April 2013

Hannah is learning to recognize more and more words.  I think she knows at least 10 now.  And she loves finding them in books, or signs, or really anywhere.  One day she was looking at a book that she has memorized and kept pointing to words and telling me what they were.  She is putting her knowledge of beginning letter sounds to work.  I predict she will be reading "for real" soon.

Abigail is still trying to keep up with big sister.  She follows her everywhere.  She wanted to name her Easter bunny the same name as Hannah's (we convinced her otherwise) and wanted the same color toe nail polish.  Thankfully most of the time it doesn't bother Hannah.  She's a great big sister.

Even more beautiful weather this month, so we're still enjoying time outside.  Grammy has even taken her camera out the last few weeks.  Check out the cuteness!





 






We didn't do the whole Easter basket thing, but the girls each got a stuffed rabbit from G-Pa.  We colored Easter eggs with Grammy, and she got them matching dresses.  Our church had many places around the building set up to take photographs Easter morning.  We took full advantage of an opportunity to get a family photo.  =-)

March 2014

Hannah was looking at a book the other day and pointed to the word "the" and told me what it was.  She must have figured it out by herself, because I didn't teach her.  She is having so much fun finding "the" in all her books.  She hasn't yet made the connection between letter sounds and reading yet.  But she can spell phonetically like a queen.  Abigail loves letters too.  She is constantly learning new ones on her own, as well as the few I've taught her.  I thinks she knows half upper case letters now.

We've been the enjoying the few days of spring weather.  It gets so hot here in the summer we take full advantage of actual spring temperatures.  We have gone to school playgrounds and several new parks.  There are tons of parks in Plano, so we just looked at the map and picked some that weren't more than a 10 minute drive.  Hannah loves to climb (thankfully not at home on the furniture) and has enjoyed various ladders and rock walls.  Abigail has discovered the slide.  She can't climb ladders yet, but goes up the stairs and runs to the slide.  She is very brave and will do them all, even the really tall ones.  She is so tiny though that if it's a tall slide she flies down.  Someone has to stand at the bottom to stop her or she will fly off and land on the ground. We've enjoyed watching both girls become more confident and independent in their play.

We made yet another trip to the Dallas Zoo.  I think that makes 4 for the year and we decided to renew our membership for next year as well.  This time my sister got to join us since it was her last day of Spring Break.  It was chilly in the morning so there were very few people.  We got to spend lots of time looking at the giraffes and elephants up close without feeling like we needed to give someone else a turn.  Due to the cool weather the zoo moved their animal encounters indoors.  We were the only ones at the African penguin demonstration.  We learned lots of information and even got the touch the penguin.  It was really cool and we were all surprised how soft it was.

 

Febraury 2014

My mom fell and broke her sacrum at the end of January.  Her camera has come out a few times, but she can't sit to edit photos.  So you are stuck with mostly my camera.  =)  She had a few good days last week and got a few photos done. 

Hannah absolutely LOVES to make crafts and I do too.  It was my favorite part of teaching school, though we rarely found time for it due to academic requirements.  Anyway, I began searching for easy Valentine card ideas in January.  We had so much fun making cards for family and a few friends.  I did most of the work on the outside of the cards, but Hannah helped decide who each one should be for.  Then she got to write her name and put stickers inside each card.  I even cut out a heart and let Abigail put stickers on it for her friend from church.  They are 6 weeks apart and almost always in the same room

To continue the Valentine's fun, the girls helped make chocolate chip cookies for Daddy and colored him a picture.  They decorated heart cookies (from a kit) at Grammy's house too.  I've seen several photos and blogs of mom's that make super creative lunches for their kids everyday.  I have no time for that, but we did have some fun on Valentines.  The girls had heart shaped sandwiches for lunch and we made heart pizza for dinner.

After all the cold weather this winter, we enjoyed a whole week of beautiful weather.  We took full advantage and took several walks, played in the backyard, did bubbles, and went to several parks.  Our neighborhood has a park about a block away.  Plano has so many good parks that we sometimes jump in the car and drive to someplace new.  This park is only about a 5 minute drive.

Love the cute little plaid skirts.  And wonders never cease...the girls actually both smiled and looked at the camera at the same time.  =)