Kindergarten

I never would have thought that I would be sitting here every morning with this little girl reading books, doing worksheets, math, writing, and spelling.  I never planned to keep her home, until it happened.  I love it.  I love watching her learn something new everyday.  She is doing so well and I couldn't be more proud.  

I don't know why but my bathroom door has become the achievement board.  I started giving her a sticker every time she read a book and she deemed my bathroom door as the best spot to put them.  She tells me often how beautiful it is and asks if I like her decorating.  I'm just glad that she's excited about reading. 

She has now made it clear to me that she's going to "real school" next year.  Part of me is sad that I won't be able to enjoy these moments with her anymore, and there's another part of me that knows she's ready. I'm preparing myself mentally right now for the day she heads off to "real school".  Who knows, maybe in the future she'll decide to do home school again.  I wouldn't mind. :) .   

In addition to our daily school work Audrey has been going to a music class, a ballet class, and an art and science class which we do with a bunch of other Moms who home school.

She tells me that she loves her music class best of all.  She asks me all week when it's time for music class.  I'm so glad that I learned about the "Let's Play Music" program.  It might be the best program out there for younger children who eventually want to take voice or piano lessons.  I love it so much that I'm thinking about becoming a teacher next year.  It'll give me something to do while I'm missing this little girl. :) 

I hope she continues to love music the way that I do.          

Sundays Are The Best Days

Does anyone else feel like Sunday is a breath of fresh air or a sigh of relief?  The only bad part about it is the looming thought of Monday on my heels.  Don't get me wrong, Mondays aren't all that bad for me, except that I can no long ignore the house or the laundry and Paul goes back to work.  I kind of like having him around all the time. 

Sundays make me happy.  It truly is a day of rest from the world. It makes me stop and think about where I'm at, what I'm supposed to be, and what I'm not doing that I should be doing.

As I watched my little primary kids bear testimony through song and words about the Savior last week I felt the spirit so strongly.  

My testimony began here as I sang these exact same songs.  The music we sang each Sunday spoke to me the way nothing else could.  When I'm having a difficult time I still have the words of primary songs enter my mind.  When Audrey gets scared I tell her to sing these same songs, just like my Mom told me when I was her age.  I hope that eventually they will sound in her mind when she's faced with a difficult choice or she's just having a bad day.

I sing to Audrey every night.  If she's acting up before bed I often threaten with no songs before bed and she shapes right up.  It's a good thing because I enjoy singing with her and to her as much as she likes to listen.  It's kind of our thing.  

I'm beyond grateful for this little family that I've been given and that I get to spend this special day and every other day with them.  They are the peanut butter to my jelly.  

Look at how cute they are together?  

A Box Problem

Paul helped Audrey build a box house months ago. It's been sitting there crowding the play room and to be honest she doesn't play in it unless someone else is at our house. I finally told her that the box was going to get the boot. After all, she has this beautiful tepee that serves the same purpose. I mentioned it in an effort to prepare her. She has a hard time letting go of things that I would consider trash.

Well, this last week I was going through baby clothes and all sorts of things. I had a lot of stuff I was going to get rid of and a bunch of stuff that I was going to throw away. Audrey asked if she could have one of the boxes to draw on. I was happy to give it to her. I knew that she would have hours of fun ahead of her coloring and making the box her own.

Well that box stayed in my living room for days until I couldn't take it anymore and put it upstairs in the playroom. Later that day when I went upstairs to help Audrey clean up. I now had two boxes in my playroom and I couldn't do it. A playroom is for toys...right?  I told her if we kept every box that we wouldn't have any place for her toys anymore.

It will be fun, I said. We'll take pictures of it, I said. You will remember them forever, I said. She agreed. I started taking pictures.  She wanted some of herself playing in the house, and then as I ripped the tape off to take pictures of the inside.  The crying began, and it didn't stop. Mom, I made this with Daddy, she said. I love this house, she said. We can't throw it away, I want to keep it forever, she said. And then my Mom heart couldn't take it anymore. I struck a bargain and we threw away the smaller box and kept the box house. I'm itching to throw it away. For now it's safe, but only because I love this little pumpkin more than anything in the world aside from her Daddy.

Watch your back little box house!

Bama Here We Come!

We went on another trip.  Instead of doing a week long vacation we decided to take a couple short road trips.  I'm so happy we did.  We headed to Alabama a couple weekends ago.  Why Alabama?  I've been hearing that it has the best beaches within road tripping distance...if you call 8 hours short. :) 

It was long, but totally worth the hours in the car.  Audrey was a champ and surprisingly we had so much fun on the way there and on the way home.  We crossed three states, watched movies, played trivia, searched for ABC's, read books, and talked about life.  It was a much needed break after begin through so much together in the last couple months.

When we got there we were all blown away by view out our balcony door. We were all so excited to head to the beach in the morning.  Instead we welcomed a lot of rain. We were a little bummed, but it was fun to visit the local Ron Jon and other random surf shops.  In the afternoon we got a short break in the rain and spent an hour at the beach before we got poured on.  I had to take a mental picture of the moment in my mind because it was kind of hilarious.  Everyone around us were huddled under their big umbrellas looking at us like we were crazy. We didn't have much, so we were scrambling to get everything picked up while we were getting slammed with water. We were dripping by the time we got back to the hotel.

That evening I had reserved a sunset dolphin cruise.  It wasn't exactly what I had imagined but it was worth every penny.  I guess in my mind I pictured a Sea World Dolphin show in the wild...kind of sounds stupid now. :)  We got to see so many dolphins.  Their fins would poke out of the water every now and then and toward the end of our trip we got to see a few baby dolphins play with each other, which was exactly what I was hoping for.  The captain of the boat was so nice to Audrey and let her drive the boat.  Audrey felt like she was sailing the never seas with her crew and she was Jake.  The whole experience was priceless and the bay was beautiful! 

The next day I was determined to have a beach day.  I bought a really big beach umbrella and we spent almost the entire day at the beach.  It rain a little bit, but over all, was a really nice day.  Audrey gathered a bucket of sea shells, she made a sand castle, we had lunch on the beach, we swam in the ocean, and had a good time on the boogie board.  It was the kind of fun that makes you never want to leave a place. 

 Audrey learned what salt water tastes like and that sand starts to hurt your unmentionables when you've been sitting in it all day. 

We went out to eat, we had late night ice cream runs, we bought cheesecake from the iconic cheesecake bakery, we watched a couple hallmark movies, and saw the hotel's pet alligator.

It was sad to say goodbye to the ocean.  I know I live close to it, but our beach isn't as nice.  

Someday we'll go back, and next time I'll stay a couple more days.