Wow, its been a long time!

I last posted on this blog more then two and a half years ago and so much has changed! That sweet innocent four year old pictured above is now an active and an amazing 8 year old, at least she will be tomorrow.  She is the sweetest and smartest kid I know and I love how she is always thinking, and trying to know more.

It has been a tough few years in our house emotionally, financially, and physically. With the infiltration of social media outlets in our life it has been easier to share using other outlets like facebook or instagram. The immediate feedback felt good too. It was nice to know people were reading and cared about the mundane aspects of our life.

So I am setting a goal! For the next year I will take pictures of my family daily. I will photography the good the bad and the wonderful! I will also post here weekly! I will do this not to share with others but to memorialize our daily happenings and how important living in the moment is!

Beth

She's a writer!

My little girl who wouldn't write anything without complaining in September; just sat down and wrote a paragraph for her homework tonight, so proud of her!

Tonights HW was to draw a picture of your ideal school and describe it. Instead of just drawing a picture my wonderful darling little girl wrote an entire paragraph describing her ideal school.

Beth

She lost a tooth!!

Wow It has been a long time since I have posted here. Life has been busy since William has arrived and it is just so much easier to post on facebook. But today was a momentous day. Abigail lost her first tooth!! She was so excited. It has been loose for at least two months but tonight she touched it with her tongue and it fell out.

Happy 5th Birthday Baby Girl

5 years ago today was the most frightening scary and wonderful day. In the end, you entered this world and I could never be more blessed. I am so proud of you and all that you have become! I cannot imagine my life without you, I love you every day.

You are an amazing child. Today I met with your teacher for your first ever parent teacher conference. I know you are brilliant and I was not worried about your academic skills. However I was worried about how you were doing socially. Of course I should not have doubted you. You are amazing, a leader in the classroom, enthusiastic, loving and talented. You are wonderful. I am so proud of you!

Here are some pictures of your past birthdays!

Sadly, you woke up sick this morning. So you did not get to go to school, or have cupcakes with your kindergarten class. Instead we watched cartoons all day, then went to McDonalds for lunch and came home to make a birthday cake. It was a fun day and I secretly enjoyed you being out of school sick. We do not get to spend time together like this very often!

Here is a picture of you today! Happy 5th Birthday baby girl!

Surviving the Hurricane

Hurricane Irene hit Southeastern North Carolina Friday into Saturday. Despite all the uproar the storm was very kind to us. We had no damage to the house, minimal vegetation down and never even lost our DirecTV or internet Connection. However after 24 hours of being confined to the house Abigail and I needed to get out.

Here are some pictures from our Walk through Hurricane Irene!

First Day of Kindergarten!!

Last Tuesday was the BIG DAY!! Abigail started kindergarten at Cape Fear Center for Inquiry. It was an exciting day for all of us. Despite the months and months of crying that she did not want to go to Kindergarten she did wonderful. While other kids that sat there and cried Abigail found her name, sat down and began drawing. She quickly told me that I could go.

Here are some pictures from this morning.

Some afternoon art

Abby spent yesterday afternoon drawing in her journal. She only worked for abotu 15 minutes but made the most of her time.

Here are some of my favorites.

Some more stories

Here are three stories Abby wrote tonight.

The Sea Turtle in the world.

Once upon a time there was a turtle. The turtle wanted to go all around the world. Then the rainbow went across the world . Then the flower grew around the world. The turtle saw footprints. The footprints belonged to another turtle. He saw the footprints and said “OH that’s really big”. Then the turtle found a house. The moon came up. He went into the house. He saw a fountain. He grew older and older and older and he got a cane because he was old. 

The little Child

Once upon a time there was a child. She was a girl.  The child was playing a game of dice. Then when he was playing the game of dice, he fell asleep. He dreamed that he was going to be a bad guy and shoot arrows everywhere.  There was a little sheep that he was shooting arrows at. It was in  a fence.  It had one tree. Lightening was there.  Time was up, he fell off his bed.

The end

 

The Beetle of Doom

Once upon a time there was a beetle who had a mask on.  It was a face mask. There was fire on the mask.  He took the mask off. He saw one little egg on the mask and took it off.  But the beetle was really magical.  He could fly! He could even wear off the fire on his mask.  The fire was as light as a flashlight. He had one question, the question was if he could get out of here. He saw an arrow pointing down, and thought maybe that was the way to get out of there.

Repunzal Rewritten- A story by Abigail

This is the first story Abigail has written. While in DC I bought her a doodle book, "The pocket doodle book for girls" and the writing prompt was "Rewrite a fairy tail with you as the main character, what would you have done different"

Once upon a time there was a little princess named Abby -Rapunzel. One day a prince came and visited me, Then I was surprised but he was already married. Then another prince came. He was already married too. And another prince came. But he was already married too. Then Abby-REpunzal wanted to find a prince that was not married. She gone to the forest and found one. She married him and they lived happily ever after. The End

By Abigail
6/19/2011

Last Tball Game

Just a quick video from Abby's last game. It was 98 degrees today but she played her little heart out.

