My Incredible Grandparents

When I first started this blog, I had this great idea to spotlight someone in my family every week. Unfortunately, I didn't keep up with that more than a few weeks in a row. I still plan to do it, but maybe I won't tie myself down to a time limit this time. Over a year ago I asked my Grandma and Grandpa Thorup to write 100 things about themseves and give the list to me. Although they are great at keeping their own personal history (especially my grandpa), this assignment was a bit overwhelming to them. A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to go to lunch with them alone. Just the three of us. It was so nice. On our way to lunch I asked if we could stop by the store and buy a notebook so I could start writing down 100 things about them. We didn't get to 100 yet, but here is what we got so far. It was a lot of fun learning more about them, especially about their childhood. I love being with them!

I have been really lucky to be close to these grandparents all of my life. I spent a lot of time at their house and camping with them. We took a minimum of two camping trips together every year to places like Moab, Zions, and the Tetons. I grew up hiking with them. I love camping, hiking and everything about nature in great part because they introduced me to it's beauty and helped me enjoy it. Many of my favorite memories include them.

I haven't really proof read this but sometimes I feel like it's better to share things rather than sit on them and wait until you perfect them. If I waited to perfect every journal entry I ever created I would have next to nothing. Grandpa and Grandma, if you find any mistakes let me know!!!

100 Things about my grandma, Jeanne B. Thorup

1) Favorite color: red

2) Favorite place visited: Switzerland

3) Favorite place to visit more often: Colter Bay in the Tetons

4) Loves to look at scenery

5) Born in Provo, Utah

6) When she goes to a movie with beautiful scenery she often pays more attention to the scenery more than the movie.

7) December 14, 2009 – Ordered a chicken salad at Mimi’s café while dining with me (April) and Grandpa Thorup

8) Weighted 3.5 lbs at birth

9) She was so small at birth that the nurse handed her over to her parents in the palm of her hand.

10) She loves to hear the sound of water rushing

11) Wears glasses

12) Started wearing glasses at about 14.

13) She remembers the first time she had glasses she was so excited to see how clear the stars looked.

14) Favorite flower: a two-tone rose called a Double Delight (it’s red inside and white outside)

15) Favorite bird: hummingbird

16) She remembers her parents sitting on the back porch of her house on Evening Star and the hummingbirds would come right up to them when they sat still.

17) Loves the song, “Oh Holy Night”

18) Met her husband in the ward choir

19) At three years old she used to sing and dance on the stage. It was the time of Shirley Temple so her mom had her hair done up in ringlets and she wore lots of lots of cute costumes.

20) At three she sang, “On the Big Ship Lollipop”

21) Absolutely loves to look at any body of water but she is kind of scared of being in the water.

22) Had a very happy childhood

23) Was a popular girl in school and probably had all the boys ask her to dance

24) Used to help with her brother with Morris Code flags

25) She loves Olive Garden Salad Dressing (it is her favorite). She can’t find it anywhere else.

26) As a little girl in American Fork her fried almost drown when falling in a well. She couldn’t do anything to help but pray.

27) She had a big tree she used to spend a lot of time in when she was little. It was in the front of her house with big low branches. She says she used to live in it and her mother said she used to live in one too when she was a girl.

28) She was really close to her brother and he was her protector.

29) Used to sneak out of the house when her mom was asleep.

30) Used to love playing dress up.

31) She remembers cutting out paper dolls from the newspaper and playing with them.

32) She used to live within a couple feet of railroad tracks. The tracks were directly out her bedroom window.

33) As an adult she had a kid swim up to her in the swimming pool and tells her that she was the ugliest person he had ever seen. She is beautiful though (read #23).

34) Has a lot of good memories hiking the Narrows.

35) Doesn’t like contention.

36) Likes to laugh.

37) She is an optimist.

38) Used to have “a ball” in the trailer with her family and grandkids.

39) She had hepatitis when she was little so now she can’t give blood.

40-100 to come later :)

100 Things about my grandpa, D. Wallace Thorup

1) Favorite color: blue

2) Favorite place to visit (nearby) is Colter Bay in the Tetons

3) Absolutely loved visiting Switzerland

4) Can think of 50 places he has visited and loved.

5) Loves how unusual and beautiful the trees are in New Zealand.

6) Loves to travel.

7) He was the first one in his family to be born in a hospital.

