ABC easy as 123

So we have Sesame Street flash cards that my good friend Rachel gave Brady for her 2nd birthday. Karl (just home from deployment) took upon himself to go through them every night with her to teach her to recognize her capital letters. We were amazed at how fast she picked up on them, and how much she loved being drilled. She would go get the cards throughout the day to work on. She learned the whole alphabet within roughly 6 weeks.

 

Now that Brady is in preschool she is being exposed to the kindergarten work of letter sounds. So we have gone through the same flash cards a few times noting the sounds, on average she would know 2-3, like P or H or T or K.

 

While going through them with Brady, Reese showed a lot of interest, so even though it was super early to work on letters with Reese we went ahead and would tell her the letter and then Brady the sound. Reese showed SO MUCH interest in learning her letters, it has now become our post dinner ritual. Like Brady, Reese seeks them out to practice throughout the day. We have been doing them for two weeks now, Brady still has 2-3 sounds each night that she knows.

 

Reese after the first week knew 5 letters!!! W, H, I, O, Y!!!! Well tonight, after two weeks of flashcards, she got 11 of them correct!!! W, H, I , O, Y, P, B, S, V, M, N!!!!

My little Forrest Gump

Do you remember this post where I walked a 5K and Brady decided she wanted to exercise all day. Well that desire never went away. She would randomly run and say that she is exercising! Well, now that I am trying to exercise on a regular basis and so is Karl she says it all the time.

 

On Monday (Karl’s day off) we all went on base to run on the sea wall. The whole time I had both girls in the double stroller, Brady was asking to exercise. So we let her.

 

 

We decided to get Brady some running shoes, so that she is running around in mary janes, since as you can tell she has the desire and skill to run.

 

She was VERY excited about her new shoes and wanted to exercise right away. That night Brady, Karl and Dewy went for a run.

 

Well Wednesday, her day off of preschool, the girls and I went exercising. Brady got herself ready…

I thought she looked more ready to join a roller derby, but she insisted this is the outfit she needed to exercise!

 

 

On my iPhone I have an AWESOME app that coaches me through interval training to work me up to running instead of walking to exercise. Well the app (MiCoach) also can track your speed and distance for a ‘free workout’. So today I tracked Brady as she choose the speed and distance.

For a Brady lead workout, we went 9.5 minutes, almost 1/2 mile, burned 69 calories (that is adjusted to my height/weight). That obviously equates to a 19 minutes mile. However, it tells you your pace the whole time, so during the times she choose to run she got to the speed of a 9 minute mile!

Taylor Swift Mania…

Kim, my mother in law, sends me all her old People magazines. I love getting to read these at my pleasure and it is always fun when they come in the mail. However, Brady gets just as excited about them too. She flips through every page to find pictures of Taylor Swift to put on her wall. She can spot the smallest pictures and will spend 30 minutes at a time flipping through all the old magazines hoping to find one that she may have missed. She also is very sweet and shares some of the pictures with her little sister. Here is the result of this obsession…

Well recently, due to her upcoming album release, she graced the cover of Glamour Magazine. Last night when I went to my good friend Kristen’s house for dinner, and sure enough she had the magazine there since she subscribes to the magazine. You should have seen Brady’s face when Kristen gave it to her to keep.

Well this Brady flipped through EVERY page to find SEVERAL Taylors! Again, she was very nice and shared with Reese. So now for the ‘after’ shots of the wall….

 

As you can see they both like to count their Taylors. Brady is now up to 38 and Reese has 8! Give us time and I think we may have an ‘accent wall’ completely covered in Taylors!

Bradyisms: The Final Chapter….

This is the final chapter because I don’t think it gets much funnier then this…

 

Today I went grocery shopping with Brady, while Karl was at home with Reese. We also stopped at the NEX to buy a couple things and looked at the magazines.

 

So when we got home Karl asked Brady what did she do with Mommy today.

 

Brady’s response: “Mommy was looking for a sister wife!”

 

OMG Out of the blue, that came out of her little mouth! I mean, I will have to say that is my new favorite show on TLC and I think I have discussed it with a friend or two in her presence. I guess she hangs onto every word I say! But it was not a topic of conversation the last couple of days.

You give an inch, and they take a mile…

Yesterday, the weather was so nice I decided to do something I haven’t done…let Brady take her “inside toys” outside. I told her she could set up the tent for Cinderella. Just so you know that would be a tiny 3 inch doll and a 6 inch doll house tent. That was the “inch” I gave her….this is the mile she took….

 

That green bag is one of those reusable shopping bags and it is FULL of doll house toys. And the red ‘market bag’ is full of the pretend food from her kitchen. She wanted to have a picnic.

Wordless Wednesday: Hand-thrown by me, painted by the girls…

Sleepover Time

Wednesday night Brady asked us to have a sleepover. She wanted to sleep in her sleeping bag and let Reese sleep in her toddler bed. Since she had preschool the next two mornings we told her that she would have to wait until Friday night when she didn’t have preschool in the morning. Well, she didn’t forget that promise. So for our good night story we read Corduroy’s Sleepover.

