She Reads!

Chloe LOVES school! She evens likes doing the work we do together at home. Each week there are certain letters the kids are working on in the classroom. Last week they focused on words starting with the letters A and B. This week they are looking for words that start with C, D and E. One or two times a week we are supposed to sit down together and find some of those words in a dictionary.

Chloe has been very enthused about finding words in all of her books and coming up with some on her own. I almost feel like I'm in a movie scene. Think of the movie Forrest Gump. Remember when Bubba goes on and on listing all the ways to serve shrimp? That's us right now. She follows me around the house constantly saying "Mommy, ______ starts with C." Yesterday I got Chloe up from her nap and decided I needed to make a pit stop in the bathroom afterwards. Chloe stood outside the bathroom door telling me "Curtain starts with C, door starts with D, ear starts with E......" And so our day goes all day long. I'm glad she's excited, but there are times it gets a bit old. I just try to remind myself to enjoy her enthusiasm and laugh at the situation.

Today we sat down and looked in the dictionary for the first time. We talked about how the words are grouped, and she helped me find the C words and so on. After that I looked for words that she might be able to sound out. I don't know what Chloe's teacher has done in four days of school, but I am convinced she has magical powers. Chloe has known for quite some time now what sounds all of the letters make, but she hasn't been able to put those sounds together to make words often yet. Today Chloe read: cup, car, cold, cat, can, daddy, door, duck, dot, dish, egg, Exodus (she put this word on the list yesterday, but she read it to me today!), elbow, and end. She's a reading fanatic now! She saw the words SNACK and APPLES in the kitchen and read them to me without any prompting or help.

Exciting reading times! I love it! Hurray for school!!!

Third Trimester

Tomorrow will be the first day of my third trimester of this pregnancy. The aches and pains supposedly start during this time, but my body seems a bit confused. My back and legs have been giving me problems for quite some time now. Sometimes the tiniest movement can send shooting pain through my back and almost bring me to tears. In some ways November can't come soon enough! Here are some more things I'm experiencing right now:

• Heartburn has hit hard. I've been trying to eat 5-6 small meals throughout the day instead of 3 big meals, but that's not always easy to do.
• I'm noticing bigger movements from the baby. It cracks me up when I feel him hitting and kicking simultaneously, making opposite sides of my stomach move at the same time.
• When the baby moves, I'm noticing specific body parts. I can't tell if it's a hand or a foot, but it's often easy to find little body parts.
• Sleep is becoming more elusive. Because my back is causing me such problems, I can't find a comfortable sleeping position. I wish we had a bigger room so there was room for a big body pillow. I don't suppose it's very nice to kick my husband out of bed so I have room for the pillow?
• The girls are getting very excited. Last night they felt the baby kicking for the first time. Yesterday Chloe announced that we need to get toys for her baby brother. And they are still working on names for little brother. Julia's current choice is Kyle. Chloe has come up with the name Kin Bin. I have to admit, it has an interesting ring to it. Still not leaving the official name to them though.

I am getting pretty excited myself. There are so many things I want to get done before the baby comes though. I'm currently working on making all kinds of activities for the girls. About a month from now I'll start cooking up meals to put in the freezer. But my biggest goal is to get the majority of Christmas shopping done before this baby is born. Shopping for Christmas presents is not something I want to do with a brand new baby or while I'm sleep-deprived. Wish me luck!

I realized we had our second ultrasound at the beginning of July, but I haven't shared the pictures with many people. Here's a profile picture of our sweet baby boy. If you need help deciphering the picture -- the bright colored big circle in the middle is the outline of the head. The facial features are in the 10:00 position. Look closely and you'll see a little nose at the top, two lips, and a chin.

All Grown Up

sigh...

It seems like only yesterday that she was my little cuddly girl, still wearing diapers, still taking naps in the afternoon, and still riding in a carseat. Now she's all grown up and ready for her first professional job. Wait... she's not? Sure had me fooled.

We made another stride towards being a big girl today. This morning when I got the girls up at 6:45 (ugh!), Julia still had a completely dry diaper. Now, we've tried working on potty training off and on a bit this summer, but it's never been a great time to work on it really hard because this summer has been so crazy. So I wasn't really expecting anything when I decided to have her sit on the potty this morning. She surprised me by using it without any problems! Hurray for a step towards successful toilet training!

First Day of School

Chloe was all ready for school. She had got her new haircut on Saturday:

She had her new backpack filled with school supplies and decorated by me (with input from her):

Sunday we had a "Going to School" party. She helped me bake a cake, we all watched a movie in the afternoon, ate a very yummy supper with a decorated school cake for dessert, packed up all the school supplies, laid out clothes for the morning, played a short game of dominoes, and read "The Kissing Hand" before going to bed.