8) He helped me (April) make a gorgeous wood chair.

9) December 14, 2009 he ordered a sweet and sour chicken wrap at Mimi’s café while dining with April and Grandma Thorup.

10) Loves woodworking and has ever since Jr. High School when he took a class.

11) Wears glasses.

12) Started wearing glasses around grade school age.

13) When he was Jr. High age he went downtown to the old Deseret Gym during the summer. He would swim, play handball and work in the woodshop there.

14) Rode the trolley to the Deseret Gym with other friends in the neighborhood.

15) The Peace Rose is his favorite flower next to a bright red rose.

16) His favorite bird is a cardinal.

17) He first saw a cardinal in Tennessee on his mission.

18) He wishes people sang Christmas carols all year long.

19) Sang base in a quartet on his mission in Nauvoo.

20) When he had a cold, he was so surprised with himself when he was able to sing the low note. He thought he could sing base better with a cold.

21) He had a high range because he also sang the high tenor in a men’s chorus at the University of Utah.

22) One of his favorite places is to drive along the west coast.

23) Once while driving on the coast he only gave Grandma 15 minutes to stop and look at the ocean because they were in a hurry. She thought that was terrible because she could have sat there for hours.

24) His favorite dessert is white cake with chocolate icing.

25) Was in the Navy.

26) The cook on his ship used to make the best peach pie.

27) After being at sea a long time they got weevils in their flour and had to eat them because there was nothing else. The weevils crunched when they ate them.

28) He never had to lock the doors of his house until he moved to his house on Evening Star Drive.

29) Built a club house out of lumber he got from all of the surrounding houses that were being built.

30) Remembers climbing up and down clothes shoots as a kid.

31) His father was rarely home even on Sundays because he was working a lot.

32) As a little kid he took a hammer and nails and put nails all around a drawer in the hall. When he was done, he couldn’t close the drawer.

33) Doesn’t like carrot cake all that much.

34) Favorite hike: Angels Landing in Zion’s National Park.

35) Likes to fix things.

36) Loved working in Centerville at the Burton Lab making intravenous systems. He was the project manager and loved the challenge.

37) Loves to play games.

38) Perfectionist.

39) Doesn’t like to go hunting or fishing.

40) He was 6’ tall when he was 12 years old.

41) He was diagnosed with a murmur in his heart at age 12 and the doctor suggested he didn’t play sports (which he didn’t mind too much).

42) Entered the ROTC in High School.

43) Was on a salt free diet as a teenager because he had nephritis (blood in the urine).

44) In the Navy in San Francisco he could have a day off each month if he gave blood.

45) He went into the service the day before he turned 18.

46) The first Christmas away from home he spent the whole day waiting to make a call at the Pepsi-Cola service station and never could get the call through. Later he missed his bus and hitched a ride with some really nice people who fed him dinner and treated him really well. He really appreciated those people and is sorry he didn’t remember their name.

47) The last month of his training for the Navy, the WWII ended.

48) Wears a size 14AA shoe

49) His shoe size is the same size as his brother.

50-100 to come later :)

2010 Goals!

Happy New Year!!!

My 2010 goals are:

1) Create a scrapbook page for each month of the year.
2) Every day, write something positive about my day, in a book my friend gave me last year (or the year before).
3) Write something about each kid on their calendars each day.
4) Remember not to give up or be frustrated if I skip a day or two or more. I'll just pick up and start again!

There are plenty of goals I should be writing but unfortunately I'm not ready to tackle them. One day I'll get there.

Greatest Party!

Luke had the greatest birthday party. As you can see from the pictures it was quite a while ago. I would totally recommend this “Scales and Tails” place to anyone. It was amazing!!! Because Luke was the birthday boy he got to help during the show from time to time. He was nervous a couple times but tried to be really brave. The pictures below are a bit out of order, but any you see of him looking nervous would have come first. He was always brave though, and never asked to have the snakes off of him until the boa constrictor started squeezing his arm too tight (look for that picture below). You’ll notice from other pictures that Luke wasn’t nervous for long. He had so much fun! His dad was out of town during his party so I had Luke write him an e-mail to tell him about it. Here is the message he wrote his dad:

I had a great birthday party! I got squished by a boaconstricter but it wasn`t hard. the snakes didn`t eat anybody and they were cool.

Ha ha. I love his summary of the party.

