Wordless Wednesday

Parts and Pieces

I just found these pictures the other day when I was making my "highlights" post. They are back from May. I used to be met with this type of sight on a daily basis.

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For some reason Bug has always had a thing for pieces. Doesn't matter what, she just likes to play with pieces of this and that. And she likes to move them around. She calls it "organizing" but to me it seems anything but. She loves to transfer things from their original location to a new one. She does this by using whatever kind of container she can find.

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You can see her various containers here: an empty wipes box, a decorative tin, a little purse...

...and a big purse for the "final cut".

(Those are popsicle sticks in there, literally hundreds of them)

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Thankfully, since Boo started crawling, Bug never leaves pieces anywhere any more. She is really good about making sure there is nothing "choke-able" on the floor which is SO nice since Boo is such a little finder. Boo searches things out to put into her mouth. Bug is constantly finding some little piece of fuzz, string, etc. She picks it up and yells, "Mommy! I picked this up so she don't choke it!" or she'll come to me, very serious, and hand me something small, "Boo might choke this."

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Bug still loves to transfer things from container to bag (and back) over and over again. She does it all the time. We are working on leaving things where she finds them. I will put something somewhere and she will come along and take it somewhere else. "I'm helping you Mommy!" she always says. And I always say, "Thank you, but I had that there because I wanted it there. Now let's put it back."

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She is such a funny little helper. Sometimes it drives me crazy, but most of the time I remember to just smile and laugh. She definitely makes life more interesting. :)

Sight Words

I bought Bug some sight word flash cards the other day. She has five or six down as true sight words (ones she looks at and knows automatically). The other ones she is pretty good about sounding out, but some of them are hard to sound out and even harder to explain. The worst we've come across so far is why "one" and "won" sound the same. The rules of English seem really complicated when trying to learn to read. It seems like every other word I'm saying, "Well most of the time it is ____ but in this case it's _____." Oh well, I guess we all eventually figure it out no matter how strange it may be. :)

(Sorry the second video is so shaky. Boo was trying to jerk the camera out of my hand with the string).

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Our Pastor's wife recently started a preschool in her home so we've decided to send Bug next fall. She is an amazing woman who K already loves and it's only three mornings a week so we think she'll do fine. Now I have a lot more motivation to work with her on her reading...I just have to remind myself that she is still only three and not to push her too much. She's a firstborn all the way and she definitely doesn't need any help from me and my own Type A personality. :)

2nd Christmas

Okay I am finally getting around to posting our New Year's pictures! That's when we celebrated Christmas with my parents this year. We had a very crazy 11 days over Christmas break. The Wednesday before Christmas we:

headed out to the farm,

stayed out there until Monday morning,

went to a birthday party,

got home,

the girls took naps,

went to some friend's the rest of the day/night,

stayed home Tuesday to unpack and do laundry,

went to my parents on Wednesday (in a snowstorm),

stayed there until Saturday night

and then came home so we could sleep in our beds before church the next morning.

Quite a busy schedule but we love spending time with our families!

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We were happy that we got to spend a little more time with Auntie Nina before she left.

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She and Bug made Play Doh birthday cakes. :)

On Saturday morning we got up to open presents. This picture is a little blurry but I thought it was sweet.

Stockings!

Boo really got into the opening this time around. I think she opened every present in her stocking almost entirely by herself.

And of course she had to find various perches throught the morning. :)

Bug's present from Noni and Papa! She had no idea what it was but I was excited! :) This is going to be a "car only" toy and we are looking forward to cutting down on the question per mile ratio. It should diminish considerably. :)

The girls got beautiful "fur" coats from Auntie Wendy's zoo! They are SOO soft! Bug loves hers and has been wearing it around the house almost constantly since she opened it.

Boo's is zebra, and just as fluffy and soft. Thanks Auntie Wendy!

Cowboy boots! Straight from Auntie Karen in the Lone Star State!

T's new sign. This came from my family's original homestead! My Aunt found this broken board buried in the dirt in (or near?) the barn. T thinks it probably came off of one of the old wooden combines or some other type of equipment. What a wonderful piece of family history! We can display it and tell the girls all about my grandpa's ranch in Texas. If I have my facts right my Pawpaw (the girls' great grandpa) was actually born on the ranch!

A beautiful picture that my grandma painted for us. Thanks Mama!

I should have gotten some pictures of the other gifts like the adorable "Wocket" that goes with the Wocket in my Pocket book from Uncle Jason and Aunt Hearther, and the beautiful crocheted hats that Auntie Nina made for the girls! Bug also got the game Uno Moo. It is really cute and she loves it! We all got so many great presents. Thank you everyone!

And Happy (belated) New Years!

Wordless Wednesday

Warning: Disturbing Images are herein portrayed.

Hip Hop

I am so excited! Our small town just started offering dance classes! I have been wanting to put Bug in a class for a while now and I almost had her signed up last fall but at the last minute I just decided I couldn't do it. To drive an hour (each way) for a half an hour class seemed a little ridiculous. So I was thrilled to hear that someone decided to offer classes here. I would definitely prefer a ballet class, but since all they are offereing is hip hop we decided to go for it. The flyer said ages 4 and up, but they were really nice about letting her in. I signed her up right away and last night was her first class.

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The teacher had car problems and ended up being late which necessitated the combination of the two youngest classes. It was pretty crazy with about 30 little kids all over the place. They mainly just did some warm up type stuff. Hopefully next week it will be a little more settled with only smaller kids in her class. Her teacher is also a man which she wasn't too thrilled about at first. I said, "Oh look! Your teacher is here!"

K - "Where Mommy?"

Me: "Right there" (pointing)

K - "He's a BOY?"

Me: "Yeah, he looks nice."

K - "Noooo!"

Haha, I managed to get her out there though. It helped that lots of her friends were there. A couple other little girls wouldn't go at all. I think she enjoyed it once they got going.

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We took these videos this weekend trying to get her ready for the class.

As you can see she will definitely benefit from some formal instruction. Haha :)

She has the hop, now hopefully they can give her some "hip". :)

Happy New Year!