Growing Everyday

Beka is starting to find the joy of reading. It all started with a Fancy Nancy book that I bought her. She loves reading about Fancy Nancy and her fancy words. Beka actually wants to sit down and read these which makes this booklover’s heart just soar.

Jared still loves to be read to. He has been bringing home books from the school library and actually asks to be read to. He brought home a book about being a Jedi Knight that Andrew and he have read twice already. Jared is starting to sound out words but he just isn’t into reading yet.

During the summer, we tend not to read as much. We just spend too much time outdoors. But now it is getting back to that time when we like to cuddle and read together. What is your kids favorite books to have read to them? What book really sparked their interest in reading? Any recommendations for beginning reader books?

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I am going to admit something here. I don’t like to decorate my house inside or outside. It isn’t that I couldn’t be good at it and it isn’t that I don’t have the time. I just don’t care enough, I guess. I don’t care if my furniture matches or if the wall color coordinates with the curtains. I like my home to be comfortable and beyond that I just don’t care. So, knowing that it shouldn’t surprise anyone that after a year of living here I still don’t have any art on the walls or pretty knick knacks everywhere.

The kids are actually into decorating more than I am. Beka has pretty pictures she has made on her walls.

Jared has posters and art on his walls.

The walls I am in charge of were blank until the other day. I finally decorated a little.

The walls may not be covered in nice prints or wonderful paintings. And believe me, they definitely do not coordinate with the curtains or the furniture, but they make me smile when I look at them now. And the kids are having a blast deciding what goes up on the walls.

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Andrew has finally found a way to have Jared sit still and cuddle. Saturday night we had a thumderstorm roll through. I think Andrew and Jared sat outside and watch the lightning and felt the "booms" for a good 15 to 20 minutes. Beka lasted about 5. It was nice to see the two of the just have time to cuddle and connect.

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We have been trying to find something different to do with the kids outside. They are bored with just going to the playground. The other day I found great deals on a nerf football and a basketball.

Beka has really enjoyed dribbling the basketball. She can’t make a shot yet, but she is definitly trying.

Jared throws the football like a pro. The best part is a neighbor kid that is a little older than Jared has been working with him. Jared enjoys throwing the football, but I think he enjoys chasing after the ball more.

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I have nothing to say actually, but since feel I should update I am going to use bullet points so it looks like I have something to say

• Jared has learned how to go across the monkey bars on his own. He is very proud of this accomplishment.
• Jared has also learned how to snap and has thus become obsessed with snapping all of the time.
• Beka is getting better and better at reading. She will now randomly pick up a book just to see if she can read it.
• Beka is exhausted by the end of the week. All day school is tiring.
• Andrew is still working hard and enjoying it. He really is wonderful. He works all day and sometimes into the evening, but he always makes sure he gives some time to his family.
• I am slowly get used to having an empty house in the afternoons. Now I need to think about what to do next year.

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Beka’s teacher sent home a page about tracking monarch butterflies. Also, the Butterfly Lady came to school and explained all about catching butterflies, raising butterflies, and brought a bunch of butterflies with her. In the course of this, Beka has become butterfly crazy. She goes out into the field by our house armed with her butterfly net and proceeds to catch and release butterflies. Last Saturday she caught 31 butterflies. Six of which where monarchs. She really loves doing this. We are planning on planting some butterfly attracting plants in the yard. We may also need to get a bigger net for her.

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Andrew found this site for me that I have been playing with. Animoto is a place where you can upload photos, pick a song, and it designs a video complete with music for you. The process is so simple. The short videos are free, but even the full length videos are very reasonably price. I have made a couple; they aren’t great, but it is a lot of fun to play with. Below is one video I made.

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Where we live now, there are places where you can go bounce on those inflatable things. These businesses are in big warehouses. You go in, pay and then you can bounce in the inflatables as long as you want. Well, a new one opened here and the kids had been begging me to take them. So Labor Day was the day. We went and it was wonderful. This one has employees that are there to actually play with your kids. That is their job!! Man, I would have been all over that job as a teenager. The kids probably jumped for an hour or so. They were exhausted which was a wonderful bonus. The bad part of these things is that it was almost impossible to get a good picture. I did get a few of them going down a slide though.

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Over Labor Day, we went to visit my parents. The kids had never seen the Mississippi up close so we took them to a park to see the mighty river. They enjoyed looking at it and touching the water, but overall weren’t too impressed with just a big river. I think they had more fun walking on the railroad tracks.

It was a nice time to visit with Grandma and Grandpa though. We grilled one night and Andrew made them brunch on Sunday morning. It was a nice relaxing visit.

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In my humble opinion, my children are not subjected to enough science in school. So I take this as an opportunity to do all those fun science experiments with them. I went out and bought raisins and bottles of 7up. Before we started, I made Beka and Jared hypothesize what would happen. Jared siad it would explode and Beka siad the raisins would get stuck and then float. The kids then put the raisins in the bottles to see what would happen. First, the bottles bubbled so much that they overflowed. Then the raisins would sink and rise; sink and rise. So both predictions turned out to be correct. Beka and Jared then went on to add all the raisins to the bottles and watched the fluid level rise and then they had to taste the concoction. Both deemed the drink good. I wasn’t willing to taste it.

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