I asked Megan if she wanted a picture with the boa and she was so cute and said she wouldn’t be scared to hold its tail. Later she also got brave and got a picture by the middle of the snake as well as holding the smaller snake. I think Jonny was pretty nervous throughout the show but at the end he was even holding the snakes too! I didn’t realize when I was taking the picture of him that he was holding the snakes head with his fingers! Also, I’m not sure who gave him the snake and how the snake wrapped around his waist but he loved it.

Christmas Letters

Christmas was so much fun this year. Last year and this year have been the best so far because my kids are such perfect ages. They get so excited and believe in all of the magic of Christmas. It's GREAT! They both kept track of the amount of days until Christmas by themselves thanks to a cute countdown calendar Megan made in kindergarten and some chocolate advent calendars my mom gave them. Megan's countdown calendar was a picture of Santa where you cut off part of his beard every day.

Normally Luke is the most patient one. My side of the family always opens at least one present on Christmas Eve and now they open all of their presents on Christmas Eve because that is when we are all together. It drives Keith nuts because he thinks all of the gifts should be opened on Christmas only. Last year Luke was offered presents to open at my parent's house on Christmas Eve and he didn't even want to open it! He said he wanted to wait, but soon changed his mind. This year he wasn't nearly as patient. He was so excited to go to my parent's and start opening presents he almost started crying when he found out we had to eat dinner first. Hahaha.

When we got home Christmas Eve night I have never seen Luke so anxious. We have a tradition (Keith insists on) to make cookies for Santa and write letters to Santa. Luke also had some reindeer food he made in cub scouts that he wanted to sprinkle on the lawn. I have NEVER seen Luke move so fast. He was so worried he wouldn't get in bed on time if he didn't move quickly. he wrote his letter to Santa in a few seconds, then without even asking (totally out of character for Luke) he ran outside by himself to sprinkle the reindeer food on the lawn. It threw me off guard to see the front door open and my cute little 8 year old outside in the dark by himself. It was so fun to watch! Before I knew it Luke was totally ready for bed and in his covers. A while after saying prayers with the kids I went back in to help quiet Megan down (cute little chatterbox) and rub Luke's head to help him fall asleep. Luke said to me in the most stressed out voice, "Mom, will you just go!". Hahaha! I thought I was helping!

Christmas morning was great except I kept waking up before everyone. So far this has happened every year. I got up at 4, then 5, then 6 and then I couldn't sleep anymore. At 7:15 I was so excited to see Megan wake up and come in our room. She got in bed and put her head on a pillow. I asked if she knew what day it was and she said, "Christmas" with such a cute little smile. Then she went to sleep AGAIN!!! I couldn't believe it! Finally about that time it was light enough to start reading, so I read for a half hour until Luke finally woke up and I got him to wake everyone else up. Traditionally on Christmas morning Keith tries to get us all to go back to sleep, then teases us for a while that he is too tired to get up. Finally he gets up, goes and checks on the front room, sets up the video camera and lets us come out in line (oldest to youngest). We have been lining up oldest to youngest ever since the first year Keith and I were married. Haha. This year while he was teasing us that he was too tired he let the kids go out and peek at the toys. We told them they couldn't go into the front room, but they could peak from the stairs. They were very obedient and only peeked for a second.

Ahhh! It was so much fun. Santa spoiled the kids for sure. I can't wait until next year.

About the letters at the top of this post... Cute Luke is always extremely thoughtful. He is always thinking of his sister. At the beginning of December when we would ask what he wanted all he would say is that he wanted a DS for Megan. Isn't that crazy? He is so nice!! We told him Megan should ask for that and he should ask for something else. He finally decided he wanted the New Super Mario Bros. for Wii. Still though, if anyone ever asked what he wanted he would always say he wanted a DS for his sister and Super Mario for himself. Megan is the opposite usually. She is super nice too, but she is more "normal" wanting everything under the sun. The list below is the list she wrote at the beginning of December. I love how she spells things. This list is one of her very first attempts to write words on her own. I think she did a GREAT job, but I translated for you just in case you can't read it.

The letters up at the top were written Christmas Eve to leave by the kids stockings. Keith and I weren't surprised by Luke's letter, but we were with Megan's. Both kids wrote their letters without any help. Megan is a sweet girl, but we thought she would ask for a million things. I love that she asked for something for Luke and said she was happy with whatever she got. Ahhh! Maybe we are teaching her right. Cute girl!

