Family

What are we up to these days?

Simply, we’ve finished the kindergarten application process for Allison, and we’ve been clearing out our house of clutter and such. Old school papers, books, bank statements have been recycled or shredded. We’ve dragged things out of the garage to go to the dump (sadly not usable anymore), and donated numerous car loads of “stuff” to Goodwill. Many boxes of books have gone to Half Priced Books, so they can be re-read by anyone interested in Plato, Galileo, or say even Dante. (Confidently, I can say that we have no intention of re-reading the Inferno or the Manifesto…)

The girls are reading up a storm. As part of the cleaning and purging process, I finally found a box of my old childhood books. They include wonderful stories like Flat Stanley, Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Rats of NIMH…Katherine pulled out Mary Poppins from the stack of books. She read it cover to cover in two days and then went to the library to check-out Mary Poppins Comes Back. Allison has now claimed the Mary Poppins book by putting her bookmark in it and has started the first several chapters.

We went to Game Night for lower elementary kids last night at school. We took Allison along, telling her that she had to play by the rules. Allison listened carefully to the rules and loved the experiece of playing new games like Castle Keep, Feed the Fish and Rattlesnake. Katherine did too, although Operation Shrek was a big hit. 🙂

Jack and Annie

Allison loves her Magic Tree House books. She is now the proud owner of four hard-bound books, specifically the later Merlin Mission editions. She knocks the hard-bound cover and says, “These can’t get hurt.”

Today Allison acquired the Sea Serpent adventure. She read aloud several chapters this morning, while I attempted a crossword puzzle (half-listening to her). So, before bedtime, she and I sat down to really read the book–which uses surprisingly complex words and is fairly suspenseful for a children’s book.

For instance, when Jack and Annie met the “Spider Queen,” Allison just stopped and pushed the book to me. She sidled away from the book, covered her eyes and listened as her heroes escaped from the queen’s cave. Several chapters later, Katherine crept in. Ostensibly reading her Rainbow Magic Fairy books in the other room, she had been listening to our reading. Allison and I then alternated pages and chapters until we finished the adventure.

At several points, the suspense grew, and we just had to laugh. For instance, Jack says to the Sea Serpent, “Don’t come any closer. I have the sword.” Next sentence intones, “The sea serpent moved closer.” Or, after Jack sees the Spider Queen with eight red beady eyes and eight hairy legs which is as big as him, Jack says, “Whatever you do, Annie, don’t look up!” Annie then looks up and screams, “AHHHH.”

Needless to say, Allison and I are a little hoarse. I think we must have read for over an hour. 🙂 

We might also convert Katherine to Magic Tree House from Rainbow Fairies. She has managed to collect all but one of the Special Edition books; Allison has the one book that she doesn’t own. Katherine says she likes the Special Editions because they are really three books in one. She is also reading her Encyclopedia Brown books and A to Z Mysteries.

Tired…Cold

The kids really needed some exercise today, and Allison in particular. Due to rain on Friday, her classroom had indoor recess, and she’s been a bit antsy all weekend. Early this afternoon, while it was sunny, Allison looked out hopefully and asked if she could go outside. She then enlisted Katherine to roller-skate and us to accompany them around the neighborhood.

Katherine can really skate. She zipped around the neighborhood with no issues. Rollerskating with Allison is a bit more exciting. She did the wild arm wave thing and landed on her bottom several times. She also tried to accelerate going downhill, while Katherine was perfectly happy to just roll down the hills. Allison is a bit hampered by her clamp on rollerskates, unlike Katherine who has full-on leather skates with nice brakes. However, Allison is at least a couple shoe sizes too small for real rollerskates.

After rollerskating, we then biked to a coffee shop several miles away for kids hot cocoa. The weather turned colder and more windy. Five minutes into the ride home, Allison simply stopped. She sadly said, “Tired….Cold” With a bit of encouragement, she stood up and started pedaling again.  

It’s the Economy…

Katherine is an amazingly observant child. A couple days ago, she had been playing “Katherine’s Sweet Shop” in the playroom. This involved providing one of several handwritten and typed menus to guests, serving them food, billing them and providing change from her plastic cash register. She even had donned an apron, with notepad and pen to take orders in her apron pocket. After both Steve and I had “breakfast,” Katherine announced a few times that “Katherine’s sweet shop is open….” No one came. Then, we heard massive activity, followed by a glum silence. Katherine had taken down her handwritten sign to the playroom. She replaced it with another stating, “Katherine’s Sweet Shop – Closed – for Lease” and “If you want your last meal, you should come today.” Apparently, not only did she not have a line of customers out the door, but she also looked in the cash register and had only $1 left. 

She said that she had seen the “Closed For Lease” sign in many empty storefronts here and in Boston.

The sign has been taken down, as Katherine has decided to re-open and try her business again.

One of our New Years traditions is to crack open a bottle of Martinellis, sit in front of a fire and discuss what we’re grateful for. As always, its an interesting discussion. Perhaps the most fitting for 2009 was Allison’s comment: “I’m glad Dad didn’t get laid off.”  That said, she followed it with, “If Dad did get laid off, then he’d spend more time with his kids.” (Admittedly, we’ve tried to explain that lots of people lost jobs and $ thru investments this year. But, seriously, where does this stuff come from?!)

