Went to see G

My Grandmother (Mother’s Mother) has 9 Great-Grandchildren. Ryan, Lydia and Emily are numbers 6, 7 and 8. She lives in an assisted living facility in Lynchburg. We had not seen her since Christmas and thought we would take a trip down and visit today. In contrast to the 20 degree days we have been having, a thermometer in Lynchburg said 66 degrees today. It was so nice!! We took the kids outside and let them play and throw the ball. Grandma’s neighbor, Myrtle visited with us as well.



The movie at the bottom was taken of Lydia and Emily riding around on my Grandma's walker. Just before I started filming, Lydia said "Look Mommy, I am G!" I tried to get her to say it again, but she never did:(.

Mr. Sketch

Ryan’s Kindergarten class continues to amaze me with their vast intelligence. Again, I work with two year olds all day and so a class of Kindergarteners is just years ahead of a class of two year olds to me. Yesterday was a volunteer parent day for me in Ryan’s class. They are getting ready to hit their 100th day of school on Tuesday, where they are going to do several things in 100’s. They are going to eat 100 things and have an art project that has something to do with 100 things. Last week was the end of the first semester for the Kindergarten classes. They have 4, 9 week sessions instead of 6, 6 week sessions. Report cards were sent home with a Parent/Teacher conference day shortly thereafter. Ryan brought home a really great report card and when I went to the conference, his teacher showed me some of his writing samples and journal entries. He is doing such a wonderful job sounding out words and learning how to read and spell. We are so proud! Yesterday, during my volunteering, the kids worked on comparing the L and M sounds. In addition Ms. Clark talked to them about how they have done so well learing how to spell their first name and now they are going to begin learning how to spell their last names. The kids all know how to recognize their last name, but not all of them know how to spell it. Ms. Clark had written their last name in big outlined letters for the kids to design and color. She asked me to go get the box of markers on the cabinet in the back of the room while she continued to talk to the children. Mr. Sketch Markers! Man, the kids are going to love these I thought. The first group of kids that came to the table to design their last name cards immediately took the tops off of their markers and began smelling them. It was so funny! I remember doing that myself! I don’t actually remember Mr. Sketch markers in my classrooms, but my mom had some in her classroom. She had them in these little Styrofoam holders that went into a little sleeve that kept them from falling out. They always smelled so good! As I helped Ms. Clark by removing some things off of the walls and cleaning up the paint center, I watched the kids smelling their markers. Good thing these markers are not harmful . . . the large amounts of inhaling that was going on . . . their designs were not getting done since they were all smelling so much.:) Ryan in particular-Washington was the second to the longest last name in the class. I had to remind him a couple of times to stop smelling and do his project:). As the children finished up and showed me their beautiful masterpieces, they smiled at me with their bright shiny teeth and their colorful noses:). It was too funny!

Green Eggs and Ham

Lydia and Emily laugh hysterically when you read “I do not like Green Eggs and Ham.” My co-worker and Lydia and Emily’s preschool teacher, Treasa and I decided to do a unit on the Dr. Seuss classic Green Eggs and Ham. We brought in eggs, green food coloring, and got some sliced ham from the lunch stash at school. The kids had so much fun eating GREEN EGGS!!! With the cold weather, it has been a little difficult to take the kids outside. We had traded places with the four year old classroom and stayed down there until lunch time. The kids had such a great time!

Princess Time!!

Lydia and Emily LOVE to dress in their princess clothes! They received princess dresses for their birthday and some for Christmas. In addition, a friend of mine gave me some that her girls had outgrown. We have quite a wardrobe full. They love putting on these dresses and showing us what beautiful princesses they are. Lydia has become obsessed with calling herself Princess Fiona. For those of you that have never seen Shrek, Princess Fiona is a character in the Shrek movie. A couple of weeks ago Adella came to visit. The girls got Adella on board with the princess dresses and she decided she wanted to join in the fun and dress up too. I did not have my camera downstairs, but my sister-in-law did and she sent me these pictures. All three of them were so funny, jumping around and dancing. Adella’s dress was a little big for her, but she did not seem to mind. Too funny!!

Olivia Turns1

Olivia is Lynnea’s little sister. Lynnea is in Ryan’s kindergarten class. Olivia goes to the center where I teach. Olivia’s half brother, Cass, went there as well. Kara is Lynnea and Olivia’s mom. Kara is the step-daughter of Sarah, a lady I used to deal with regularly when I worked in Property Management. Crazy—we have quite a few connections. As a result, Kara and I have become good friends. Olivia tuned one the other day and Ryan, Lydia, Emily and I were invited to the birthday party. While there, the kids broke out Lynnea’s collection of princess clothes. It really has become an epidemic with Lydia and Emily. Once they started sporting sunglasses (Emily could not figure out how to keep her sunglasses on with her eyeglasses) we felt a picture needed to be taken. I just thought they were too cute not to blog about.

Snow Day

Unfortunately I have to use the term Snow Day loosely. It is more like a snow/sleet day. Not nearly as fun! The kids were so excited when they woke up and saw snow outside! The kids had their day planned of making snow angels and having a snowball fight. At their wake up time of 7:30am they did not understand why we could not run outside immediately and play. After making them wait until 10:00, and looking for the sixth boot that it took me forever to find--under the bed--, they headed outside.

There was barely enough snow to muster a snowball, but they did manage to make some snow angels and pelt snowballs at their mother. I only agreed to it if I was behind the door. They still really enjoyed it. They played and played for about 45 minutes to an hour and were then very cold and ready to come inside. I hope they get to partake in snow play again before the winter is out!

Emily's glasses

Since Emily was about 10 months old, we have noticed her left eye will cross from time to time. We brought this to the attention of our pediatrician and he said that it is something she may outgrow and not to worry about it until she turns 3. When she turned 2 we really stopped noticing it. Not sure if we were not as observant or if we were just not seeing things or what, but then when she turned 3 we started noticing it again. In bringing it to the attention of our pediatrician again, he referred us to a pediatric eye doctor in Charlottesville. Our appointment was yesterday. Dr. Carter was really great with her! Though I have been fortunate enough to never have visited an eye doctor he really seemed like he did a lot of different things since she is a small child. He showed her pictures, lights, animals . . . had her look though the eye machine, but while holding the "handle bars" of the "bike." She would not actually talk to him (a little shy), but answered his questions by nodding her head or pointing. She did a great job! He dilated her eyes and determined that she does have a small problem.

Emily is too farsighted. All children are farsighted, but Emily has to sometimes strain to see things that are close up. For a three year old, most of their day is spent with activities that are up close. Her eye crossing is actually her eye shutting down. Each time it crosses it shuts down and shuts down that part of her brain for that moment. He said her vision is good, but her eye needs aligning. If we do nothing, she could potentially go blind in that eye over several years.

As much as it broke my heart to think about having to put a three year old kid in glasses, we took her for her fitting when we returned from Charlottesville. She picked out her pink frames (pink at the ear piece) and they came with a little princess glasses case. It looks like a little purse and Emily refers to it as her suitcase:). She has not tried to take them off and she says she can see things better. We have made a very big deal about her new glasses! She looks very pretty in them and is so proud of them. We are a little concerned of jealousy with Lydia not needing glasses, but so far Lydia will put her sunglasses on and tell us she can see things better too:).