ETA: Megan says the bottom item is an Electronic Bug.

Enter to Win

If you are interested in coming to the 2010 Retreat for Digital Scrapbook Memories, make sure you go here and enter to win!

Kind of Funny (and then a little deep)

Megan and Luke were talking to each other the other day. As I was listening, Megan was talking about only having one hand and what that would be like. Luke then started to explain to her, why God would allow people to be severely handicapped. He explained that Satan can't tempt those people as easy and so even though it's really hard to be handicapped they are really lucky not to have to worry about being tempted.

Megan understood this to some extent, but not the full extent. She cracked me up when she started asking Luke questions. My favorite was this one, "So does that mean that people that only have one hand would have a harder time drinking coffee? And is that why Heavenly Father took his hand away?" She also went on to talk about a girl she saw on TV that didn't have a neck and how that would make it a lot harder to drink coffee too.

Hahaha. Looks like I need to keep working on this topic.



If you aren't a member of my church and you are curious what in the world I'm teaching my kids, you are welcome to ask. In short, we teach our kids not to smoke or drink coffee, tea and alcohol. We always follow that discussion up with the fact that you don't have to believe the same way as we do to be a good person. I really emphasize that because its hard for little kids to understand why something is wrong for one but ok for another.

Regarding seriously handicapped; this is a subject that is too hard to explain in a couple sentences, but I'll try. We believe God loves everyone so much. We are sent to Earth to gain a body, to be tried and tested. Some of the spirits that lived in Heaven were (possibly) so good that they don't need to be tested like the rest of us. Although some may view God as a horrible creature when he allows bad things like this to happen, we believe that it may be one of his most loving acts because these people can't be tempted by Satan the way the rest of us are. They will have a place in the highest part of heaven after they die. What greater reward could there be?

Wow!!

Isn't this picture incredible? I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again... I LOVE the picture slideshows on msnbc.com!

Reed Payne

My uncle, Reed Payne, passed away last week. He was my Grandma Park's only brother. I got teary at times during the funeral thinking of their original family together again. I'll really miss Reed. He is such an incredible man and I loved the times I was able to be with him. He will always have a special part in my heart. He played the piano at my wedding which meant so much to me. I wanted him to play at my wedding since I was a little girl and he played at my one of my aunt or uncles weddings. I think it was Aunt Andi's. Besides my wedding, my favorite time with him and my aunt Ruth was in Oregon. Keith and I were driving down the coast and stopped at a beautiful beach near California. I wanted to get our picture taken so I started walking towards the only other couple on the beach. Keith told me not to, but I went anyway. I'm so glad I did because it turned out to be Reed and Ruth!!! It was so much fun to see them there. We went to lunch at Pizza Hut and had a great time before we were on our way again.

My Uncle Reed wrote the music to the song, "When Joseph Went to Bethleham". It's published in the LDS Children's Songbook and is sung all over the world each Christmas. At his funeral, his son said that their family wondered if he had to a chance to meet and talk with Joseph yet and ask him if the words of the songs portrayed his true feelings. It gave me chills thinking of that because the idea of him doing that is so exciting. I love you Uncle Reed. I'll miss you. Give my Grandma a hug and kiss for me. I miss her so much.

You can listen to the song here. Also, I found out during the funeral that Reed's cousin (which would be my Grandma's cousin) composed the song, "Lord, I Would Follow Thee". Now that song has extra meaning for me.

Snowflakes

Beautiful snowflakes are just another reason to love winter. Sure, winter has its drawbacks, but if you look for things to enjoy you could love winter too. When I saw these crystals on my car this morning, I hoped I could get a good picture to capture the beauty. I've really got to invest in a macro lens one day.

Hummm...

Just not in the mood to blog lately. Hope you all are doing well! I do have a fun idea for a picture I want to take soon though... we'll see how quick I get it up.

Amy's Pictures

Amy posted the pictures she took of the party here. Neither of us got any pictures of the yummy strawberries though...yummmm! Nice pictures Amy!!

Twilight/New Moon Party

Last night we had a really fun party for the girls who help me a lot at Digital Scrapbook Memories. Amy and I planned the party together. The party was inspired by this one by Emily. Emily's party was inspired by this one by this one by the Hostess with the Mostess.

