Staying busy

I have not updated in a while because we have been so busy lately. Homeschool is going great and we are starting to 'find our groove' and I am beginning to have a lot more confidence. It has taken me a little over a month to figure out what works good for us. We started out one way and I realized it just was not working so I spent a lot of time thinking about what needed to change. Now we have our weekly schedule that is going great so far. I have also included a lot more art projects and try to incorporate what we are learning about. For example, last week we did the blend sound 'ch' so Friday we got out our huge stack of magazines (I am beginning to realize that when you homeschool you keep EVERYTHING because you WILL find a use for it!) and found lots of things that have the 'ch' sound and made a collage. I have also decorated a part of the wall in our computer room like a bulletin board and that is where I hang some of her work that she does. I put a picture of it at the bottom of the post. She loves it and I really think it gives her incentive to do her best because everyone who comes over sees it. I have also been utilizing the library soooo much more! They have rows and rows of educational videos that are so cool (even I like them!). So we make our weekly trip and stock up on videos and books.

We had Report Day a couple weeks ago with the homeschool group. Brenna got up and read a book all by herself in front of everyone. I was so proud of her and she did such a great job! A lot of the Moms came up to her afterwards and told her what a great job she did and gave me kudos too on what a wonderful reader she is. You could tell that she was very proud of herself. I think next Report Day she will talk about tadpoles and we will take a few of them that we have for the other kids to see. Yes, we STILL have tadpoles. The ones that we hatched from the eggs are starting to get their back legs FINALLY. The first batch we had did not take this long. I did read though that during certain times of the year they take longer to change. My sister-in-law told me that my little set up I have for them is so cool that they don't want to leave. LOL I think once these are gone I will not get anymore for a long, long while. We'll have to think of something else to reside in our tank.

We have also been spending a lot of time with my friend who homeschools and her daughter. Brenna and Rhiannon play so good and we get together about 2-3 times a week. We have taken the girls to the zoo and are planning some other field trips as well. It is nice having someone my age who homeschools and that I can get together with a few times a week and talk about things with.

So tomorrow morning we have our first co-op class for the homeschool group. A lot of the Moms have volunteered and are teaching classes. I have volunteered to help in the pre-school and Kinder-1st classes. We group the kids together by age (Kinder and 1st, 2nd and 3rd, ect...) and meet for about 2 1/2 hours. It will be for four consecutive Fridays. So we are really looking forward to that and Brenna is very excited. I really love this homeschool group - everyone is so nice and all the kids are GREAT!

Brenna started Girl Scouts as well and we meet every Tuesday night for an hour and a half. It is a small troop but the girls get along really good and have a lot of fun together. Next weekend Brenna and I are going to the Girl Scout camp and they are having a Mother/Daughter Day at the Spa. We get manicures, pedicures and the Moms get some facial stuff. I think we will have a really nice time together. I will take my camera and definitely post some pictures when we get back.

So now I guess you can see why I do not have much time to get on the computer. :) I really will try harder to post more. I have had quite a few people ask me when I was going to update. I really am glad that this blog gets read though. When I started it I wasn't sure who all would read it but by the hits on my counter at the bottom a lot of people do.
THANKS to everyone who supports us!! :)



*Brenna's Board*

Pictures

Brenna absolutely loves doing yoga! She has done it with me quite a few times and today when we went to the library she found a Yoga for Kids tape. You would have thought she struck gold! So now while I am cooking dinner, she is in the livingroom doing her yoga tape. I snapped a couple pictures of her. Too CUTE!

Updates

We went to the quilt show this past weekend that Brenna's quilt was entered in. She received Honorable Mention along with a nice big pink ribbon. She was very proud to see her quilt hanging with all the others. She was the youngest entered - the rest of the kids were anywhere between 9 and 14. Of course I forgot my camera but Aunt Lynnie let me use hers, so as soon as I get the pictures emailed to me from Dea Jae then I will post them.

So I completely forgot to post about our frogs that we released! The first set we had (nine total) finally turned into little frogs about 3 weeks ago - we kept them for about a week and then released them in the front yard. It had been raining almost everyday and everything was nice and wet so I thought it would be a good place. Besides, I have lots of frogs that live around my house so apparently they like it. I do water my plants frequently so things stay pretty moist most of the time. Now we have about 25 more that should be getting their legs pretty soon. I don't think I will release THAT many in my yard so those will have to go to the park lake. I will post some pictures of those soon.

