She is just so dang smart!

That little Emily of mine...just a smartie! This is a total brag on my daughter post. I want to remember the remarkable things she says and does at this age.





So a few weeks ago I heard my little one sing Dr. Jean's "Days of the Week" song. I instantly began singing with her. She was excited that I knew it and I was thrilled that she knew it. It was one of those songs that I sang to my own kindergarten students just a few years ago. I am singing with her and we are looking at the calendar and she is pointing to the days of the week. I loved it. Then I asked her what day starts with the 'm" sound and she said Monday, what day begins with a 'w' and she said Wednesday, and what day has the 'th' sound and she said Thursday. By gosh my kid is a Mensa member. Man I sure hope I am not setting her bar too high. :)


So fast forward to today. I am in carpool and the teacher brings Emily to the car with this brown paper bag tied to her waist. I asked her teacher what is this and here is the conversation that commenced:

Me: Mrs. Mirla what is she wearing?

Mirla: Emily what are you?

Emily: A opossum

Mirla: What is this? (Points to bag)

Emily: A pouch

Mirla: What kind of animals have pouches?

Emily: Marsupials

Me floored and Mirla genuinely proud of Emily's recollection

WHAT!!!! My child is listening and learning about nocturnal animals this month.

So as I am strapping her into her carseat she tells me again, "Marsupials have pouches for their babies like opossums and kangaroos." Then she pulls out the cutest craft from her pouch. A baby opossum. A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E!

My girl amazes me with her vast vocabulary, knowledge, and skills. If I had to give her a kindergarten preassessment now, at 3, I am pretty sure she would pass it. She knows her name, can read it, and spell it. She knows her letters and their sounds, colors, numbers, and shapes including sphere. She knows her positional words, and has great pre reader skills. I really think if I took the time every night she would be reading in a year. We read for pleasure now but maybe I should consider teaching her how to read. She has great articulation so something for me to obsess about and consider.

I hate that she misses the cut off for kindergarten by three days! Hate it. I know she will be more than ready at five and hate to make her wait till six. What can ya do? Oh well. I am just grateful that she loves school, loves learning, and I pray that she will always feel that way. I am so happy that she has had such a great start at her preschool with the four teachers that she has had so far. She is indeed a blessed little girl.

Mom's Club

Normally Wednesdays are my only days where I don't HAVE to leave my house unless I want to. It is normally my day at home to get things done around the house. Today would have been the same except today I began a women's bible study for moms. I went with a friend from Emily's school. Our girls have been together in the same class for two years and are sweet friends. Ella's mom, Kim, had made mention of this study group a few times and when I asked her about it she sent me the info and told me to come. I am so glad I did. The group is being lead by a veteran mom of six. Her stories were great and she had a real way about her incorporating scripture and true life trying to raise children in a Christian home. I really enjoyed it and listening to others give their testimonies. The last time I did a formal bible study outside or religious education was in sixth grade in Alabama. Believe it or not they used to lead a bible study before school at a public school. That would never happen today! I loved it then and hope to have the same feelings this time. Not only did I enjoy it but Emily loved going to her own class, and even Michael liked the nursery. Let's hope it stays that way. While I am giving up my only free day I know that I will get so much more than if I had stayed home and cleaned. I do that everyday anyways.

The Weekend Update-It's Fall Y'all

So this weekend was bitter. Not even bitter sweet...well maybe a little. Friday evening we went out to eat and walked around the mall a little. They have a soft play scape for little kids to play and burn off steam while parents rest from shopping. Emily has played in there before and really likes it but this was Michael's first time now that he is toddling. He LOVED it! I looked in our diaper bag a boo the camera wasn't in there. But trust me he was precious! He was so happy to walk around with other kids and play. He just smiled and smiled. Later that night after the two tiny ones went to bed we played board games with the older two. Guessure was hysterical. They essential act out the word on the card and the other person has to guess before time is up. Jake was so funny. He did "propose" for porpoise. Ahahah! We laughed a lot during that game. Jonathan is really good at it. We also played trivial pursuit too. Jonathan won that game also. Our usual game is UNO but we didn't even get to it before it was already midnight. We had to call it a night. Here are some pics of the boys being boys.




Saturday was my bitter sad day! Jonathan went back to his dad's house and I cried. I starting crying the night before. Cried pretty much off and on all day Saturday too. To top it off the dawgs lost. Love the team but they are sucking this year. Sunday was a better day. Took the kids to church and the homily was amazing. Just what I needed to hear. I felt like everyone was looking at me as I sat there a cried. It is amazing how God knows exactly what you need to hear when you need to hear it. I hope I can always hear Him even when he whispers.
This morning was busy! Jake has testing all week so I am waking him up earlier so he can sulk, eat a better than normal breakfast, and be ready for testing first thing. Michael decided he wanted to get up too and woke up at 6:30 roaring to go. We had a moms fellowship breakfast at Emily's school this morning so Emily went to childcare with all her friends from her class, and Michael went to nursery. We had to leave early because Emily had ballet. When I got her she cried. She didn't want to leave her friends or school. I hope she always loves school. She was fine by the time we got to ballet. She did ballet feet, walked on her tip toes, did little leaps, danced with ribbon and pony sticks. They also do a devotional with the girls. Her class is at a church here and I really love this church. It's huge but so warm and inviting. She loves ballet there. Thank goodness. I am glad to get a girly girl with all these boys in the house. When class is over she normally gets a sticker or a stamp. She loves when she gets a stamp. Here is her stamp from today.

Looking forward to some mexican food tonight with the moms in Emily's preschool class. It's always nice to have a little mom time. :) Here are some more pictures from the weekend. Enjoy.

