More videos. I hope to find time to write something for you too but not right now. We’ve enjoyed our holiday time with family. Here are some videos of Paul swimming and Caroline doing was she does best, eating bananas.
And sorry, apparently I always try to get her to sing “If you’re happy and you know it!”
It’s been 6 weeks! Yikes, sorry I’m so slow. Hopefully the cuteness of these kids will make up for it.
At Carthage
At Nauvoo School
Cute Kids
Paul’s computer skit is at 28 minutes. Paul’s singing begins at 48 minutes. This is very long, and sorry for the ads, which is what youtube does if it is this long.
I have to say, I am not a fan of the rock-n-roll type of worship service. But at least they called this a “performance” instead of a worship service! Paul enjoys being a part of this co-op, and I know it’s been a good experience for us. I look forward to seeing where we go in the future with this group! There is a lot of potential.
Paul’s assignment was “Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” He told me what to write and I wrote it verbatim. Then he read it. (Yes, he actually read my sloppy cursive/print combo writing.) He didn’t want to change anything. He had to draw a few pictures himself because he knew just what he wanted and did not find the picture he liked! I found his picture of the king sitting on his throne telling people to pay taxes to be amusing.
I was proud to hear my son bear his testimony to his primary peers yesterday!
P.S. Yes, there are Nauvoo pictures and videos to show. But with Christmas decorating, working on making Christmas presents, getting sick again, and a failed computer hard drive and the necessary re-install and recovery, it’s been a busy few weeks.
While we were in Nauvoo, Caroline turned 9 months old!
Caroline loves people. She can be surrounded by toys but if there is not a person nearby, she will not be happy. She wants to be with people. Most of the time, it doesn’t matter who it is. If the person is smiling, Caroline is too. When she sees someone new, she’ll stop what she’s doing and wave “hi.” It even sounds like she says “hi” to them! Her big brother is one of her favorite people to watch. Even when she’s just waking up, if she hears her brother’s voice she is very excited and looks around for him. Caroline is a social creature. There is an exception: if Mama is in the room, she wants Mama and no one else! Not even Daddy is desired if she is sleepy: she wants her mama.
Caroline loves music. Caroline laughs and cheers and claps her hands when music begins. I’m begining to notice that she really does want that lullaby before bedtime. She loves to “sing” along during hymns at church, she loves to listen to Paul’s creative songs just for her, and she loves to hear Daddy play the piano. This is child who will treasure music in her life, even more so that Paul did as a baby and now as a child.
Caroline loves moving. Whether she is clapping her hands or army crawling to an attractive item or squirming and dancing to a song, Caroline likes to be a part of things. If she is down on the floor, she wants to stand. If she’s standing, she wants to move around the table and grab that shiny thing over there.
Caroline is petite. She’s in the 30th percentile for height and still 15th-20th percentile for weight. She’s 16 lbs and some odd ounces, and she’s rounding out like a baby should. But she is definitely not a fat baby. She is perfect sized, and I love that she still loves to cuddle. She fits in the corner of my arm just right.
Caroline is awake. She does not want to nap, and never has. But she’s getting better at letting herself fall asleep. Somehow we spoiled her and for a while she would not sleep without being held. She’d scream if she was put down! She wanted to nurse if she woke in the night and it was quite exhausting because she’d scream otherwise. If something was going on around her, she would not fall asleep. She’d stare at the moving TV screen til past 10 p.m., but she would not go to sleep. It was exhausting just watching her droopy eyes.
Caroline likes bling. Glasses, belt buckles, earrings, necklaces, shiny stickers, shiny keys: if an object is shiny or bright, Caroline makes a bee-line for it! It will probably end up in her mouth. The other day at a restaurant, Daddy handed her a few dollar bills. Caroline, amazingly, did not put it in her mouth. She had this look of amazement as she looked at Daddy and looked at the money and turned it over and over, amazed that she was able to hold it. She did the same with his credit card. But that did end up in her mouth. Dangerous! Let’s not love bling and money too much, dear little girl.