We went on our first field trip with our Homeschool Group this morning. It was to the Water Treatment plant here in town. I found it pretty interesting but I guess it isn't necessarily something a 5 year old finds very fascinating. HAHA! I really should have known better. She did good though and only started complaining about the last 15 minutes. It was an outside tour and very hot and muggy.
One thing I did find out recently is that the Homeschool Group does a yearly camping trip! It will be in November and I am very excited about that. I think it will be a lot of fun and I am looking forward to it. Brenna will have so many kids to play with and Brendon and I will get to know the parents a lot better too.

Well other than that everything else is going great. :) I will post again soon.

Brenna's Quilt

Brenna and Grandma Shore finished the quilt that they have been working on! It came out so cute and Brenna did such a great job. She did most of the sewing on the machine with Grandma's help and guidance of course. She was a little apprehensive of the needle but did a wonderful job. She also knotted all the purple ties as well.

You can click on the picture and it will open another window with a bigger picture of it.

Lots has happened!!

Well it has been over a week since I posted and so much has happened since then. Where to start....

Well I will start with the most exciting news that I am sure everyone already knows about BUT I still have to tell you all about it! LOL My sister-in-law and brother have a brand new baby! Keira Elizabeth was born on September 3rd at 11:34pm and she weighs 5 pounds, 3 oz. - she is soooo tiny and soooo beautiful! Seriously, you could not find a prouder Aunt ANYWHERE! My poor brother has had to endure my many phone calls asking how they are doing and if she is nursing good...blah, blah, blah. If I had my way I would be over there all day, everyday because I just can't get enough of her. Brenna has been great with her and loves to hold her. She is so excited about being a "big cousin" now - she is not the baby anymore. When we went to the hospital to see her for the first time Brenna couldn't stay away from her and kept staring at her. She had the cutest little smile the entire time we were there. She told me in the car yesterday - "Mom, do you think it is possible for us to see Keira every day?" It was very cute. I feel the same way. :) Jenny says we are welcome there anytime but I don't think she quite knows what she got herself into when she said that. LOL
Anyway, homeschooling is going very well for us. I have decided to do unit studies. The first week we did the letter "a" and she practiced writing it and we also went to the library and got a lot of books on things that start with the letter "a". This week we are doing the letter "b" and are studying how the brain works, about blood, and the animal we are doing is the butterfly. So you see how the unit studies work - it is much easier for me that way to come up with things to do. She is getting so much better at writing her name correctly too. I will have to take a pictures of it and post it on here soon. She has also been doing great with her math and is doing addition and subtraction problems all by herself. I am so proud of her. :)
Yesterday we had our very first homeschool group get together. It was Report Day. The kids who want to get up in front of everyone and do some sort of short presentation. Brenna did not do anything yesterday but that is okay. We thought that next month she would go up and do a presentation on tadpoles. After the reports we all had pizza and then the smaller kids went outside on the playground and played for a while. It was so pleasant and they all got along GREAT! Brenna made so many new friends. All of the mom's are so nice and friendly too. I think this homeschool group is going to be a wonderful experience for us. They get together a lot for field trips, play dates and family get-togethers.
OH! I signed Brenna up for Girl Scouts!! We went and registered last Friday and are just waiting for the Troop Leader to call us. She is very excited about it and so am I. I was in Girl Scouts for about 7 or 8 years and had such a great time and made lots of good friends that I still talk to.
Anyway, I will post soon with updates as well as some new pictures. :)

Officially Started Homeschooling

Yes, we officially started homeschooling today. All of the public schools in our city started today so I figured it would be a good time. I told Brenna last night that we were going to and she was so excited! When we woke up this morning she had her breakfast, took the dishes to the sink when she was finished and then sat back down at the dining room table. She was there for the longest time before I realized it and I asked her what she was doing. She told me, "I am waiting to start homeschooling." I thought that was so cute! Now before you start thinking that she was just sitting there all alone I must say that you can see the TV from the table so she WAS watching cartoons while waiting. LOL
So our first day was successful. She really wanted to do what I call "table work" (yea, we'll see how long THAT lasts! LOL) so we practiced writing her letters and her name and played some fun math games to help her with addition. She started calling me Ms. Brandi but I put my foot down on that one. She giggled and thought it was funny. :)

Well I sure hope every day goes as well as today - probably not but I can HOPE! :)

So today's "priceless moments" that I wouldn't trade for the world and make all this completely worth it:
- Brenna gave me an apple from the fruit bowl this morning and told me that "all teachers need an apple!"
- Tonight before bed she came up and gave me a big hug and said, "You're my best friend Mom and I love you!" Now who wouldn't want to spend all day with someone as sweet as that??

