family game night

I missed some games that joseph and the kids were playing tonight. Joseph was just telling me about them and I thought it was pretty funny and wanted to document it...First, Joseph said that Isabel isn't very good at tic tac toe because he beat her every time. Isabel did beat Ansel, but then he didn't want to play anymore. Isabel told him that he might win the next game and they should keep playing. But Ansel said he was full, he didn't want to play anymore. Isabel insisted that he hadn't eaten anything and couldn't be full. Isabel also did a game of hangman where she picked the word. She did her name. I thought that was pretty funny. I also think it's funny that Isabel knows how to play these games because I never taught her. On Sundays we always asked her about her class at church and most of the time she'll tell us something she learned. A few times she told us they have played hangman. I wonder how many times they've actually played it, since she seems to be almost an expert at it.

new family picture

Since our last family picture did not include Lincoln, we decided it was time to get a new one. Here is our family: Isabel just turned 5, Ansel's almost 3 and Lincoln is 9 months.

spanish

I've been meaning to write this down before I forget. Isabel seems to be handling or enjoying the spanish she learns at school. We were driving to a friend's house and Isabel said "we are leaving our casa (house)." Then she said wait a minute that's wrong. I can't say something and have just the last word be in spanish. That doesn't really make sense and she started laughing at herself. We thought it was pretty funny too.

Early Sunday morning Isabel and Ansel were hanging out and eating breakfast. When I got up Isabel said she had been teaching Ansel spanish. I was intrigued. Isabel said, "Ansel, how do you say 'red' in spanish?" He replied, "rojo." "How do you say white?" "blanco." I was really surprised! It seems like she is picking things up and not hating spanish like she did when I tried to teach it to her when she was little. (For those of you who do not know the story I would speak spanish to her all day and after a few days she started crying and said, "mom, please speak english to me." My heart broke and I decided I would/could not teach her spanish. So, I'm glad that we are finding another way to teach it to her.)

Also, last night we practiced a few of the Spanish sight words she needs to learn for the year and I was surprised at how many she already knew. I just made some flashcards with the color names on them. She practiced and was learning them pretty easily. I was afraid after 30 seconds, she would say something like: i'm too tired of all this hard work. But she didn't. So, hopefully she'll keep up the good work. We are so proud of that girl!

Isabel's 5th birthday

Well, my little girl is getting really BIG. She had a great birthday. Ansel, Lincoln and I had lunch with her at school. It was kinda funny to see the 88 kindergardeners all packed into the cafeteria seats. There were several adults that would walk around and say things like: keep eating, finish up, why aren't you eating that, don't you like it? Isabel got to open her presents right after school. Then the cousins came over to play and eat with us. Then we went over to the cousin's friend's house to see their horse. Isabel still loves horses and there was a lot of room to run around and play with the cousins. It was a nice day. I'm glad that Isabel liked the "princess" dress I got her. I don't really like princesses and pink girly stuff...but Isabel got invited to a princess tea party a while ago and didn't really have anything to wear. She didn't care. She put on a normal dress and we did some things to fancy it up a bit. Anyway, I saw this for a good price and I really liked it. She has already had a lot of fun dressing up in it. (We even let her wear it to church today.)

Isabel had some trouble deciding which kind of cake she wanted for her birthday. She said for a while she wanted a rainbow cake and then finally decided on a pony cake. I surprised her and combined them. Thanks to Cindy who ran out to the store for me and got the skittles and marshmellos.

Before Isabel started school we went to this carnival/amusement park to have fun and spend time together. It was a blast. I love rides and thought for sure that I would out last Isabel. I was surprised when I was wrong. We were gone for 6 hours. I kept asking her if she was hungry or tired and she always replied no, no. Finally, she confessed that she was pretty hungry, but didn't tell me because she didn't want to go home. Well, she was happy to learn that I had planned on buying a snack there. So, we stayed until it started to rain and they closed the rides. We were really lucky to go that day because it was not busy at all and the weather held out long enough for us to enjoy the day. It was real fun to hang out with just Isabel all day. She has only had three days of school and I feel like I never see her. But, I think we are adjusting well to the changes of growing up.

isabel's first day of school

We managed to get one photo before rushing off to school. We have a bit of a commute to school and we had a challenge getting all three kids up and ready way earlier than normal. We were only a few minutes late the first day. After careful consideration and research we decided to send Isabel away to Kindergarten this year. She goes to a school where they teach in spanish in the morning and english after lunch and then a few "specials" like PE, music and art. We figure if all the schools want to have her for a ridiculous 7 hours, at least we'll send her where she can get some spanish in there too.

There was a lot of anticipation leading to the first day of school. We had to buy her school supplies and uniforms. We practiced spanish and talked a lot about what school would be like. She was really excited. I heard her telling Ansel that when we took her to school he could not go with her to her class. Ansel was surprised and asked her why he couldn't go to school with her. It was pretty cute hearing them talk about it. She also practiced packing up her special pony backpack and lunchbox so many times before the big day.

She has always REALLY loved doing things herself and being super independent. So, I wanted her to be responsible for making her own lunches. She was thrilled to pack her own lunch for the first day of school. Tonight before she packed her lunch for the third day of school she said she didn't feel like doing it. I asked what she would eat for lunch if she didn't pack it and she said she wanted me to pack it for her. I was busy cleaning up from dinner so she did it. I hope that we can keep up the routine of her doing it. When I asked her what her favorite thing at school was she said nothing...but she was excited to go back for day #2. So, what more could we want.

Oh, here is a crazy story. So, when Joseph went to pick Isabel up from the first school she was in the line to ride the bus home. (They even wrote her bus number on her hand.) When she walked away with Joseph, the teacher (who doesn't speak much english) came after and asked what was going on, isn't she riding the bus. I don't know HOW Isabel could have gotten on a bus list because I never even got any information on busing because I knew we were not going to do it. Also, we have moved since I enrolled and the school had our OLD address. So, we were a little freaked out thinking of our poor sweet little 4 year old girl getting kicked off a bus in a bad part of town nowhere near where we live now. I'm just very proud of my husband for being early to pick her up. Needless to say, we have personally told the teacher and office several times that Joseph will be picking her up, we updated information over the phone with the school and filled out additional paperwork turned into the office.

strawberries

Lincoln figured out how to use his teeth. He has two on the bottom and two more coming in on top. We found strawberries on sale today and we ALL enjoyed them, especially Lincoln.

dancing

One of our favorite things to do is hang out and listen to Joseph play the guitar. Isabel and Ansel have started running around in a big circle. They go slowly on the slower parts and fast and the faster parts. Well, Joseph and I were both really surprised when we saw Lincoln join in the fun!

clapping

Lincoln has starting doing some new cute things...