Face In The Water

Holly is still in swimming lessons and doing a great job! For a long time she was not enjoying putting her face in the water - we tried working with her in the tub and in the shower. Finally she is trying to swim with her face in the water and I am so proud of her.... because I personally *loathe* swimming with my face in the water (shhh, don't tell her!).

The other night we took the camera with us to take some current photos of her in class - but the shots are 'in motion' and very fuzzy. I am still going to share them as they do show her enjoying class. I think next week I'll try some shots again to see if I can get some better ones.

To the Moon & Back

Today my little Holly hugged me when she got up and said "Mommy, I love you to the moon, the sun and every single little star out there and back. And, that is a lot Mommy!"

My heart grew about ten sizes this morning!

Writing & A Spacer Stick

Holly loves to write. Really loves it! (<--- that just makes my heart smile!)


We try not to really help her with her spelling (as in telling her what to write) but rather help her to walk through sounding out her words to come up with the spelling. We do talk about some basic rules of sounds along the way, for instance what sound t and h make together or the s and h. As she progresses she picks those up and as she is writing she will make the proper connections to her sounds and the correct spelling of those portions of the words. Other than that, her writing is based off of basic phonetic sounds for now - perfectly normal and wonderful all at the same time! I mean who cannot smile when you read a note or picture for 'Ant Soo' (Aunt Sue).


When she writes through her words are a serious run-on of letters that an unsuspecting person would have no idea what to do with. Fortunately Bryan and I have learned to work our way through her writing and not offend her when reading. To help her with this I picked up a great tip from a fellow blogger to offer a 'spacing stick' otherwise known as a Popsicle stick. It works great! As she finishes up a word she then places her spacer stick down and starts her new word on the other side - perfect! Reading is much easier for the adults in her life now!

This says: "Would yoo like to come to mi piknc To Mom an Dad"

OR, 'Would you like to come to my picnic? To Mom and Dad'

Kind of hard to read as one long word.

And, here she is writing a birthday card to her friend using a space stick - much easier to read the individual word.

"To: Gen, Happe Brthda From: Holly"

OR, "To: Gen, Happy Birthday From: Holly"

Museum Of Flight

Saturday we spent the day with Tex & Annette - we enjoyed breakfast together, Museum of Flight and then dinner. A full day of fun! Holly had a great time and did a wonderful job through it all with no nap - amazing!

The Museum of Flight is a large museum filled with airplanes of all shapes and sizes, flying devices, historic pieces, a gallery on space/NASA, movies, Amelia Earhart and a small children's area to boot. You can go on to the Concord and on an retired Air Force One - pretty cool.

There were some areas that are more interesting to myself than others of course, but to really enjoy the museum it will have to be alone with older children. That being said though, Holly really loved the museum and all that it offered! I see many homeschooling opportunities down the road involving the Museum of Flight.

Holly making a rocket with the help of Grandma.

Our astronauts in the family...

Bryan & Tex landing a shuttle. Mine crashed - badly!

Gingerbread Play Dough

Today Holly made some wonderful smelling play dough, gingerbread play dough -- Yummy! The recipe was super easy to follow, very quick and just about the best smelling play dough we have ever made. She loves to do stuff in the kitchen, but even we can't eat to many baked goods. So, play dough fit the bill perfectly - a great winter treat to have some fun with. We broke out the gingerbread cookie cutters that Grandma Annette gave Holly last year - a fun way to use those too.

Gingerbread Play Dough

1 cup flour

1/2 cup salt

2 tsp cream of tarter

1 cup water

1 tsp vegetable oil

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp all spice

1 tsp ginger

Mix well. On medium heat stir for about 3-5 minutes until the shine changes a bit and balls up. Let warm for a few moments on the counter then play to your hearts content! Store in a Ziploc bag.

Lego Fun

This Christmas was a big Lego holiday for Holly.... and Bryan! She had a basic set already and really enjoyed building with it. We took her to the Lego store last month and she had a really nice time selecting a bunch of random Lego pieces to add to her collection. Over the holiday Jingle the Elf left her a Christmas Tree Lego set and a Snowman Lego set - which she had a great time putting together.

Well, much to her excitement she also received a large farm set for Christmas and a tractor set. As well, when Holly did her shopping for Daddy for Christmas she chose a tractor set for Daddy and a car/motorcycle set. So, we have a LOT of new Lego's in our home right now.

Bryan and Holly have been spending time slowly putting together all of her new sets. Bit by bit, her little farm will be assembled for play. She is pretty excited. Yesterday I was out for most of the day but when I came home she could not wait to tell me all about the parts they built while I was gone!

I love that she enjoys Lego's - they are a wonderful toy that offers great skill building opportunities like logic skills, direction following, fine motor, etc. And, I love that Bryan really works Holly through the building vs doing it for her. She is always so very proud of her work when she is done and you can't get a toy that offers much better fun than that!

Volcanic Eruption

Santa Clause brought Holly a science kit to build a volcano and erupt the volcano. She had asked for this from Santa and come Christmas morning she was eagerly opening gifts wondering if he might have brought her a volcano... and finally, YES!!! He did!

Bryan and Holly built the volcano on Friday evening, dried over night and was soon ready for an attempt at an eruption.

We had taken a trip this summer up to Mount St. Helen's which had a real impact on Holly. Her curiosity of volcanoes was peeked and since we have read books, watched shows and really learned a lot about volcanoes. After our eruption in the kitchen she kidnapped Uncle Don to the living room to watch her video we got of Mount St. Helen's. A good time was had!