Amy made this incredible invitation. Isn't she awesome???

I didn't take pictures of our actual party table which is too bad. If Amy posts her pictures I'll link you to those pictures. I really like how the table turned out. We had a deep red table cloth with a black sheer runner, candles, a cupcake tray, chocolate dipped strawberries, water and popcorn in addition to what you see in the pictures below. There were also little signs around the house. All of the printed Twilight decorations came from the HWTM. It was so EASY to quickly print her designs. I loved it!! I really enjoyed Twilight but I'm not a giant fan like others. I haven't even read the second book yet (although I did get it today for $5). I just really wanted to do the party after seeing the cute drink labels. Haha!!! The one thing I did different with the printouts is I mounted the little signs on a black paper folded in half so I wouldn't have to buy (or find) picture frames. I really like how it turned out. Here are a couple pictures of the signs, drinks and licorice.

Thanks to all of you that help me with Digital Scrapbook Memories. Alisha, I wish you were closer so you could have come. Also, does anyone else worry after a party that not everyone got an invite that should have? We didn't hear from a couple girls who we sent invites to but we definately send the invites to everyone who has helped with DSM.

Zorbing

Hahahahaha! This looks like so much fun. Or not. Hahaha. Have you heard of Zorbing yet?

By the way I took the image from this site.

Halloween

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. My kids dressed up as a jellyfish and a Nintendo DS. They both loved their costumes which made me really happy. Luke had so many people at school at our church party running up to him to "play" his costume. He couldn't go more than a few feet without people saying how much they loved his costume. Keith said they trick or treated at someone's house we don't know and the lady said she saw our kids at school and came home and told her husband about the jellyfish and Nintendo DS. She had no idea that the two kids were from the same family. Ha ha. It made me feel good. I have a few friends who said they heard about our costumes from other people who didn't know us, but just were talking about their favorite costumes. Fun.

Luke got a bit overwhelmed with people "playing his costume". He really got pushed around a lot by nice but hyper kids, but he still had fun and liked most of the attention he got.

I got a cute picture of my niece and nephew too. Aren’t they cute?

Teaching Kids to Read

Thanks to those of you who said they would like to read what I have to say about teaching kids to read. It’s one of my favorite subjects. I do not think I have all of the answers, nor do I think I’m an expert. I do think I have some great ideas though and I love sharing them. I think Stacy (Boquinha) hit the nail on the head when she said, “when our kids learn to read, it is as exciting as first words and first steps!”

You hear from everyone that you should be reading to your kids from the time they are babies. I absolutely believe this. Babies not only learn to love books, they also learn what words mean and what books are. I believe babies are so much more capable of learning than most people think. I love watching those videos of babies actually reading words. It’s incredible! I never even thought to try that. I don’t think teaching babies to read words is important, but it may be fun to do. I do think it’s important to recognize that babies can and should be learning all the time. This applies to lots of things not just reading.

The best advice I ever got was to let my kids turn the pages at their own pace. Help them learn how to turn the pages early on. Once they learn, don’t worry if they skip pages or go back. Just read any page they go to for as long as they let you. You don’t even have to read the words to make the book fun. You could take the baby’s finger and help them point to the things as you tell them what they are. Pretty soon they will be able to do it on their own. This helps babies learn to love books. It feels really unnatural not to read a book from cover to cover, but I think it’s really important to make reading fun. If reading from cover to cover isn’t fun for a baby, don’t do it that way.

I have no idea when most kids let their parents start reading books to them from cover to cover, but I remember wondering if it would ever happen for us. Just when I was about to abandon hope, it happened! They sat through one book, then another, then another… For my kids, I think the age was closer to three or four before they consistently started sitting quiet for all of the books. If you have a couple kids I think it’s great for the older one to practice listening while their younger siblings run around, disrupt and only pay half attention. This is a skill they will need once school starts and in all stages of life.

Parents should read with as much expression as they can. This is so important! Parents should try to make up voices for the different characters and change the level of sound for different parts of the book. For example, if a character is supposed to be really quiet, the parent should read really quiet. If a character is excited, a parent should read louder. It’s amazing how a wiggly toddler will suddenly start to pay attention when a parent changes noise levels. Again, don’t worry if they only pay attention to part of the book.

When reading with young kids, you should help them follow the words with their finger. This teaches them that the words you say associate with the letters on the page. They also learn the direction of reading (that we read from left to right, top to bottom).

