A Page from Emily's Journal

Emily has a journal.  Unfortunately she didn't understand that the idea was to keep the pages IN the book so that we could save them, and she has ripped out almost every page.  Today I was going to throw out the book, which is basically just a cover with a page or two inside, but I opened it up first and I am so glad I did:

"I love you Mom and Dad and sisstrs and budr."

Which of course translates to "I love you Mom and Dad and sister and brother." SOOOO CUTE!! :)

Wiggly Words

Just a few cute stories from this week.

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Emily was having a bit of trouble expressing herself the other day.  She kept trying to tell me something but all that was coming out was, "Mommy.... uh, Mommy..."  So I said, "Sweetie, why don't you get it all straight in your head and then you can tell me, okay?"  She goes, "Okay, because right now it's all wiggly."

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I told Bailey she would have to come with me for Liam's checkup because she has a rash that I wanted the doctor to look at.  She yells, "I don't want to go to the doctor!  I don't want her [to] give me a BAM-AID!"  :)  (Funny but kind of appropriate, right??)

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Tonight I served black beans and rice for dinner, which was a first for the girls. Bailey takes one look at hers and says, "Mommy! Are these raisins or chocolate chips?" LOL!

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Today Emily brought home her very first love note!  It says, "Emily I love you. Harrison."

A Big Day

Today was a very special day for the McDowell clan!  First, Bailey went to preschool story time at the library and did a FANTASTIC job.  I was so proud of her--she listened to the stories (and paid attention, too--I quizzed her on the way home, LOL), participated in the singing and dancing, answered questions, and did the craft!  I was so impressed with her craft, too--she did it all by herself.  It is a picture of Humpty Dumpty sitting on his wall.  She glued the "bricks" and the "egg" and then drew the face ALL BY HERSELF!! This is the first time she has ever drawn anything that is actually recognizable and I think she did a wonderful job:

Emily brought home her very first test, which was a math test she took on Friday. She got 100%!

Liam did a great job at story time as well.  I loved watching him "dance" to the music. :)  Yesterday he learned to pull himself up to standing.  I got a short video of it that I will upload soon.

Bailey Learns to Read!

Bailey and I started working on the 100 Lessons book that I did with Emily.  So far it's mostly been letter sounds but she DID read her first word, "me," last week!  We are also working on writing her name.  She has been able to recognize it for a while now, and recently she learned to spell it for herself.  She was so proud of herself for spelling her name in the refrigerator magnets:

I'm pleased with her progress so far since she is a bit younger than Emily was when we started the book.  She's excited about it, too, so hopefully we'll keep that momentum going and have her reading before she starts pre-k.  She's a cutie AND a smartie!

Lunch Notes

I was putting little notes in Emily's lunch box each day--just something to let her know that I love her and I am thinking about her.  Well, the second week of school she came home with one of the notes and said, "Mommy, why you always put these words in my lunch?"  So I explained that I wanted her to know that I miss her when she is at school.  This morning, after she got on the bus, I found this on my seat in the car:

"I loev you mommy."





Made my day. :)

The Theory of Relativity

The other day Liam was crawling around and he crawled his way over to Daddy's bookshelf.  He examined the books on the bottom shelf before carefully choosing one that interested him: Exploring Black Holes: Introduction to General Relativity.  I laughed at the odds of him choosing THAT book, and placed it back on the shelf.  A few minutes later, I look over and see him with THE SAME BOOK!!  And later that night, after Daddy got home, he chose that book AGAIN!

He's one smart cookie.