Trophy day is next Monday.

She can see :)

Abby got her first pair of reading glasses this week. She has needed thme for about 2 months, but I have been avoiding them, and the arguments that might come. Boy was I wrong! (Aren't I usually) She has loved weaering them and now wears them when reading, writing, on the computer and playing tball.

ANd to prove that she is still just as cute check out these pictures!

Abby's new Room

Abigail and I are switching rooms soon. There is no way I can fit two kids in her room, so she will be moving into the master bathroom and I will be taking her room. In order to bribe her into the switch- have I mentioned that my daughter does NOT like change :) I told her that she can pick out the paint color. Today we took our first trip to Lowes to pick out the color. The only color I ruled out was Pink. I just cannot do that to the lil guy, especially since he will be living in a house full of estrogen.

Now you must know my daughter. She is the GIRLIEST girl I have ever met. She loves makeup and dresses and playing make over. At 18 months old she said her favorite color was pink, it has not changed in the past 3 years. Boy was I surprised when Abby picked out the color she did:

Now she has requested that we paint a purple and yellow poka dot dinosaur on the wall as well but we are definitely showing growth!

Dance Recital 2011

Yesterday was Abigail's Dance recital. She loves her creative movement class and it is one of the main highlights of her week.

Here is the video from her recital.



Hope you get as many laughs as we did!

Azaleas

Wilmington, NC is known for their Azaleas. These flowers are so important they get their own festival. Magically, these plants bloom the week before the festival so every yard I go past is filled with VIBRANT Pink and white azalea flowers.

Here are some pictures that I took today.

So it's been a while

But it has been a LONG COLD WINTER, lots of exciting changes going on and I promise I will back post, and update more later.

But tonight I want to right about poetry. Last week I got Abigail the book Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein. This anthology has been a HUGE hit! She loves all the poems and picking them out for me to read. It is great! I honestly am not sure she read any of them, but thats okay, because we are having so much fun listening to them. It is fun to watch her get them. So far her favorites have been Invitation and Hector Collector. Both poems she is able to reflect aspects of herself in. Again, so much fun!

A retrospective on reading

Every New Years Eve I look back at how our life has changed over the last 12 months. As Abigail ages it is less about the physical and obvious changes and more about her sophistication as she has changed from a infant to a toddler to a preschooler. In the next 12 months she will change into a school aged child as she gets ready to enter kindergarten. As I have been sitting here looking back at old videos I realized I have a lot of Abigail's journey in learning the basics of reading on video and so I decided to create a retrospective and here it is.

27 months old: Her first time reading


33 Months: first trying out phonics


37 Months First "real" book Dick and Jane


45 Months Reading "Beth Learns to Write" out of 2nd grade textbook


50 Months: Reading Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Stinky Bus

First Violin Concert

Abigail had her first violin concert last weekend. I want to preface this video by saying three things 1) SHE IS LUCKY SHE IS 4 and CUTE!! and 2) She was scared out of her mind and 3) It was the BEST audience ever. She knew this song backwards and forward but 25 minutes before we were about to leave for the concert Abigail said "I don't want to do the concert". But I made her do it anyway.

Before she starts playing the audience will laugh, the conversation did not get picked up by the camera but it went like this:

Abigail: I hurt my knee
Nicole: Do you want to sit?
Abigail: Yes please
Nicole(to audience): We have a sore knee so we are going to sit
Abigail: Does your knee hurt too?

So without further ado "Jingle Bells"

A white (almost) Christmas

Merry CHristmas to all!!

We had our own little white day-after-Christmas down at the beach this year. It was nice to wake up the day after Christmas to a little white stuff.

Christmas day was very nice and peaceful. We were the only ones in town so did not rush to get anywhere. Although we missed family, it was nice to just relax and enjoy our new toys.

So far the biggest hits of the Christmas Season have been the new scooter and the DSi. She also loves her littlest pet shops.

No plans for the rest of the week except to relax, watch new movies and enjoy the peace and quiet of vacation. Here are some more pictures of our snow.

December Videos

Here are a few videos I have taken of Abigail this week. She had her dance recital on Tuesday. Then this upcoming Sunday she has her first ever violin concert.

Here is a video from her dance recital.

and here is one from Violin practice tonight.


Lastly, this is a video I took last night of her reading. It amazing how much her fluency has improved in the last month. Abby does not know it but tomorrow I meet with the Director or CFCI, a local charter school, to discuss early entry.  This is an excellent charter school, and we are trying to get in on early entry (she misses the deadline by 6 weeks) so we need to prove her worthiness. I have the testing, the work, now it comes down to the director agreeing that she is a good canidate.

Reading

Here is the latest video of Abigail reading. It is the first time she has seen this story so lots of new words...not always the easiest at 7pm, but she still did great!