Camping Was A Success!!

Wow, we had sooo much fun on our trip! We went to Garner State Park, which is in Hill Country just west of San Antonio. It is so beautiful and quite breathtaking - especially if you live where we do where the land is all flat. That picture above was the scenery from our camp site. What a sight to wake up to every morning.

Brenna was so good and loved every minute of it (well except when I MADE her take a cold shower cuz there was no hot water LOL). We played in the river every day and went tubing two miles the day after we got there. It was fun cooking on the fire and roasting marshmallows at night. The site we got was just about 30 yards from the bathrooms and showers, so that was nice, especially when I got woken up at 7am to a little voice saying, "Mommy, I have to go potty."

We also went hiking one morning and hiked to the very top of that hill in the picture above. Brenna did GREAT and we were both highly impressed with her. She was such a little trooper and never once complained. We were not going to go all the way but SHE is the one who insisted and kept pushing US to keep going. I told her that she was probably the very first five year old to ever go up there. That made her happy. :)

We are definitely going to make this a yearly thing. We got a State Park book and would like to take about two camping trips a year. I am so glad that Brenna likes it as much as we do.
I created an album with all the pictures from our trip so if you want to take a look then click on this link....
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v23/raving_butterfly/Garner%20State%20Park/
(hope it works! If not email me and I will send them to you!)

More on my tadpoles....

Ok, so yes, I am obsessed with these little guys, but it is so much fun to watch them grow and change! What other pet can you get that will completely change into a different animal?? All three of us are into it now and will look at them about ten times a day. It's fun to just sit there and watch them. The big ones (we have nine) are such fast swimmers now and I noticed today that a couple of them are starting to grow legs!! Very, very exciting for us. :) I took some pictures of them that I have posted below. The picture with the tadpole swimming vertically is a pretty good one of the tiny little legs - you can barely see them under the tail. The other picture with the tadpole on the floor of the tank is one of my big ones too. You can tell how big they are getting by comparing it with the 4 day old baby that is just to the right of it. I am not sure how many babies I put in there - maybe about 20 or so. I still have about 50 in a tupperware container that I can not put in the tank because that would just be too much. Not sure what I will do with those. Maybe I will use them for food for my new turtle. Yes, we got yet ANOTHER animal! It is my childhood all over again. We got him from my brother. I posted a picture of him as well. He is a red-eared turtle and spends most of his time in the water. His shell is about 5 inches from head to tail so he is a good size. He will go up on his dry spot a couple times a day and bask in the lamp I have for him. Right now the poor thing is in a 10 gallon aquarium but we are buying a 55 gallon one from a friend so he will have a bigger and better home VERY soon. I feel so bad for him right now so he has spent quite a bit of time in the bathtub (yes, I disinfect it every time!) and just swims around so gracefully and has a ball. I am looking forward to getting that tank set up too. He will be in turtle heaven! :)

HOLY TADPOLES!

So our tadpoles hatched - my goodness we have A LOT of them! Free shipping or delivery (and advise on raising them!) if anyone wants some! LOL I think there might be about 150 or so. Why, oh why, did I get so many?? When I got the egg sack from my Grandma it did not look like THAT many. I seriously have a TADPOLE FARM now. Brenna thinks it is the coolest thing tho. I guess in a couple days I will transfer some to the big tank. Maybe we will have to take a trip to our local park and let some go in the lake because I do not think my tank is big enough for them all.

Family Vacation

Brendon, Brenna and I are taking our family vacation the week of August 19th. We are going camping! I am so excited about it and am really looking forward to it. We are going to a pretty big, popular place about 5 hours away (not saying exactly where cuz this IS the Internet - I have my blog set as private but you never know...). We have been planning it for the last week and I have so many lists going - I like to be prepared! :) Brendon and I used to go camping a lot before Brenna was born and have not gone in so long. Brenna is finally old enough I think to where it won't be so stressful. She is so excited and can't wait to go. I will post with pictures when we get back!

Update on our Tadpoles

Well I gave away all my goldfish that we had in our fish tank (they are very messy fish and not good to have in an aquarium) - took them to Mom and Dad's pond where we got the tadpoles from. So now I have converted my 10 gallon aquarium into my tadpole/frog habitat. We only have 9 tadpoles left from the 30 we got. During my first water change I lost a lot of them but I now have it down to a science. The nine that we have are thriving in their new tank and it looks like they should be getting their back legs soon. After their back legs come in then the front ones develop and soon after that they get their lungs and become cute little frogs. :) The rock that is sticking out of the water in the tank is for the frogs to climb on once their gills are gone.

