Caleb Reading

I guess we all pretty much saw this coming last year when we started seeing the boy memorizing books. Well, it looks like he is bound and determined to teach himself how to read (even though, I would prefer him to be completely potty trained- I've learned that my kids and I aren't always going to have the same ideas). Through a combination of memory and figuring out letter sounds, Caleb has been able to read ZOO, CALEB, MOMMY, DADDY, and SADIE. That's more than enough for any 3 and a half year old to master but not our little man. Sunday morning, he got up with Daddy and dug out his huge Curious George treasury book. Now he's memorized all the stories, almost entirely (gotta give the little guy a bit of a break since he probably has around 30 books memorized word for word, I think) but he has been working on pointing to each word and saying it as he "reads." While looking at the book with Daddy, he started asking Daddy to tell him what the words were and eventually he started to remember some of the words. Now he recognizes THE, IN, TO, FIREMAN, MONKEY, INTO (he figured that one out from seeing "in" and "to"), THEY, AND, FIRE, and possibly more. He's starting to connect that every time you see "the" it's THE. It's been exciting to watch and he seems to be more and more determined to figure it out.

Now if only I could get him that interested in the potty...

Tid Bits

• At dinner this evening, we witnessed first hand Sadie "playing" with her food. She's been doing a lot of pretending lately with the Little People and other little toys. At dinner, it was the strawberries.

One strawberry says to the other "oh no, I lost my daddy"
The other strawberry says "oh, maybe he's in my tummy"
And then she eats both strawberries.

• Last week, we went out to visit my friend Kelly. I've known her since kindergarten and now she has a 2 yr old and a brand new baby. While out there, our friend Karen dropped by with her brand new baby so it was quite the houseful. Sadie and Miss M (Kelly's little girl) got along really well and seemed to have a lot of fun playing. As I loaded the car back up to drive home, the kids sat and watched out the window. At some point, they found a little thing of chapstick. Miss M happily showed Sadie and Caleb how to put it on and then all 3 kids were smearing chapstick all over their face. It was funny to watch. When we got home, Sadie ran to the book shelf int the dining room, where we keep all the art supplies and pointed up, saying "I need the gluestick for my face". Apparently the chapstick and gluestick looked a little too similar and now I'll have to keep both out of reach.
  

Easter Morning 2009

So the Easter Bunny thought it would be fun to do a little decorating for Easter morning. There were Easter eggs hung from the ceiling fan in the living room and over the archway to go in the dining room. He also gathered up all the stuffed rabbits and left the kids a little message on the chalkboard. Cute, right? Well, not if your Caleb. He didn't care for all these changes but Sadie seemed to enjoy Easter morning. Here's a bit...

And just to let you know, after church, Caleb was very excited by the Easter Bunny and was quite happy with the decorations. It just took a couple of hours to grow on him :-)

Sadie Dancing

Just like "Angelina" as in Angelina Ballerina. This is our little ballerina in her Easter dress. If she's not dancing, she's hopping. She only stops to sleep :-)