Help your kids feel confident by letting them finish the sentences for you. There are probably some favorite books your kids read over and over. As they start to memorize the words it’s exciting for them to be able to “read” parts of the book. In reality, they aren’t really reading, they are just memorizing, but it still exciting for them. We all tend to enjoy the things we are good at so help your kids feel like they are really good at reading. My mom told me that she thinks the best thing she did for my siblings and me is to help us feel confident. Not just in reading but in all areas. I think she was right (and could write a ton on that subject too).

The first words my kids learned to read were stop and exit because you see those words everywhere and they are always written in the same shape and color. Again, it’s a confidence builder to be able to recognize those words.

Picture books with a word for each picture is a good thing for kids too. Although they are usually looking at the picture to guess the word, it still encourages confidence. I always let my kids read the word first, then I would congratulate them on reading the word right and read it again sounding out each letter so they could see how the letters made up the word.

My favorite way to instill confidence in my kids was when they started to learn their letters and sounds. In short books, with few words, I would find the only word that started with a certain letter then say, “find the word ________”. I would then repeat the word over and say the first sound lots of times. For example, for the word silly I would say, “Find the word silly. S-S-S-Silly”. My kids thought they were so smart and felt confident because they could easily find those words. It was fun!

My oldest was really motivated by computer games. I spent quite a bit of time playing cute Sesame Street educational computer games with him when he was only one. Eventually he got his own computer on the floor next to my desk. I wouldn’t let him play unless he read the words by himself. I got tired of reading everything for him, so at two I made him read words like stop, start, play, next, and begin. Eventually he learned other words too because he was motivated to play his games and I wouldn’t let him play unless he could do it on his own. To clarify, I may let my kids play more games or watch more TV than some, but I like to follow up with most everything they play and watch. I like to ask them questions and challenge them as they are playing or watching so that I know they are learning too. I’m not always consistent, but at least I make a good effort. I love PBS shows and the PBS website. Another AMAZING website is http://www.starfall.com/. MAKE SURE YOU TRY THAT SITE if you have a child between one and six. Older kids will like this site too especially if they aren’t reading really well. It is so much fun! Make sure your kids click on all of the pictures. It’s such an incredible resource for teaching kids letters and how to read.

Rhyming is another great way to teach toddlers important skills for reading. We used to rhyme in the car all the time to make a drive more fun. Eventually rhyming skills will give your kids confidence as they start spelling and reading. Each kid is different, but at 4 years old my kids would spell a certain word such as cat and I would say, “Wow! If you can spell cat, you can spell hat”. When they spelled hat, I would change to another rhyming word. It was really exciting for them to find out they could not only spell one word, but lots of words! This was my best way to help my kids learn to sound out words. Both of my kids usually got frustrated looking at books and trying to sound words out for more than a couple minutes. My goal was to always make learning fun for the kids. So if they got frustrated I would usually stop immediately. If I kept things fun, the kids learned faster.

Once my kids started to read I tried to help them read with expression. Usually they would read a sentence in a mono-tone voice, then I would re-read it with expression or ask them to re-read it with expression. It was really fun for my kids to learn what exclamation points and question marks meant early in their reading development. They loved yelling when a sentence had an exclamation mark. And they loved changing their voice when a question mark came up. It cracked me up as they were learning about question marks. When a question mark came up in a sentence, they read most of the sentence mono-tone then add a slightly higher tone for the last word. Ha ha. My youngest is still learning, but my oldest is really good at reading with expression. It’s really fun to listen to him read, it is never boring.

Although it really took years for my kids to learn to read it always felt like they learned overnight. It’s so much fun when something clicks and they finally get it! Both my kids could read and spell words pretty early but I didn’t view them as actually reading until they were about five and could read books. My youngest started reading a bit later than her older brother because I didn’t work with her quite as much (poor girl). I know she could have done what her brother did if I had worked with her more. She was only a couple months behind him though and is now so excited to read she is learning at lightning speed. The other day in church she was even reading the words to the hymn and singing a lot of the words right. It was so cute!