This morning we got up super early because Chloe isn't much of a morning person and doesn't move very fast. I had made pancakes the day before. So we were able to enjoy a big, special breakfast of pancakes (cut into fun shapes of course), bacon, and canteloupe. The ILS are the initials for her school.

Here's where we got a bit skimpy on pictures because we were starting to run a little late. All dressed and ready:

Here's our very poor "in front of school" picture. The sun was so bright I couldn't see anything on the camera. That left me guessing and hoping I had Chloe in the picture.

It was right about this time I finally started crying. I had been doing so well up until this point. I had been excited for Chloe all morning. But very shortly after this picture was taken, a mom came out of the school crying. That got me going right away. Nobody should ever be pregnant when their child is starting school for the first time. I wasn't able to take in much more of the morning because I was too busy fighting back tears.

Luckily Chloe didn't seem to give it much thought. She took everything in stride. The girls sitting at the neighboring desks arrived about the same time Chloe did. I have to wonder if the girls ever said anything to each other because they both seemed just as shy as Chloe. Here is our final picture, Chloe sitting proudly at her desk:

Then we gave hugs and hightailed it out of there before I emptied an entire box of Kleenex that we had just brought to school for the kids. Julia was a little more upset at this point than I was though. She wanted to stay. She just couldn't understand that Chloe gets to stay at school, but she didn't. Poor girl. On the way back to the van I kept hearing "I just want to stay at school for awhile." Yeah, you and me both.

The morning went relatively quickly for me. I cleaned a good part of the house and did some laundry to stay busy. I was constantly thinking I wonder what they're doing now. Julia started out playing independently. I had bought her a new magnetic book about colors. She was having fun putting all the magnetic pieces on the book pages. Then I started hearing those words I knew were coming "I want to play a game". Over and over. Game after game. I need to come up with some good activities for her to do while Chloe is at school.

Kevin, Julia, and I all went to school to pick up Chloe at 11:30 (just as we all dropped her off). We had explained to Julia that she had to be 4 before she could go to school and stay at school. When I told Julia it was time to go to school and get Chloe, she looked at me excitedly and asked "I'm 4 now?!"

Chloe was all smiles when she came out of the classroom, but is still a bit reluctant to tell us much about her day. When I asked her if she had fun, she told me she had fun at the playground. A little later she told me quite excitedly about how the teacher let them drink out of the water fountain. I guess a playground and a water fountain are all it takes to make my daughter happy. Those were the other things she could tell us unprompted. Even prompting her with questions, we're not getting much right now. Maybe after she's gone to school a few more days she'll want to tell us all about it.

Thus begins our new adventure of school. It wasn't bad, all things considered. The morning felt plenty rushed even though I had everything laid out and ready the night before. Hopefully we can all move a little faster with practice. Julia needs exciting activities to keep her occupied during the mornings. Otherwise I think we can handle this okay.

Catching Up Again!

Where does time go? How can some days simply drag and yet the entire summer is gone in a flash? It has been one crazy summer! It has been the summer of...

• another exciting pregnancy
• a surprise getaway weekend for our anniversary
• a weekend long family reunion hosted at our house
• the girls' first long vacation without Mommy and Daddy
• canning, canning, and more canning
• our first year of school supply shopping

... and almost all of this without a working camera for documentation!

Looking back over our calendar, we've had a lot of company and we've gone lots of places. There's no way to recount everything that was done. Kevin surprised me for our anniversary. We dropped the kids off at my parents' house on a Friday evening and escaped to a bed and breakfast for the weekend. We enjoyed many activities that Kevin had planned until Sunday afternoon when we were reunited with the girls.

The end of July brought lots and lots of family to our house. Everybody arrived sometime on a Friday and most left Sunday afternoon or Monday moring. 31 of us enjoyed visiting, playing games, sharing devotions, singing as a choir at the churches, and eating lots and lots of good food. What a fun time!

After the reunion, Kevin's parents and one brother stayed for several days. Chloe and Julia took a vacation back to Michigan with them when they left, leaving Kevin and me at home. I cried when it was time for them to leave (okay, okay, I cried off and on much of that day). Kevin and I left for Michigan 5 days later. It was nice to have a break, but we didn't really take good advantage of being kid-free. Most of the time was spent cleaning the house and preparing to leave for our vacation. The girls had a great time without us though!

I've done more canning this year. Two years ago was my first time with it, and I'm starting to become a little more comfortable with the process. This year we have 8 pints of salsa, 8 pints of relish, 4 1/2 quarts of spaghetti sauce, 8 pints of tomato juice, 6 pints and 4 quarts of bread and butter pickles, 7 pints and 2 quarts of dill pickles, 13 half-pints and 3 pints of pear-pineapple jam, 2 1/2 quarts of pears, and 3 pints and 2 1/2 quarts of pear sauce. All produce was given to us... can't complain about that!

Needless to say, we've been staying busy. I hope to start writing more regularly again now that things have settled down. More to come on the topics of school and this pregnancy.