15 months

Happy 15 months Michael!
You are such a big boy now. I am sad that you are growing up soooo fast!

Somethings that you are doing:

You sleep like a champ! A good 2-3 hour nap after lunch and in bed by 7:45 on most nights. You sleep all night and are normally up at 7. Mommy needs to learn to go to sleep earlier because she is dragging in the morning.

You eat everything. Seriously! It is so refreshing since your sister won't eat anything. I am hopeful that you won't follow her lead. You have just switched to whole milk and love it. You still take a morning bottle and probably will for a while...I am just not ready to give up that baby-ness.

You wear size 12 months-18 months clothing. Mostly 12 months. You wear a size 5 wide shoe and a size 3 diaper.

You love to sing and squeal. Actually squeal really loud! Yesterday while at the resturant an older lady approached to ooooh and aaaah all over you and you loved it. You waved for her and babbled at her. Your so social.

Your most proud of this.




You just learned how to walk around two weeks ago. You love it. You would walk to the front door and back over and over again. It makes you really happy to be up on your feet. It makes me a tad bit sad. Your no longer a baby but a toddling toddler. I love you baby boy!

Moving In...

I created this new site because I was so annoyed with the old one. I could not get one of the features to delete. So since it is a new, fresh start to blogging I made this site and let me tell you, it took the whole two hour nap time to do it too. It is still not perfect but it is a work in progress. Anyone know how to make a slide show in the header of pictures? How to add an image divider between posts. Those are the last of my to do's here. I guess I should be proud I did this much today. The kidlets are ready for dinner so off I go.

Dare I say....I am back to blogging?

So it has been awhile since I even tried to sit down a blog. A LONG while! Looks like my last post was mere days before our last baby was born. So a recap then:
July 1st Michael Kane was born! On our anniversary on his own timing! Pure love! Here he is as of today!


August 2009- Emily started preschool at the church two mornings a week and LOVED it!
Sept 2009- Emily turned 2! The FLOOD of the century! Were we affected? Oh yes! FEMA claim and all. We were really fortunate that it was minimum damage but I still get freaked every time it rains
Oct 2009- Jake turns 10!
March 2010- My 34th birthday, Gus became a US citizen
April 2010- Jonathan turned 16! Whaaaaaat?
July 2010- Michael turns 1! Jake had a seizure, was diagnosed with Benign Rolandic seizures which he should outgrow in the next couple of years and we got 3,000 worth of medical bills, Gus had a great review at work, and we took a trip to Disney World!
August 2010- School started back, Jake went to 5th grade, Emily is doing three days of preschool, and Emily started ballet! She loves it.
September- Emily turned 3! Jake flew by himself for the first time and Jonathan came home for two weeks
Here is a picture of Emily at her party. She is a big girl now. Forgot to mention she also got her hair cut for the first time too.


A brief overview and I know I am missing a lot. I am not even going to pretend that I will update often but I am making it my goal to post an update once a week. I really want this to be a scrapbook of memories for us since we have all these great pictures on our computer but not printed and in books. Hopefully this will turn into something worth having printed and turned into a memory book. Which by the way, I think is a fantastic service available.

It's been forever!

I have taken some time away from blogging but hope to be back into the swing of things. I am 39 weeks pregnant now and just sitting around waiting for baby boy to come on his own time. I had an ultrasound last week and baby was measuring 7 lbs 12 oz so we will see if he ends up being big after all. Aside from that I have felt pretty good minus the nasty heartburn, and lower back pain. I have been having contractions but nothing much is going on. I do have a dr appt tomorrow so should know more then. Of course I could go into labor now but hoping to hold off to the very end. This is the last baby so I want to wait to the end, go to the hospital the old fashion way and not induced, and enjoy all these last moments. There is zero plans for any more babies from this mom!

Emily is still a wonderfully sweet little toddler with a ridiculous vocabulary! Holy cow we got a smartie! She can count to twenty, recognizes her numbers from 1-9 but is totally confused with zero. Is it a zero, a "o", or a circle. She recognizes 20 of 26 letters in the alphabet. She also knows her shapes including oval and octagon. She pointed out the ADT sign in the yard and said octagon. She speaks in mostly complete sentences, for the most part. Can you tell we are so proud of her? She is pleasant and sweet and I hope that she will continue to be when she becomes a big sister any day now.


Jacob is still a sweet boy but is coming of preteen age! He forgets his boundaries and gets a little mouthy at times. I know it is the age but grrrrrr irritating! Aside from that he is an amazing brother and is so excited for the baby to come. He is sporting a ridiculous tan now! All those days in the pool...boy is glowing! :) He looks so handsome!

Jonathan is home for the birth of the baby. He is excited as well. He has made some great changes while at his dad's house. He definitely is maturing...thank goodness! We still have issues with him letting things go and dropping it but for the most part a great deal of growing up has been done! :) It looks like he will be moving back home since his father has decided that he should join the military again. I feel so bad for the boys as I know that their relationship with him will dwindle to even less than it is now.

Gus is doing well. Although he is still totally unaware of all the things that need to be done and needs a honey do list, at least he is getting it done. He is starting a new job tomorrow. Moving away from technical instruction and into a role of management over a team of people. To be honest I am not hundred percent sure what he is doing...I know it has to do with Microsoft, software, legal teams....yeah, I don't know. I am excited for him to have this new chance, the chance to grow and advance. Oh, and to have a normal family schedule since he will be able to come home at a normal time. :) YAY!!!

So that is our update. We have been doing fun things, taking trips, and playing with the kids around town but that is a whole other chapter for blogging.