Yesterday

Mommy was a bit sick yesterday so not everything (including this post) got done.  After 14 (!) hours of sleep I am feeling better, but still not 100%.

Yesterday morning Braeden and Teagan made us fruit salad for breakfast!  It was delicious.

Silly Lily

  We have a rabbit named Lily.  I'm sure you already know that.  Well, she loves my mom.  Not my dad.  Here are some funny, short stories about that funny bunny:

I was getting ready for school.  My sister was trying to find Lily.  I called for Lily, and she didn't come. My mom was making breakfast for her.  She called for Lily, then went out to get something from the car.  I started to get my stuff (homework, lunch, etc.).  My mom came back. I finished getting my school stuff.  And, sure enough, there was Lily, hopping into the room, answering my mom's call.  Geez!

We were wrapping presents and Lily was hopping around us.  Suddenly I heard the sound of bunny teeth against paper.  I went over to Lily and said,"Lily, no chewing wrapping paper!" she stopped and tried to run away with the paper.  But you see, the wrapping paper was still attached to its roll so as she ran away the paper kept unrolling!

Lily gets a salad every morning.  Her favorite foods are apples, carrots, lettuce, and grapes.  She gets very messy when she eats juicy grapes!

Braeden

Braeden has recently started doing some multiplication using a pencil and paper only.  In the Montessori math world we are always leading toward abstraction, so it is especially thrilling when they get there!  Of course it is even more exciting and impressive when it is your own son the third grader :)  Even with this math expertise, Language Arts remains his favorite school subject (well, after recess, snack, and lunch).  The above photo is a picture of his work during dinner-less than 2 minutes to the result.

Braeden made a run to the doctor today for his 9 year check up (delayed due to our schedule and then snow).  It turns out he is healthy and normal!  He is still in the 50th percentile for height and at the 65th for weight.  Dr. Bloom always comments on how muscular he is!  Vision and hearing seem to be fine, but there seems to be no cure but time for the occasional listening lapses.  To his dismay the doctor backed me on remaining in his booster seat, 80 pounds and 4 ft. 9 in. are a ways away!

Teagan's Birthday Walk

Today was Teagan's birthday walk at School.  We have a lovely recognition of a child's birthday.  They bring in one picture for each year of life and, holding a globe to represent the planet Earth, they walk around a candle which represents the sun as many times as they have actually gone around the sun.  Teagan has made six trips around the sun!  It is fun to tell the rest of the class about some memories from Teagan's life.  For Teagan, many of her teachers remember when she was just a baby, or even before!  

Teagan's teacher Marion helped her with the walk.  A friend of Teagan's from before care (the early birds all stay in one building in the morning) also came over to see her birthday walk.  She has recently joined our school and wanted to see how we did a birthday walk for the younger children.  Teagan had a great time--she loves being the center of attention!  This was the first time we were able to do a morning walk and she loved being "normal".  In past years we have done her walk in the afternoon after my day at Friends' House.  Now that I am just across the parking lot I can scoot over!  It was even easier to get to Braeden's birthday walk, just through an interior doorway :)

Teagan doesn't get to watch much tv, but we just discovered that the morning news maybe on too often for our little mimic.  She brought Jeff a book by Katie Couric and said to him, "Guess what Daddy?  This book is brought to you by 7 News, Today in New England."  She never has gotten over Katie Couric leaving the Today Show!

 

Happy New Year

Happy 2008!  During a leisurely pancake breakfast we made some New Year's resolutions.  Teagan resolved to be kind to others and thinks she will try to talk less (none of us think she will accomplish the latter!)  Braeden resolved to improve his posture and hopes to learn to type better.  Jeff will try to procrastinate less--starting tomorrow :)  I have resolved to not yell and complete my Seacoast work--I do not know that I can actually do both at the same time!  As a family we resolved to make the time to do something fun together at least once a month.  Once a month does not sound often enough, but with two new jobs, two kids attending school and various other activities and a bunny to care for, time to just play, with no other obligations tied in is rare.

Today we have an ongoing game of Monopoly.  Teagan is playing by herself for the first time but has some great suggestions!  When we try to tell her how much money she needs to pay by telling her the colors, she makes a different suggestion.  Our favorite so far was when we told her to pay two oranges ($100s) and one green ($20) and she came back with, "How about two greens and one orange?"  We are helping her practice counting, adding the dice, and learn to be fair to the other players!  Braeden loves the fact that she stops and counts every dot on each die for each turn she has, it really speeds up the game!

Jeff used some of his Christmas gift cards to add new lighting to our dining area.  We cannot believe it took us this long!  We all love it, especially in these winter months when it gets dark early.

Welcome

We decided to ring in 2008 by starting a blog.  This will be instead of sending pictures via e-mail as events unfold.  After spending much of our last dinner of 2007 trying to come up with a title, we went with Teagan's wonderful fashion sense as noted in her favorite print combination.  Look for photos taken by Braeden and entries by varying members of the family as time goes on.  Here are Braeden and Teagan on the last day of 2007.