Caroline loves to nurse, and food is okay sometimes too. Some days, Caroline could not care less about food. She just wants to nurse. And now she does not even want a bottle anymore. But she is starting to expect food more and more. Yesterday she was very excited to eat food.
I love my darling girl. I can’t believe she’s nearly a year old already. I hope we can treasure these baby days a little longer … and that she does not start walking quite yet! She’s so cuddly and adorable, I love her.
Note: all videos recorded by big brother Paul during our Thanksgiving road trip.
My kids are so happy in the mornings, and before church they are just adorable!
By the time I wanted a picture with Caroline, though, she was ready to be done. “Stop holding me! I want to crawl around!”
Note to self: I must try to get a picture of me with my kids more often.
And Paul wanted to show off his singing in anticipation of his primary program.
Caroline wants to show off her newly acquired skills too.
All pictures and videos taken Sunday, October 21, 2012
All pictures were taken Sunday, October 7, 2012, on Paul’s fifth birthday! Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa, for joining us for General Conference and cake!
Happy birthday, my dear five-year-old boy!
For Paul’s birthday, we gave him the option of doing any fun family event together. He chose to take the train to Des Plaines — where there is a train restaurant. Here are some fun pictures of our family excursion. Excuse the bad quality, as I didn’t take my good camera with me and these were just taken with my phone.
All pictures were taken on the afternoon of October 6, 2012.
In January, we moved my desk in to the office with Ryan’s. We also set up a desk for Paul. This was nice because we were all together. But now Caroline is too big for a bouncer. And let’s face it: when Ryan’s working from home, it would be nicer to have more space for everyone! Ryan wanted to go downstairs into the unfinished portion of the basement. I think he loves it so far because he can play his music and all that. Anyway, it seems to be working for us too.
Here’s the school room now.
Mom and Paul do school every morning, starting right after breakfast. First we read two paragraphs in the Gospel Principles manual on my nook and talk about the concepts. Paul loves this. I let him click on the scriptures and we follow footnotes and scripture trails until he gets tired. We do this for about 20-30 minutes most mornings.
Then we go upstairs and do a math page. Sometimes we do a page in Miquon math, which is a mix of conceptually taught math concepts. We learn the concepts behind the operations using manipulatives like C-rods. So far, he’s already been introduced to addition, subtraction, and multiplication. He likes it, but we break it up with Singapore Math, which seems a little easier (he’s at the beginning of the book instead of halfway through it!). We’ll do a little of each each week.
Then we do a few spelling words, where Paul uses a magnetic board and tiles (with the phonograms on them, not just letters) to spell a fw words. We usually do five words. Then, if we have time, Paul gives me a spelling lesson and I do the same with tiles.
Paul and I also are going to learn about American history this year. Last week, it was basic U.S. geographical features (We read about Paul Bunyan and labeled his “formations” on the map) and this week we learned about different Native American houses in different parts of the country. I plan on taking this very easy and just covering what he’s interested in each week, within reason. Next week it’s about the Vikings.
We read The Magic School Bus, we watch science and history videos on Discovery Education every now and then (Thanks, Grandma!), we watch Sid the Science Kid, and we follow Paul’s lead at to what he’s interested in learning (this week he wanted to read about the seasons). He has a lined journal I ask him to write something (anything) in each week, and I plan on having him copy one sentence in to a History journal about American history so he’ll have a record of everything we learned. (For example, this week’s sentence is “Many people lived in America before 1492.”) We’ll see how that goes.
Paul loves to learn. So far, with school being finished by 9 or 9:30 every morning, he’s enjoyed it. There was one day in the seven we’ve had so far when he had a melt-down at 4+4 and he tends to react strongly against practicing his handwriting, but in general I think this year will be an enjoyable time at home! He also has a co-op three Fridays a month (he loved the first day last week!), storytime one day a week, and maybe another group play day on Wednesdays too. We’ll see if that is too much.
Hooray for homeschooling!
I feel like this second child of mine lives in her carseat!!
Love her smiles!!
Loving big brother.
My thumb-sucking pioneer girl!