"school"

At the suggestion of a few friends, I bought Beth a couple of Kumon books from Target for her to work on at home, to play "school" with. She loves the Tracing book, she has plowed through most of it this week! She started off very well, anxious to be very accurate, but toward the end as it gets harder, she's giving less effort at maintaining accuracy, haha. The book is not really tracing, more like following a path with your pencil. We first do it with our finger, then Beth holds the pencil (correctly) and she draws. The next book I have is Cutting. She loves to cut paper, she has a pair of scizzors already that we work with a couple of times a week. Our biggest challange right now is to help her remember to cut away from her other hand! There aren't too many for the 2-3-year-old range, but this Tracing book has been so awesome for her. I need to find another (cheaper?) book, similar structure. Or, what I should have done is torn out the pages and used page protectors so she could have written on them with an erasable marker! Doh, why did I just think of that???

you can have school in your pajama shirt and bloomers, right?

look at those straight lines!

Beth has always loved to read. Most days we read at least 30-45 minutes, off an on, and when Grandma and Grandpa visit, that number easily triples! This is what I walked in on the other day:


She did this all by herself! It cracked me up, of course I had to take a picture! The book she is ready (and summarizing quite well) is You Can Go to the Potty. I guess Ariel is still potty training?


Or not? Notice Ariel's big-girl undies! Today Beth decided Ariel didn't need to wear her diaper anymore, I guess Ariel is growing up too!

Next Monday Beth is going to go to a dance class! We're going to a trial class to see how she does since the class is mostly older (3-year-old) girls. I'm so excited to see Beth try it out! I danced only until fifth grade (no talent here!) but I love that I learned all the basics of dance. I want Beth to have a foundation in dance as well, but mostly I think this is a great opportunity for her to try something new! We were planning on doing Soccer Tots with her but Ryan really wants to do that with her, and we couldn't work it out this fall. She'll play soccer eventually too, her father will insist!

Last weekend I enjoyed some tax-free shopping at The Children's Place, Crazy 8, Old Navy, and Gymboree before starting my credit card diet. Beth and Luke each got a lot of new fall clothes, all long sleeves and long pants, but all super cute! I put this hat on Beth as a joke in The Children's Place, but once I saw it on her I couldn't pass it up! She loves wearing it, I can't wait till it's cold and she has a reason to wear it out of the house!