Another super cute thing my daughter does is watch PBS shows like Word World, Super Why and Word Girl with a paper and pencil. She writes down all of the words she sees in the show then has me quiz her on them later. I love it! She likes to bring me her papers and put stars by the correctly spelled words just like her brother’s second grade teacher does at the top of his spelling tests. I personally don’t really care if she spells words right though. I noticed that the teachers in school don’t really focus on correct spelling until about second grade. I was surprised by that first, but then I realized that they are trying to encourage kids to sound out words and there are a lot of English words that don’t sound the way they are spelled. I also think this gives the kids confidence to continue to try to spell. Again, we all like to do things we are good at and seem to stay away from things we don’t do well.

My brother-in-law Bruce said that his dad used to read chapter books without pictures to his kids at early ages. I have thought about this a lot and it seems to me that this must be a really important aspect of learning to read as well. I read somewhere that it lets you introduce a higher level of reading to your kids. I assume it trains your brain in a different way and helps you to learn to focus and comprehend things differently.

I certainly don’t have all of the answers, but I do believe a parent’s involvement is crucial. We should not be depending on the schools to teach everything to our kids. I do NOT mean that as a jab to public schools though. I just think parents and teachers should be working together. I am personally really happy with the public school my kids go to. I’m very impressed with the teachers and staff there. I spend as much time volunteering at my kid’s school as I can because I want to see what they are doing and being taught. So far, we have been blessed with incredible teachers and I have learned a lot about teaching my kids from them. I think my kids have the best of both worlds. They learn about so many different things at school that I would never even think of teaching them, and then when they get home I can reinforce the things they learn at school and teach them other fun things as we work on things at home or go out to explore and play.

Who else has a fun idea to share? I would love to hear anything you can add!

Awww...

I just found this cancelled check while throwing away some of our super old papers. Keith bought me flowers a few weeks before we got engaged. Sigh. I really miss those fun dating days.

Random

Just some random thoughts...

I got asked to be the cub committe chairperson. I never thought I would like this calling, but I'm pretty excited about it right now. I'm anxious to get everything organized and learn all about cub scouts. There are three cub scout dens in our pack: Wolfs, Bears and Weblows. I guess I'm in charge to make sure the den leaders have what they need, keep track of awards and organize monthly pack meetings. The boy scouts have tons of things online now making it totally easy to get started and keep things running. I love the computer!

I got released as the secretary for the Stake Relief Society. I really loved that calling. I mostly loved it because of the ladies I served with. I learned so much from them! I feel extremely lucky I was able to learn from them. It was a great experience! I'll especially miss attending all of the other wards in our stake. I loved going to church and meeting new people from time to time.

We have such great friends and family.

My kids are doing great in school. Megan is so excited to be in kindergarten. She just looks so proud when she is in line to go into the school. Luke has tons of homework this year, but doesn't complain!!! It's amazing! He's actually happy doing it. In kindergarten he'd have homework that would only take 3 minutes if he got to work but he would cry and cry and it would take an hour or two every day!!!

Megan can read now. It's so exciting! It's amazing to me how both of my kids seemed to learn to read overnight. Of course they didn't though. I have been working with them since they were babies (seriously). I LOVE to teach my kids how to read! It's so much fun. It feels like they learn overnight though because one day they are struggling and then all of the sudden something clicks and they get it. I've really got to write a blog post about teaching your kids to read. It's one of my favorite topics.

Luke got an award for "Reading Expression". I felt like it was an award for me too, because I work so hard to help my kids read like they are talking. Reading is so much more fun like that. One of these days I need to record Luke reading one of his favorite books. He reads it with so much expression it is absolutely so much fun to listen to.

I love volunteering in the kids classes at school. LOVE it!

Start or Begin?

Like so many of you, I absolutely love the book, "Where the Wild Things Are". It's such a great story! There is one thing that is driving me CRAZY lately though. On the TV commercials the little boy says, "Let the wild rumpus start", but isn't it really supposed to be "Let the wild rumpus begin"??? I can't find our book. I'll have to clean the kids room and organize the bookshelf to find it. Until then, who has a copy who can check this out for me? It's driving me nuts!

HDR is so fun!

I'm really loving HDR! This is my second attempt at HDR. This is the movie theater closest to me. I wanted to experiment with the night lights.

The picture of my backyard below is bothering me because I didn't use a tripod, but I still love the color results.

Also... don't forget about this tonight! And if you can come, make sure you bring scrapbook pages to print for FREE! Everyone will be able to print at least one for free, but if people don't bring anything, you may get lucky and get to print more!