The Latest

Anna's Latest:
Kindergarten is still amazing.  She loves going, but she's also our homebody and loves to countdown to the weekends.  This week was Ocean Week and she came home EVERY DAY with new factoids about whales, sharks, and other sea life.  She explained to us all about echolocation, how whales communicate and that Orcas can beat Great Whites in a fight because they are smarter animals.  She doesn't forget a detail.

Anna is currently in basketball on Saturday mornings, and has shown some major improvements in her skills.  She loves running, jumping and attempting to dribble with the other crazy Kindergarteners.  She's one of four girls in the group of 20, and this morning she was the only girl, but she doesn't mind at all.  She loves it.

Miss Independent has begun requesting to do more difficult tasks on her own.  The latest desire is to go into the gas station where we buy bananas every week (it's the best price around) and make the purchase alone.  On Thursday, she got out of the car with $4 and headed in.  I could see from the outside there was a line, and I was unsure how she would handle the larger amount of people.  But, in Anna style, she went and picked out her bananas, stood proudly in line and paid her bill.  I had told her that if they said it was one dollar and some change to give the lady two dollars, or if it was two dollars and change to give three dollars.  When she got back to the car she told me that her bill was $1.17 and she got $0.83 back.  I asked if the lady helped her figure out how much money to pay and she said, "No Mom, I gave her two just like you said cause she said it was one something."  Wow, not that I didn't think she could figure it out, but I was just impressed in her confidence.


Claire's Latest:
Claire is not to be left behind, she is very clear in letting everyone know she's not a baby.  In fact, she has been pretty stuck this week on being 5.  "Mama, I five now."  When it's explained that she is only 2 because we haven't had her birthday, she declares, "Today my birthday.  I five now."

The next big jump is happening for Claire next week when she moves up to the Pre-School room at daycare with the three year olds. This jump came as a bit of a surprise to me as I wasn't expecting this move for another couple months.  But here we go!  This week she's been visiting her new friends and teachers in the mornings and has been thrilled to report that now she gets to go in the bounce house with the pre-schoolers.  She likes to "jump and fall down and jump and fall down and jump and fall down again."

Claire is also a do it yourselfer...
-put on her own diaper at night
-get dressed everyday
-put on her own backpack
-brush her own teeth
-get her own water
-do her own dishes
-sweep the floor
-this list could go on and on....

She wants no one to do anything for her.  She will do it herself!  She gets very frustrated to hear that she's still too little for something.


The Rest of the Story....

Things have seemed busy for us the past three weeks.  Getting back into the swing of school after a great break was tricky, but we've got this.  We have a quiet weekend at home this weekend to get things caught up before another week of school.

Coloring, puzzles, games, pearler beads, rainbow looms, and movie watching, this is how we spend our free time right now.  We start swimming lessons this week and both girls are excited.  We have even started looking ahead to summer and our plans for camps, vacation Bible school, swimming lessons, and down time.  I will be done with grad school and ready to take up some new hobbies...perhaps one can be getting baby books completed for both girls!

Thinking of warm summer days......to get through these cold winter nights!