. Also, we were able to visit Sea World for FREE because of their nationwide "Here's to the Heros" promo that they extended through 2010. Normally tickets are nearly $60.00 for adults and $50.00 for children. We ate icecream, rode on rides, and watched Shamu of course!
Waiting to see Shamu!
There she is!
There we are in Penguin Egg #4
Here we are with two tired kids at the River Walk in San Antonio.
Mmm! Yummy BBQ Ribs!
We played games to win tickets at Dave and Busters!
The girls didn't know until afterwards that you trade the tickets in for prizes!
What a fun Family Vacation

Wrapping up Pre-K

When summer comes I start to get lazy with my blog posts. As you can see I haven't posted in almost a month!
Well, Amelia has done so well her Pre-K year. She loves to learn and is always excited about working in her school books and doing activities. Here is her notebook of many of the activities she did over the last year.

This year Amelia learned to read, learned many beginning math concepts, learned to write her name, and practiced writing words using all the sounds she has learned. Just the other day she called me to the easel and said, "Mom, I am writing the word wish. I have the W-I. Now I just need the SH. After reminding her what SH looks like, she wrote the word all by herself! She is well on her way to being a reader and writer.