Indiana visit

Last weekend we went to Indiana to visit Nancy for her birthday. They have a really fun zoo that we visited.

It was a smaller zoo, so the kids got to spend plenty of time looking at the animals, and playing.

top row: Kiersten, Nancy, Karalee
bottom row: Tommy, Evie

Kiersten is always interested in flowers. I have to watch her to make sure she doesn't pick them, though.

Whitney, Kara, and Kiersten hanging out by the tortoise statue.

The kids especially liked this wallaby area.

We rode the train, and then the kids played on this playground outside of the zoo. There were so many different toys, it was impossible for them to play with everything.

After this, we went bowling. The girls bowled the first game with us, and Kiersten came in second to Ben! That's right, she beat me by a point. But she did have the ramp to help her. We had a little time left at the end of our 2 hours, so Ben and I bowled a quick game. I actually beat him for the first time since our first date (when he let me win on purpose) and beat my own best score by 2 points. So now I can claim a personal best of 148. not super impressive, but for me it's a proud moment.

9/24/12

My3 girlies.

They wanted to take silly pictures the other day. I don't think Evie got the concept.

Kiersten is so proud to be reading. Here she is posing with the first 3 books she read on her own. Of course now they are memorized, so we've had to move on to books 4, 5, and 6 in the series. These Bob books are great! Kara used them to learn to read as well. Ben kept saying, "pull out the Bob books for Kiersten" but I didn't think she was quite ready, and didn't want her to get frustrated, so I put it off. Last week  I got them out, and she read the first one without me having to tell her a singe word. So now I'm trying to challenge her more when I make up spelling lists and she is practicing sounding out words every day.

Batman and friends

Kara's favorite thing right now happens to be batman. She loves the movies (no, she hasn't seen the new one), the cartoons, the video games, and comic books. A few nights ago, after homework, she sat at the table and drew all the batman characters she could think of completely from memory. Ben and I were pretty surprised how many she thought of, and how many details she could remember about them. It was fun trying to guess which characters they were. When we guessed wrong, she just shook her head slowly, and rolled her eyes.

batman is at the very top, hanging, and surprisingly, has the least amount of detail. probably because she's drawn him so many times before. The top row from left to right is, penguin, cat woman, bane, clay face. In the middle, caught in cat woman's whip is killer croc. The bottom row is harley quin, joker, man-bat, and poison ivy.

On this side, you have red claw at the top. Neither Ben or I had heard of that character, but Kara swears she's from the animated series. middle row is mad hatter, robin, bat girl, and alfred. The bottom row is the riddler and two face.

And on the back she drew the scarecrow and Mr. freeze when we pointed out she'd left out these two characters.

Kiersten was a little sad that she doesn't get to eat lunch at school this year. So, I've been packing the little girls a lunch when I do Kara's, and then when we get home from school, they think it's cool to grab their lunch boxes and head over to the table. It has made lunchtime smoother for me too, since I don't have to fix their lunches, I can just get back to whatever I need to work on that day.

Evie came home from school with this little poem, and her handprints. I thought it was the cutest little poem. When we ask her about school, she just jabbers on and on about having the pretty paint on her hands. She was so proud!

Today when I dropped her off, she ran happily to hang up her bag with no tears. I guess she finally believes me that I'm not going to leave her there forever. When I picked her up, the teacher told me that she asked to go potty today. I hadn't planned on having her potty training at school, but they said just send pullups, and they'll help her remember to go as much as she wants to. They don't aggressively potty train, just try to help out the ones that are training at home already.

we had a tornado warning the other day, and after it was changed to a watch, we came up from the basement. The sky looked really interesting, so I wanted to get a picture to show Ben. Kiersten said, "those clouds are so low", I agreed, slightly concerned that she might be nervous still from the sirens going off, but then she said, " I bet God can hear everything we're saying!" I was laughing pretty hard at that. I told her God can always hear what she says, and see what she does, but she didn't look like she believed me.

First day of Preschool, and other fun

Kiersten and Evie got to go to their preschool today for a back to school day. They got to play in their classrooms with their teacher and new friends, while the parents went to a meeting with the school director. They were both really excited this morning.

Evie was happy to jump right in and start playing. She was kind of sad when we left, and I had to keep telling her she gets to come back tomorrow. She will be going on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Her class is the darling ducklings.

Kiersten has been asking when she could go to school for a few months. She's been particularly excited this past week, and woke up early a few times and came in to ask if it was her first day of school yet. She will be going 4 days a week, Tuesday -Friday. Her class is the gentle giraffes, and she already made friends with boy named, Luke, and was careful to tell me he's just a friend, not a prince.

Best school buddies.

With Kara gone at school, the other two have been having lots of fun together. They are fighting a lot less too.

We still enjoy lunch on the deck, though it's been raining a lot lately, so we haven't eaten out there for almost a week.

Kiersten was excited to paint her ceramic plates she got from aunt Jackie.

Evie was a little jealous.

She said this one is a cowboy without a nose.

and this is a storm with a tornado and lightning. She is very proud to have these displayed in her bedroom now.

One day last week, Kiersten said she was a snowflake flutter princess. She said her job is to bring sunshine and flowers to the world.

Evie just having fun hanging out.

friday night we had a family movie night. The girls got pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals, and we all watched the Lorax.

All 3 of them watched the entire movie without getting up or running around. And I didn't have a popcorn mess to clean up either, so it was a great success!