I DO IT MYSELF!

These are words that are heard around the house from the angelic faced Malena. I put them all in caps, because that is how she says it. No one better get in her way of experimenting with whatever newly discovered skill she wants to demonstrate. This is difficult for big sister to understand. Up until this week, Caity has been able to treat Malena like a mini me life-sized doll of sorts. The screamed, " I do it myself!" is followed by an even louder, "Fine, I was just trying to help!" bellowed into the ears of little sister. We have tried to explain that help is only help when it is wanted by the one you are trying to help. Wow, that is convoluted! I guess I can see how that is a hard concept to grasp.

Malena is embracing her 'big girl'. She picks out her clothes, dresses herself, potties, helps make her lunch, pours her milk, and whatever else Malena wants to do. She absolutely refuses help. At her first dentist appointment yesterday, the dentist kept asking her if she wanted to hold a hand, doll, or anything to comfort her. She was obviously scared as there were tears welled up in her eyes. She would not have anything or anyone comfort her. It was probably a good look into the future with our Malena. We can't figure out where she gets that stubbornness. OK, stop laughing. I guess Chris and I had it coming.

Compare/Contrast Paragraph

Caity had an assignment this week to compare and contrast something in a 10 sentence paragraph. She chose to do it on the fictional characters found in the popular Junie. B. Jones book series. This is what she wrote.




Junie B. Jones and Lucille are best friends, but they are different.
They both love Grace as a friend. They go to the same school and class. There is more to say. Lucille looks good when she goes to school. She wears expensive clothes. When her school picture came back, she looked like a star model. Junie looks funky. She has funny clothes and messed up hair even on a picture day. Lucille is rich and Junie B. is not. They are best friends, but they are not the same.

Little Man's Trick

Colin rarely gets single camera time without the competition of his sisters in the background. When we had a few minutes today, I took the opportunity to capture his new stunts. He has been waving for about a week, but I guess he doesn't do well with command performances.

Crusing, Writing, and Regrouping

We had a fun weekend with a long overdue get together with our new neighbor friends. The girls had such a good time playing upstairs while the adult-kids played Guitar Hero. Chris is still champion, but I am gaining on him.

Colin has been busy figuring out the cruising phase of his exploration. He keeps falling, but stays determined none-the-less.

Malena has completed her Kumon tracing book which means she has demonstrated the appropriate pencil skills to begin writing her letters. She is very excited at this new prospect and is beginning to see that being a 'big girl' has some advantages. Let's hope that encourages her to complete the ultimate big girl step... fingers crossed.

Caity is back in full swing with the new addition of piano lessons. She is loving her new teacher and Malena and Colin enjoy playing with the teacher's children during the lesson. This gives Mom a much appreciated mental break. Caity is now regrouping in her subtraction math problems. The best thing I have heard in along time is when she said, "That's it? That's easy." I guess all the pre-regrouping skills we have been working on actually helped. Thank you Horizon Math.

This week is crazy busy and I am loving every bit of it. I won't bore you with the details, I will just say that I feel incredibly blessed these days with the people that God has brought into all of our lives.

Story by Caitlyn

In Caity's English class she was given a picture to write a 10 sentence story. This is what she wrote and typed by herself. She would like to share this with all of you. Comments are always welcome!

There was a geek from school called Leny. Timmy The Bottlehead was trying to crush Leny. The Bottlehead was mad because Leny got 100% all the time. The Bottlehead was missing class because he throws people in the garbage a lot.

The fight started on Sunday morning. Timmy tied Leny to the church bell. Because Leny was smart, he got out of the bell. A woman saw him and called 911. The firefighters had a nice warm blanket. They check him out and Leny went home. Timmy got in trouble.

Happy Belated Birthday to Aunt Natalie!!!!!!!!!!

For some reason the video we did is not uploading correctly. Bummer. We hope you had a good birthday.

Back at it!

We started the third quarter in homeschooling. Much to my surprise, the first day was not met with trepidation but excitement. She sat down and made goals for this semester and talked about what she would like to do. ( More on those adventures later.) All the while, Malena was at my side BEGGING for some school stuff to do. Caity kept informing her how lucky she was doing her "baby stuff". Colin's new skills made the day a bit more challenging as he was not happy to just sit and watch. He wanted to pull up and see the world from his new perspective and inquired for his dad by his repetitive "DA,DA,DA" cuteness. Now that he has discovered the joy of this percussive syllable, he no longer will say "Ma,Ma,Ma--- Well, at 4:00 am the "Ma,Ma,Ma's" come out just fine. Figures!