Smarter than your average bear?

I have always said that K got her Daddy's intelligence. I mean, I'm not stupid...I was in a gifted class in elementary school, but I also know that T is on a whole other level. In school when we would study he would only have to go over something once or twice and it stuck with him, whereas I had to spend a little more time on it so I am pretty sure that K got his brains. Often times I am astonished and a little bit frightened of how darn smart she is. We admit to being biased in thinking our kids are adorable and brilliant, but K seems to honestly be above average.

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My first clue was when she learned her letters at 18 months, and I didn't even have to teach them to her. I think she just picked them up from the several ABC books we had, but I never actually went over them with her.

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I have been trying to get her to write lately, but she's had absolutely no interest...until a few weeks ago. I have been making the little dashed lines for her to copy for ages and she would never even attempt it. Then when we were making Daddy and Papa's birthday cards she just all of the sudden went for it. This was her first attempt...pretty legible! Only the Y is unrecognizable since she crossed the top as well. :)

But the thing that really freaked me out was her "reading". She started "reading" books to S the other day. These were all books with one word that matched the picture so she was able to read through it just fine, but then one night I was reading to her before bed and there was a stop sign on the page. She pointed to it and said, "sss-tuh-ah-puh STOP!" I thought, okay, she just recognized the stop sign.

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She knows all of the letter sounds so that wasn't too shocking, but then we read a little further and she sounded out and said the word "Plop" and then "Bonk" and finally "Crash". I was flabbergasted. Surely she couldn't have accidentally done all those ones. This was one of our new books so I knew she couldn't have had it memorized. Since then we have been trying out all sorts of words and I have to admit that she is pretty darn close to reading. She can sound out anything and most of the time she figures out what it is.

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Not even three and she's already almost reading! She definitely got her Daddy's brains. Scary. How am I supposed to keep up with this kid??? Of course every time I try to take a video the skill somehow vanishes. This one below is the best I have gotten so far. She was reading several words for Noni and Papa so I ran and got my camera, but of course once I turned it on she stopped doing it. She does not like to perform unless it is on her own terms. :)

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Hopefully I'll get a better video soon, but for now I'll leave you with this one...she really doesn't sound anything out in it, but you get the idea.

P.S. She learned her letter sounds from a video. It's the Leap Frog Letter Factory. She got it for her birthday from her friend Rowen last year. I would definitely recommend it! It's only half an hour and it teaches the letter sounds in a fun, cute way.

Wordless Wednesday - Twirlin'

Photoshoot

We had a photoshoot a couple of weekends ago. We had decided not to have professional pictures done, but then I saw some awesome pictures on a friend's blog...and since we'd had pictures done of K when she was a newborn we changed our minds and decided to go for it.

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My friend's brother, TJ, is a photographer and has a studio set up not too far away from here. He is going to school and not doing too much photographing right now, but he agreed to do a photoshoot for us.

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He is AMAZING! Seriously. I cannot say enough good stuff about him. Besides his obvious talent, he had great...I want to say bedside manner, but that's probably not right. Haha. He was totally relaxed and let us go at our own pace: changing clothes, nursing the baby, and anything else we needed to do. K was very uncooperative, and yet he managed to get a ton of adorable pictures of her! It was great. I was going to put up a link to his website but that kind of kills the anonymity I've been going for on this blog. If you'd like the link or any more info just let me know. I'll put it up on Facebook.

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Okay, well I'll stop talking now and get to the good stuff. :)

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Look at these sweet little feet. I love baby feet.

She looks so serious in this one, but I love how it captures her face.

Grabbing Daddy's finger. :)

Smiling up at Mommy.

More of the serious face. She is very intent when she looks at things. You can just see her trying to figure it all out.

Our two dimple-girls. :)

I think this is my favorite picture of K. I love it.

Although this one is pretty darn cute too. He really captures her joy and her zest for life. She doesn't do anything half-heartedly. Every thing, every emotion, is full out 100% all the time.

Hard to believe she didn't want to take pictures isn't it! I have no idea how he got so many cute shots!

I love this one.

And I love this one too, even though K is making a funny face. It's just so much like her that it makes me laugh. :)

Daddy giving kisses. :)

Me trying to get a smile out of her.

And a family shot.

These are just a some of the wonderful pictures he did for us. I did just realize there are a few more of K that I want to put up. I'll have to save that for another day though. So if you want some awesome family pictures, just let me know and I'll get you TJ's info. We highly recommend him!

Growin' Fast

I can't believe how fast S is growing! She has already changed so much. She is really starting to gain a lot of head and body control. She holds her head up for long stretches during tummy time, and she is already standing up on our laps when we hold her (for ten seconds or so). Here is a quick video of her. I could sit and stare at her sweet little face all day. I have to force myself to get up and do stuff. It goes by so quickly; I don't want to miss anything! :)

"Ithe cweam"

I wanted to get a video of K saying ice cream b/c I love the way she says it. She says it quickly in this first one but I had to post it b/c of the look on her face...you'll see what I mean. :)

Here she says it a couple of times. I love the way she pronounces things. I have a list of her pronunciations at different ages, but I like to get videos too so I can watch her try to wrap her little mouth around those words. :)

Wordless Wednesday

Cousins

We had a great time at the farm this weekend celebrating T's birthday and meeting our newest nephew. He is SO adorable! And so little! S is exactly three weeks older and also three pounds heavier! He was only 6lbs. 14 oz. when he was born and she was 8lbs. 3 oz. so she had a head start. Grandpa got out his grain scale and we weighed the babies. S is already 10 and 1/2 pounds! She's a growing girl! I have always wanted to weigh, nurse, and then weigh again to see how much milk a baby is actually getting. I was able to do it twice and both times she gained 4 oz. after eating. Very interesting!

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Well, without further ado here are the two newest members of the family!

W is already trying to get away...those girls and their cooties! :) Check out all that blonde hair! I have never seen a newborn with such long hair before...they actually had to cut it away from his ears for him to get the hearing screening done at the hospital! He's already looking like a snowboarder!

It was so fun to have all the cousins together! (K had to have a baby to hold too:)

The oldest and youngest girl cousins.

E was so sweet with the babies! I didn't really expect a (nearly) four year old boy to be interested in babies, but he thought they were pretty cool. He wanted to hold W and then he came up to me and said, "Can I hold the girl baby now?" :)

Grandma and Grandpa had a fun surprise for the kids...they turned one of the closets into a set of bunkbeds! What a fun idea! The kids absolutely loved it and it's perfect b/c we are starting to outgrow the five bedroom house! So now when we are all over S and E get to sleep in these fun beds and when we aren't Grandma can just close the doors and they are out of the way!

I think the kids played in there more than they did with all of Grandma's fun toys!

Grandma made us all a delicious birthday dinner. T requested Hawaiian lentils. I had never had lentils before. They were...interesting. Kind of like beans but they look almost like peas split in half. Grandma also made sweet and sour chicken...yum! And T asked for an apple crisp instead of a cake. It was delicious! K helped him blow out the candles and open his presents. :)

The other day Babies R Us had their jammies on sale so we got matching ones for our girls. We thought our sleepover at Grandma's was the perfect time to put them on.

I wanted to grab an informal pictures of all of us before we dispersed. I thought we would all fit on the stairs nicely, but it was a tight fit! It's really fun, though, that we are getting so big that it's hard to find room to take a group picture! With the two new babies we now number 13!

Thanks for a fun weekend everybody!