Emma Starts Kindergarten

I am happy to report that Emma is a very good student.  She is quiet, patient, and has a dry sense of humor.  It took us a few lessons before we realized she did not know all her letters.  That was after she had read books to us!  I would read to her first and then she would read the entire kindergarten book back to me.  Somehow she had been memorizing either the story (word for word) or the way the words look.

So we started in on learning the alphabet with flashcards.  She has learned quickly, but she likes to tease me.  One day, after I had read one of her schoolbooks to her, I asked her to spell out a word on the title page.  She spelled it correctly, “M-A-T,” but then, with a little grin, told me that that spells “rug.”  Ha!  So our new joke is, “M-A-T….rug!”  She thinks her joke is so funny…….but I think I have laughed the hardest at it!  🙂

Miss Eleanor

Eleanor will be 3 in June and we just adore her.  She is cheerful, exuberant, and almost always happy.  She can also be sassy and spunky, keeping us laughing (secretly, of course, after we correct her).  🙂  She enjoys looking at books, being read to, playing with playdough, dressing up as a princess, dancing, wearing her bathing suit, and wrapping Daddy around her little finger.

She tries to keep up with her older sisters, but is often deemed “too little” in their opinion.  Luke is not very interesting to her yet, so she usually plays by herself, having long conversations with her stuffed animals (too cute!).  She tries to talk a lot, but does not know enough words to fill all of her sentences.  So, she uses voice inflection and very expressive eyes to convey her ideas.

She has Duane’s Syndrome, which keeps her left eye from looking fully to the left.  Thankfully it has not gotten any worse and we praise God that it doesn’t affect her vision.  We ponder, too, the fact that, even though God has allowed her to be born with this nerve defect, He has given her the brightest eyes in our whole family!

Here are a few pictures of our bright and shining star…

Ode to a Boy

Luke, now 9 months old, has brought so much joy to our family.  He is a sweet, easy-going, mild-mannered baby.  He loves to eat, plays well independently, enjoys watching his sisters, has the cutest chubbiest feet I have ever seen, and greatly desires to eat paper.  Despite my best efforts to have one child say “mama” first, he spoke his first word last week and it was “dada.”  🙂  Here are a few pictures we have taken this last month…

He is “in between” helmets now to correct his plagiocephaly (flat head).  From day one (and perhaps even in the womb!) he slept exclusively on one side of his head, which caused his head to flatten where it pressed into the mattress.  The first helmet was not helping; indeed, it was causing some discomfort.  Therefore, we are awaiting another helmet to correct his little problem.  I am making use of these two weeks without a helmet to snuggle and kiss his bald head.  I love it!

Emma Turned 5!

Our “Baby Emma,” as we used to call her when we only had 2 children, turned 5 years old yesterday.  Wow.  For her birthday, she wanted to:  take treats to her Bible Study class, eat pizza for dinner, have a rainbow ice-cream cake, and spend the night at Grandma’s house.  Mission accomplished.  🙂

Here she is opening up her gift from Mommy and Daddy…an Angelina Ballerina house…

…and at Grandma’s with her rainbow cake…

…our sweet Emma.

Alien Hair!

We had a little too much fun in the bathtub tonight…

Being Creative with the Mundane

I asked the big girls to unload the dishwasher while I put Luke down for a nap and, when I came back, I found these creations that Taylor was so proud of.  🙂

Why not make the most of our chores, right?

Family Times

I was looking through the pictures I have on my computer and found these two from last June!  So much has changed since then, but it is hard to believe that it was almost a year ago that we saw my sister and her family!  Eleanor still talks about her cousins, Elizabeth and Catherine, who were more her size than her own big sisters.  She is ready to play with them, but does not realize how far away they are.

Family…I love mine.

 

The Baby Lover

This picture is already 4 months old, but I came across it again today.  Emma has loved babies since she was a baby, it seems.  She has the most gentle spirit in our family and we often find her quietly hugging the baby, laying down next to him, covering him with a blanket, or showing him the pages of her book.  She is so sweet!

Wherever her baby is, there she is, too!

Girls Like Sending Notes

Our girls love to communicate – with each other, with their toys, and especially with B-House and me.  The day is full of words.  When they are not talking, they are often sending notes – to each other, to their friends and grandparents, and to B-House and me.  I found Eleanor busy in the kitchen one morning “writing” and leaving me some pretty notes.Some of the funniest we have seen came from Taylor, left on the floor at the edge of our bed in the morning.  She knows she is supposed to wait in her bed for Mommy and Daddy to get her up, but sometimes those words can’t wait!  One note read something like this:

“Dear Mommy and Daddy,

Please pray for me.  I bumped my hed on my bed.  It hurts.

love, Taylor”

Emma’s little notes most often have drawings of people on them – people with large heads, one or two big eyes, and arms and legs protruding from the head.  I love those!

And the girls LOVE receiving notes, too.  The most thrilling ones come in the mail, but they like getting Mommy’s notes when I remember to write them and leave them by their bed.  And Taylor still reminisces about the notes that Eleanor “wrote” and gave to her and Emma when they visited her in the hospital just after she was born (how did she do that?).  🙂

Story Time with Mommy!

I absolutely love story time!  I like to pick the stories out each time, though I always let the girls bring books, too.  I especially enjoy reading new books from the library.

I have loved story time ever since Taylor was a baby.  First book was “Goodnight, Moon” as a newborn.  Now she can read all by herself.  (sniff)

I try to get a story time in every morning, coaxing the girls to snuggle with me and stay quiet by giving them a little snack.  Sometimes I have enough time to read Eleanor a few stories before naptime.

We always have a story time before bed.  Lately, I nurse Luke at the same time and then he gets propped up on my knees to hear the rest of the stories.  Since he is looking right at me, he thinks I am talking to him and he coos, gurgles, and smiles right back at me.  I love it!

The girls make story time complete with water cups and blankets all around.  They actually bring each other their cups without being asked and then say thank you ever so politely to each other!

Story time….one of the highlights of my day.  It’s a good day when I have been able to read at least 3 children’s books.  It is a great day when I have had enough time to read even more!