We have yet another tadpole project going on besides this one now too. My Grandma has a pond in her yard as well and she spotted a bunch of tadpole eggs the other day and asked if I wanted some. So now we are "hatching" them! It is pretty interesting to see the eggs change from perfect little circles into tadpoles. Right now they are tiny, squirmy and bean-shaped and they should hatch in a day or two. I will leave them in small containers for about a week or so and then transfer them to the aquarium. It is all really neat to watch and Brenna just loves having them and is learning a lot. Here is a picture of the eggs - it didn't come out very well but Brenna insisted that I post it anyways. You can see some of them pretty well.

Well I will post about them again when we have frogs!

Tadpoles!

Brenna and I are now the proud owners of about 30 tadpoles! My Mom and Dad have a nice pond in their front yard and every once in a while a frog will decide to litter it with eggs and then Dad is overwhelmed with hundreds of tadpoles. This time Brenna and I decided to 'save' some of them (most don't survive the doom of Dad's big net!) and raise them until they metamorphose into tiny frogs, and then of course we will release them into the yard. What am I going to do with 30 frogs!!?? :)
So this is officially our first science lesson about frogs and their metamorphosis. I will have to come up with some kind of chart or maybe even keep a daily journal that Brenna can dictate to me about about the changes they make. I have already looked up and printed some things off the Internet about taking care of tadpoles and it seems pretty simple. Right now we have them all in one container but since there are so many I will have to separate them into two or they will start to eat each other! Once they get all four of their legs you transfer them to another container that has rocks they can climb onto. And when their tail is gone that is when you release them. They eat all sorts of things too - fishfood, flies (time to clean my window sills! haha), and the best thing they say to feed them is lettuce. Who would have thought!

Brenna is so excited and says that she is their new Mommy. I reminded her today that we are not going to be able to keep them when they become frogs and she nodded and said that she knew. So we'll see when the time comes. Right now they are in her room on her dresser. She will be in charge of feeding them and help me change the water when needed as well. I will post pictures as they change. I think this is going to be a pretty cool project!

Making a Quilt

So Brenna has been entered in her first quilt show! It will be in September and her and Grandma are making a darling little quilt together.

Dea Jae came down last week with her sewing machine and her, Kastine and Brenna went shopping and picked out material (Kastine is making one as well). Brenna, of course, got all shades and patterns of purple. On five of the blocks (out of nine total) Brenna drew pictures with crayon on white material and then Grandma ironed it to set the colors. They sewed some of the blocks together but ran out of time before Grandma had to go back home. She will be back the end of August though and they will finish it then. I will definitely post a picture of the finished product.

Just an Update

We really haven't been doing anything really exciting lately. The library thing is over but we have still been going and checking out books about once a week. Actually we need to make it over there today at some point.
Brenna has had three playdates in a row this week. Tuesday and Wednesday she went over to Erica's house (her 2 year old teacher from pre-school) - she has two kids that are 5 and 9. Brenna has a great time playing with them. Yesterday she went over to Grandma Dawnie's and played with one of the little girl's that she tutors. I told Brenna that today she is ALL MINE. :) I really miss her when she's gone. Not sure what we are doing this weekend. I know that we will go to the beach Saturday or Sunday - that will make it five weeks in a row that we have gone.
Next week Grandma Shore will be in town and will be staying with us. I am seriously NOT saying this to kiss up to my mother-in-law (HAHA!) but I really look forward to her coming down. For those of you who don't know her, I am a very lucky girl to have a MIL like her. :)

So Brenna has been doing much better with reading and tries to read anything she can - signs, stuff on the computer, things on tv, ect... I found her in her room the other day reading one of Brendon's books, "Tiger Woods - How I Play Golf". She is all about learning to play golf and Brendon said that he is going to get her a couple clubs and start taking her. That will be nice for them to spend that time together. I have tried to play golf and I am just not that coordinated and I get very mad. :) So maybe I will go just to take pictures.

Well I hope everyone has a good Friday the 13th!

A couple passages from a book that I wanted to share....

I am reading this book right now called "Homeschooling - Take a Deep Breath, You Can Do This". It is a great book and is written by a Mom who home schooled her kids for many years. There is a chapter in it called, "The Good Stuff Most People Won't Tell You". It lists about fifteen wonderful things about homeschooling. One of them really stood out to me and I wanted to post some it for whoever is interested.

