I first want to apologize to my friends and family for not keeping up with this blog. Life has caught me at midstream and I did not realize how many people love to receive these little blogs about how the girls are doing. I find that we always have a busy life, always had one, and I need to make time for the things that will be remembered and enjoyed later in life by my girls and others.
Olivia and Juliana
Through these past months the girls have grown into amazing little girls. Life in our house is so different than when they were babies. We actually have conversations with these little beings. I am very happy to say that we have made it through the tantrum stage. It really only lasted about a month. Discipline was mainly time out, but there was an occasional spanking that came along. Amazingly Olivia does not respond to spankings. She just rubs her leg and then looks at you. I am not a fan of spanking as it is so I resorted to timeout and taking an item away or privilege away, which this works for Juliana too. After the learning curve for all of us, the girls settled down and for the most part, listen to us. The challenge now is to get them to listen the first time. I found that if I turn it into the game of who can line up the fastest or sit down the fastest wins, they move really quick. Pulling out the teacher ideas now.
Along the lines of teaching, Mike and I have decided that we will be homeschooling our girls. With both of us teachers and experience with little ones, we feel that we can give them the best education currently. We will evaluate this every year making sure it is the best route for our girls. This past Wednesday was our first day of preschool. Yes, they are only 3 1/2 years old, but they have shown an amazing interest in school and wanting to learn. Another indicator was when I put a book on CD in the player, the girls sat and colored for 2 hours while listening to the book. After each book was read, I asked them what it was about and they both told me the main idea. Not bad. If they could keep their attention span on an item for 2 hours I thought that I could try them out in school this year. Fortunately we do not have to sign up under an umbrella school until they are in Kindergarten.
School right now for the girls consists of waking up at 7AM and having breakfast and getting dressed. Yes, I do dress them. I have found in the past that getting dressed for the day makes me and my children more productive and awake. After breakfast we go upstairs to the girls' classroom. We start our day off with quiet time. This allows me to gather myself if I don't have a chance to before the girls wake up. During this time the girls have an activity book and a coloring page. Once they complete these, they move to our circle time corner for their Bible lesson and activity. After Bible we go through our circle time which includes: counting, ABCs, Number of the Week, Word of the Day, Sign of the Day, Letter of the Week, Months of the Year and Days of the week. After Circle time we move to their desks where I instruct them on writing the letter of the week. We first write it in the air and then on their dry erase board. Once finished with handwriting we move to Phonics. This is usually a couple work pages. Then its time to play. I let the girls play for a half an hour to relax their brains. When we get back into our day we work on the number of the week by singing some songs and doing some work pages. Usually art or music will follow and then its time for lunch. That would be a less detailed description of our day. We finish school at noon. The rest of the day is for nap and play or running errands with Mama.
Juliana
Olivia
Our trips into town have become a lot easier. They can climb into and out of their seats with no problem and even unbuckle the top portion of their car seats. We are recently potty trained during the day. For the most part the girls remain dry. We have a few accidents maybe once or twice a week. They do exceptionally well when we go into town and tell me they have to use the potty. Finally the purchase of diapers is getting less and less. Unfortunately we need to wait a little longer to get the night training down. I believe that will come with their development. Some of our trips into town involve a stop at the track to run. Tuesday and Thursday we join a friend for a short run. Afterwards, the girls have a chance to run. This can range from 1/2 a mile to a full mile. This depends on how much energy they have in the morning. The girls joined me for a local race. Even though they could not run the 5K, they had a mock kids triathlon. Juliana did it 4 times. LOL She got a medal for each time she completed it. I too won a medal for first place in my age division. Such a great moment to share it with my family.
Along the lines of development, the girls have really developed in the area of music. This has been amazing to watch as I have never seen the girls excel so quickly in any area. Mike and I decided that when Juli and Livi turned 3 we would put them in some kind of activity. They were already in Kindermusik and loved that so much. We decided to continue them in that this fall, but we needed something through the summer. We decided that we would try the girls in violin. Mainly because a friend of the family invited us to a toddler intro class and thought the girls would like it. It turned out that they LOVED it. We chose to continue violin lessons which the girls are in now. Their teacher is Mr. Daniel. He is amazing with little kids and does really well with keeping them engaged in music. They are in a class of their own. Mostly because they are breezing through the material that Mr. Daniel gives them. At home, we practice 10-15 minutes a day or every other day. Depending on how the girls are. If they are tired, I don't push it. I want this to be enjoyable and fun. We are hoping they will get their actual violins soon. They are currently learning different rhythms. They have most of the rhythms but we will learn on memorization of them.
Girls with Mr. Daniel
Olivia
Juliana
As you can see we have been running around a lot and growing a lot. I will do my very best to keep you all updated. I hope this helps with what is going on in our lives. Have a blessed week.
Picking green beans from our garden.
Olivia and Juliana
