Bekah Day

I hereby decree today, March 31, 2011, to be Bekah Day.

1. What is Bekah Day?

Bekah day is a celebration of her having finished Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. She is now reading at a solid second-grade reading level. (and she turned 4  a month and a half ago).

2. What are we doing for Bekah Day?

We are making alphabet cut-out cookies and decorating them with red and blue frosting. Decorating the house in green and yellow, and probably huge letters all over the dining room.

3. I can hear you all asking, "but what can I do for Bekah Day?" 

If you want to be a part of Bekah's special day, leave her a comment here. Tell her how proud of her you are, and how much fun it is to read. She will love to read all your messages!!

 

The best part of all of this? She's discovered that reading is fun. She loves to grab a book from her shelf and start to read it. And that has actually made Jasmine more likely to pick a book up and read, as well. Since reading is one of my favorite things to do, it makes me so happy for her!

Happy Bekah Day!

Mirrors

Hudson put on Bekah's hat this afternoon.
The first thing out of his mouth: "Mirror!"

Springtime in Western NY

I love spring. It's officially here.

I love the flowers starting to peek out in our garden.

I love looking in the back yard and seeing the fresh grass starting to grow again.

I love that it doesn't take 10 minutes, for each person, to get ready to leave the house.

I love the spring clothes. I love the pastels and finally not having to wear sweaters all the time.

um, yeah. I love it.

(and yes, I took all these pictures this morning)

Favorites: a few lists

I didn't ask Josh to participate because, well, you'd understand if you knew him. Lists and Josh are not the best of friends. And he's at work.

Bekah's Favorite Things
1. to play with Hudson's toys with him
2. chicken nuggets
3. the swing
4. giraffe, tiger, elephant and zebra
5. playing my Leapster
6. coloring
7. reading books (favorite book: Beauty and the Beast)
8. Song: "if you're happy and you know it"
9. playing Just Dance Kids
10. princesses: Aurora, Belle, and Princess Jasmine
11. favorite time of day: evening (her choice to ask, and answer, the question)
(Me: "Bekah, you're a bit of an overachiever." Bekah: "thanks!")

Jasmine's favorite things

1. play Mario Kart with Daddy and Mommy
2. writing things down
3. ilove to play with Bekah and Hudson
4. I love learning math and learning about the days of the week
5. birthdays
6. hippopotamus
7. Esther, the Girl who became Queen
8. Minnie, Mickey, Goofy and Donald
9. princesses: Aurora and Jasmine
10. book: The Hat

Hudson's favorite things
1. Rella
2. cheese
3. apples
4. tortillas
5. playing with his sisters
6. hugs and kisses
7. holding hands with the girls in the car
8. Toy Story (AnBeyont!)
9. favorite response: "hmm, maybe...hmm."
10. favorite book: Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb

Charla's favorite things
1. Josh
2. the kids
3. my camera
4. coffee
5. the weekend
6. truffles
7. birthdays
8. Christmas
9. Jan Karon
10. Jane Austen

(dressed up as an 80s chick for a party with an online Mommies forum. I was pretty proud of my creation!)

Pretending it's really spring

I like to pretend it's spring.

I'm not the only one. I saw people running in shorts yesterday.

It's 51 right now. We're 4 days from the first day of spring. There is a small chance this could really be it (last year we didn't get anymore snow after the first day of spring) but I'm trying to brace myself for the fact that we could be in for more. Lake Erie is likely starting to thaw, so we could get pummeled. Just praying we're not.

But in the meantime, I took a willing Bekah Ballerina outside for a mini photo-shoot. Her sister wanted nothing to do with my camera, but I'll take what I can get!

Hudson and Babies

My son loves babies.

He is very gentle and sweet to them.

But sometimes his "boy"-ness shows up.

I'm just glad it showed up with Pink Baby and not a real one!!

Sun Flare Fun

Jasmine is now a big fan of sunflare. She picks it out in pictures all the time, and that cracks me up!
As we live in the least-sunny place I know, it's a very exciting thing to have enough sun to get sunflare in any pictures! So I tend to go nuts when I have the chance.
The day I took this picture, I think I got about 100 pictures that had sunflare in them. Because I didn't know when I'd see sun again next!

The Big Reveal

I have been taking pictures of kids for the past two weeks. I have another photo shoot on Friday, another next Tuesday, and a couple more that are more tentative.
But I now have a complete alphabet, so I can finally spill the beans!!

 

(clicking on the poster will take you to its location in my Etsy store)
Aren't they awesome?? I had SO much fun. This is so much more "me" than if I tried to do family portraits for people. I had a lot of younger siblings who wanted no part of the process, and that didn't matter! I had kids that all wanted to be there and were willing to make all the letters I asked them for. And we all had fun!

The next step is to get doubles (and maybe triples?) of letters so I can make custom name posters, and to make posters with things like "Jesus loves me" with just the "me" in kids' pictures (to make it readable).

I hope other people like seeing it as much as I do creating it!!