"Your children will grow up knowing you better than their traditionally schooled friends know their parents

We always know best those we spend the most meaningful time with. When my children were traditionally schooled, they had a very long bus ride in each direction. By the time they got home, rested, and did their homework and chores, there was barely time to play, much less have family quality time.... My children spent more time in school than they did at home with me doing what I wanted them to do each day.
I began to see that their teachers had more influence over their values and ideas than I did. Since I was responsible for the way they turned out, I was concerned. By the time my children came home from school, they were tired. They had been with other people all day long and just wanted time alone. They didn't want to think or have serious discussions. I began to feel I was losing control of our relationship simply because we didn't have any time together.
As your children get older they will begin to develop different ideas that don't always match your own and they will spend more time away from you. This is natural and healthy. However, removing your influence from your child too soon can be dangerous. The popular view is that children should develop their own beliefs, and this is true...eventually. However, a child needs some sort of foundation for the building of beliefs to be placed upon. ..... The best way to give a child values is to spend time with him and to let him see how you live your life. You act in a way that reflects what you believe, you talk to him about things that matter and you tell him about you, your life, and your choices. Your child will know you better because he has spent meaningful time with you, learning, serving and growing together. This builds a family that can last forever. That's a benefit that makes every minute worthwhile."

One more thing that I came across in this book was something that somebody once told me when they found out I was going to homeschool. They said that Brenna needed to experience the "real world" and deal with bullies and all that classic 'kid stuff'. Well I don't think this would have stood out if that had not been told to me and I just wanted to share this too.

"People will try to tell you that learning to cope with bullies is just part of life. So is teasing or name-calling. Think carefully about your adult life before accepting that. Do you intentionally put yourself into situations where you will be abused? When you are an adult, there are laws that protect you from being picked on in the workforce or anywhere else. Adults aren't supposed to take it - only children are. Does that make sense?"

Ok, I guess that's enough for one post. haha! I just think this book is great and wanted to share some things. Thanks.

At the Library

Geez, I don't post for about three weeks and then I post three days in a row! :) Hopefully people are keeping up with me and my sporadic blogs. :)

So I just had to share something funny that happened at the library on Monday. Brenna and I went for our tri-weekly library day and Monday they did not have the story time or anything (not sure why?). Well I didn't want to waste a trip to the library, since we were already there, so we turned in our books and proceeded to look for more to take home. With Brenna this is a very long process and takes forever! She is very picky about the books that she chooses. So we finally get a stack of about 15 books and make our way to a table to "decide which books are good enough to check out" *eye roll*. It's very cute...really. :) So we are there at the table and Brenna sees this baby who is smiling at her and making noises. Of course she wants to go say hi and asks me so I tell her that it is okay. I do not have a problem at all with her going up to people and making conversation as long as she is with me - and she knows this. She is a VERY friendly little girl. The baby is with her Mom and her other little girl. After introducing herself and talking with the older girl, the Mom asks her what grade she is in and of course she goes on to say that she will be in Kinder and that her Mom is going to homeschool her. The Mom looks at me with a big smile and tells me that she is going to homeschool her oldest as well and proceeds to gather her things and come over to our table. As this was going on I overhear the conversation between Brenna and the other little girl:

Brenna: "So how old are you?"
Girl: "I'm 5 years old."
Brenna: "Wow! What a coincidence! I'm 5 too!"
Girl looks at Brenna and then looks at her Mom with wide eyes: "Wow Mom! This girl is really smart!!!"

Oh my gosh, it was HILARIOUS! You really should have seen the look on that little girl's face when Brenna used her "big word". To be honest, I felt very proud. :) I guess me speaking to her like an adult and doing the 'word of the week' thing really pays off. :)
Anyway, it was nice though meeting another homeschool Mom. We talked a little and she asked me all kinds of things about homeschooling. She had not done much reading about it and had just decided to do it so all of my studying really paid off just in that one conversation. I think I might have over-whelmed her a bit. haha! We exchanged phone numbers though and will get the girls together to play and we can visit as well. It is so nice meeting other Moms who are going to homeschool. Someone told me not too long ago that the library is probably a really good place to meet other parents who homeschool - especially once school starts and you go during school hours. With Brenna being as friendly as she is I am sure that we will meet tons of new people. :)