Boston

I’ll have to go thru and find pictures to post. But, here’s a quick rundown of highlights from the trip:

• Lots of ice cream – Toscaninis and Rancs
• Dim sum
• Legal Seafood
• State Street House & Museum (Tea from Boston Tea Party!)
• Children’s Museum

More Sweet Shop…

Katherine and Allison swapped gifts with their grandparents last night and with Patty today. They were overjoyed with their gifts, with some interesting outcomes:

– Allison received three sets of Benderoos from her grandparents (long story brought about by infomercials on Nick). She gave one set to Katherine.
– Katherine promised to buy Allison a new stroller at Build-a-Bear using part of her gift card. Apparently, Allison’s stroller was slightly damaged in a recent playdate.
– They both received Playdoh sets, an ice cream maker and burger maker, from Patty. Both kids pretended to be staffing Katherine’s Sweet Shop, making pretend food.

Bookworms

Allison walked into the house yesterday with her nose stuck in a book. She was just thrilled beyond belief that her librarian at school let her check out a Magic Tree House book. From 4:00 to 4:40, she sat in the family room and read aloud from the book. She ‘shined’ the book and held it up for us for see pictures. She then carefully put a tissue in the book to bookmark her spot and closed it to read later.

Tonight we took the kids to Borders. We told them that they could pick one chapter book a piece to take to Boston. Allison picked a hard-bound Magic Tree House book. Katherine picked a Rainbow Magic Fairy book and read the book cover to cover before bed. Allison read the first chapter aloud of her book – so proud to read a big girl book all by herself just like Katherine.

The Body Shop

The girls went with Patty yesterday after school to pick up a couple Body Butters at the Body Shop. With cold weather and dry house, shea butter seemed like a good solution to dry skin. The kids must have really enjoyed their visit. After bath last night, Katherine lined up their “product” and asked us to shop at her store. She gave us the salesperson spiel, asked if wanted to try the moisturizer, and gave us fake money to buy it. She assigned prices to her product and rang up the sale using her play cash register. Katherine’s imagination is boundless.

Spelling Test

Allison recently figured out that she can give Katherine her spelling test. Simply, it involves reading five sentences clearly and slowly. So when she sees us whip out the yellow handout with spelling sentences, Allison rushes in and asks to help. She rolls around Katherine’s bed while reading sentences. It’s fun to watch.

Catching Up

Yes. I haven’t updated the blog in months. 🙂 So, let me try and catchup.

Both girls are working hard at school these days. Katherine asked me a couple weeks ago to help her with math. So…we’ve been practicing lots and lots of problems, rote memorization (ex. 7+8, 9+6), dynamic addition and interesting word problems. Katherine’s been plugging away at dynamic addition almost every night, diligently carrying the one. The kids love the word problems. Several of our sample word problems are as follows:

• Paupau plants two tomato plants in the beginning of the summer. In June, they produce 8 and 5 tomatoes. In July, because of slugs, her production is down to 3 and 5 tomatoes. Then Allison brings over beer from our house to reduce the slug population. In August, the plants produce 9 and 8 tomatoes. How many did she get by the end of the summer?
• Katherine’s classroom goes to the Space Needle for a class trip. There are 20 children. The elevator can take only 5 at a time. How many trips does the elevator need to make?
• Mom and Dad are walking thru the Costa Rica rainforest. We look up and see 5 monkeys. Each monkey has eaten 2 bananas. How many peels should we see on the ground?

Allison is bringing home amazing preschool works. This one caught my attention: “thE LIYIN FISH has SPICKS that can make you sick and make you diy Love ALLISON”  Transcribed it says, “The lion fish has spikes that can make you sick and make you die. Love Allison” Her classroom is studying the ocean and different type of fish, hence the study of lion fish. Katherine and I both looked at the drawn picture, read Allison’s description and had to smile. 🙂 

Both girls are reading up a storm. They recently finished a Geronimo Stilton book about cheese pyramids and moved on to Rainbow Fairy Magic books. Katherine can mow through one in about 20 minutes (they’re pretty fast). Allison read a few chapters aloud last night; she’s a bit slower, but still able to make her way through the book well.

Katherine’s Sweet Shop

Since Katherine was home today with a low grade fever, we had some time to chat about what she wanted to do when she grows up. This is her description of what she wants to do:

• Katherine wants to run “Katherine’s Sweet Shop”
• She envisions Allison working part-time at her store. Since Allison has said she’d like to be a dentist, Katherine said that Allison can work full-time as a dentist above the sweet shop.
• Those kids who get cavities from the sweets can go to Allison to have their cavities filled.
• Both Katherine and Allison would live in a condo above the sweet shop, right next to the dentist office.
• The sweet shop would serve donuts for $1 a piece.
• And, it would serve healthy burgers, unlike Wendys.
• Mom would get a discount on candy. 

Katherine has also used Word to create a menu for her sweet shop and drawn many pictures of her shop. As part of our visit to Boston, I told her we should visit Rosies, so she can see a successful bakery. I’m blown away by how intently she’s been thinking about this.