Getting Prepared

Wow! It's already July! I am still getting my ideas and thoughts together for the upcoming homeschool year. I have come up with a lot of brainstorm ideas on things that I want to do with her and things that I need to purchase as well. I am not getting a whole lot this year - I can utilize so many materials that I already have. My Mom was a 2nd grade teacher for six years so you can imagine how many cool and useful things I am getting from her! :) The things that I really want to get is a year pass for the zoo and an endless supply of art supplies. Some of the things that I have written down as well are:

• learning to tell time (she's already learning the hours and can recognize when it is exactly 2 or 4 o'clock - just need to work on minutes)
• 
  
• work on writing letters correctly and then advance to words
• 
  
• choose an animal to study each week for science (can also lead into Social Studies with studying the country they are from)
• 
  
• plant a small garden for science including flowers and vegetables
• 
  
• addition, subtraction and simple measuring for math (she knows the concepts, just needs to practice more)
• 
  
• study holidays for history


• start learning and identifying States
• 
  
• creating a "Chore Chart" to learn more about responsibility and working together as a family (yes, that is the 'neat-freak' in me coming out! haha! But she has to learn at some point, right?)
• 
  
• play Mad Libs to learn what nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are
• 
  
• continue working on her reading


• start keeping her own journal - good for pre-writing skills and developing sentence structure (can tell me what to write until she learns to write herself)
• 
  
• start including her in cooking
  
• lots and lots of art projects!!

There are probably many other things that we will come across that I just have not thought about yet - but it's a start. Besides, she is so good at asking lots of questions so she will give me ideas as we go and take the lead with some things as well.

It was pretty cute last night - Brenna was watching some show with Brendon and one of the kids was speaking French. So then she proceeded to go around the house pretending to talk in French. I told her that if she really wanted to learn French then we could get her either a DVD or computer program that would teach her (kids this age pick up other languages a lot quicker then adults). Then Brendon went and got the globe and showed her where Europe was and then where France was. He went about it very well and first located Texas and then our city and showed her how far it was from here to France. He told her all about Grandma Shore living there for a year when she was younger and that led to showing her where Australia was because that is where Grandma is right now. So you see how that all happened? She learned something new at 9pm, right before bed because she instigated it by pretending to speak French. You just have to take advantages of opportunities like that when you are homeschooling. We could have elaborated on it but considering the time it had to be a very short lesson. Things like that happen all day long at our house though - that was just one example.

One thing that I am trying to decide on is how I am going to do our school calendar. Some homeschoolers follow the public school calendar, some do year round with 3 weeks on and 1 week off, others do school 4 days a week. I am not too concerned about it this year but next year when we start a structured curriculum I will need to decide how I want to do it.

There are just so many details that I still have to iron out. It is going to be a learning experience for the whole family - but one that I am really looking forward to!

Books, books and more books!

So I FINALLY got a library card a couple weeks ago and Brenna and I have been stocking the house with new books every week. They are everywhere and I love it! Mine, of course, are all homeschool related (I just can't get enough information!) and Brenna has been getting a combination of 'easy readers' and fun books for Mommy and Daddy to read to her. She is getting so much better at reading and is slowly finding a love for it. She is still somewhat stubborn, gets very frustrated and will only read when SHE wants to but I am not pushing her. Like I said before, I don't want to make her dislike reading or make it seem like a chore. She will, in time, discover the beauty of being able to pick up a book and curl up and get lost in the words. But until then I tell myself, she is only five. :) And for a five year old she is doing better than I could ever expect - I am very proud of her. When I see her reading I almost (ok, so I have!) get tears in my eyes. I really could sit and listen to her read all day long.

We are still going to the library a couple times a week for the Children's Reading Program and she gets to do crafts and watch puppet shows and listen to story time. She loves it and so do I. After all of that we will go and pick out our books and then she LOVES to sit at a table and we both quietly sit and read our books for about 20 minutes. She just thinks that is the coolest thing and she looks like such a 'big kid'. :) There are only a few more weeks left of activities there but we will definitely do it again next summer.

On to another subject... We went to the beach again yesterday for the third weekend in a row. This time Aunt Jenny and Uncle PJ went with us and we had so much fun. Brenna did some more boogie boarding and Daddy got brave and started taking her out further and further to some bigger waves (with me supervising and staying close to her). She could still touch of course - it stays pretty shallow the first 30 yards or so. That little girl held on so tight and rode them in all the way! She is getting to be a pro at it. We will be going to the beach again next weekend - we just have way too much fun to NOT go! Our goal is to try to go every weekend this summer and hopefully beyond that too. It is a very inexpensive way to have a good time. :)

Well I am off to read books with Brenna before it is time for bed. I will post again real soon. :)