 

Then all the girls got tucked in…

 

After ten minutes of them slowly getting more and more hyper, they ended up in their perspective beds. They both were very upset that I didn’t let them finish having the sleepover. I think they would have been up until midnight if I left them in there alone.

Weather that makes me smile…

Today was one of those days… I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. We had all the windows open in the house and I just had a feeling of bliss. It is funny how weather can do that for me!

 

After dinner we all went outside together and really soaked in the PERFECT temperature! WE threw the ball with the dogs, spun the girls around, threw them in the air, etc.

 

I loved this time of simple happiness with my family…

 

  

In this last picture, Brady laid down and said “I am worn out, I need a doctor to check my belly.”  Who knows!

Happy little math teacher

When Karl and I began our discussion last winter about whether to send Brady to preschool, one of my big hesitations was what she would pick up from other kids. I was thinking what words would she come home saying!

 

Well as of today she brought home new words that I have never heard her say….

 

SQUARE-BASED PYRAMID

CONE

SPHERE

CYLINDER

CUBE

 

Okay, so my little math heart is SO SO SO happy right now!!!! Today was the first time I heard her discuss something that I hadn’t covered in some form or fashion at home. I was drinking a soda out of a can and Brady had a water bottle, she said we both had pyramids. She was trying to place her new terms correctly. I brought it up at dinner to tell Karl, not knowing that she actually could correctly identify 3D shapes if we got some out for her to choose from. I had to cut the square-based pyramid from paper, but then we were able to use a tissue box, bouncy ball, canned good, and a play-doh cone. I tried my best to get a good video but it wasn’t good timing after dinner. However, this is what she would do….She would pick up a shape, say its name, and pass it for all of us to repeat the name while we were holding it.

 

I couldn’t have been more proud, so I guess this preschool thing isn’t such a bad thing afterall…again I am reaffirmed that I have choosen the right preschool for Brady!

The things I learned…

by getting the worst case of food poisoning EVER!

 

• I have an amazing husband (yes, I already knew this but he still amazed me). He took care of me and the girls and didn’t complain a single time. He even came home in the middle of the day on Monday to help out and feed the girls lunch while I napped.
• I have amazing daughters (yes, I already knew this too, but they still amazed me). When all I could do to survive was throw dry cereal at them and water bottles then turn on the TV, they went with it. Reese even decided that Rice Krispies is good with water in it.
• A house gets messy REALLY fast if you aren’t constantly cleaning up behind yourself.
• Brady has a threshold of how much TV she can watch in a day. By hour 3 of TV, she asked me to please turn off the TV.
• the hard but fast way to jump start weight loss, getting the worst case of food poisoning ever! I am now only need to lose 5 pounds to reach my goal, not 10 like I blogged about last week.

Boy, am I glad to be feeling better. There is still a lot to do to catch up, like put away the groceries I bought on Sunday right before the illness struck me. But I am just glad to be able to walk across the house without needing to rest!

Family Night at MSP

Tonight was family night at Brady’s preschool. There was pizza and then the kids got to take their families around and show them the ‘work’ they do during the week. It was so much fun to see Brady in action and to meet her friends. Unfortunately Karl had a night flight and didn’t get to join us.

This is one of many pets they have in the room. “One is in a box outside, but you can’t go see it anymore” The class had a hamster burial today!

The girls are sitting in the library. Only two kids are allowed at a time. Above them is the loft that only one kid is allowed in at a time, currently the loft is closed.

This is Brady with her friend Piper. They have become fast friends, as you can see. They only are together on Fridays.

 

“Water work” is what I hear the most about. She has always loved to transfer water.

This is her red folder that she keeps her work in. She also has a pink ‘germ’ (journal) in there as well.

 

Certain work requires the students to roll out a mat and do the work on the floor. Reese decided it would be fun to lay out on another kid’s mat they left behind. The work Brady showed me on this set of pictures is a collection of objects are put under the cloth, then she removed one object and asked us what is missing.

I think Piper and Brady love to work together!

Craft Time with Auntie Andi

Auntie Andi came to visit this past weekend. We were in crafty moods. We did tie-dyed Halloween shirts, painted the pottery I threw on the wheel a couple weeks ago, water-color painting, painted canvases, and went to art class. Well this got us talking about the crafts we did as a kid with my mom. We thought about those plastic sticks that we would melt in a pot of boiling water and make earrings and bows out of when it was soft. We searched it on the internet, it is apparently called ‘friendly plastic’. We had to buy some and give our hands a try at the new techniques. Well, we definitely need more practice (and the right tools).

Well it didn’t come out like we hoped, so maybe it can be a bookmark?

Here are the pictures of our other crafty adventures that were successful!       

Of course there was still time to watch a movie and get manicures and pedicures!

 

Thanks for taking your time off between jobs to come visit us Auntie Andi!

And the ‘weight’ is on!

 

So as some as you know, I stop taking a medicine, Topamax, back in July. Within three weeks of being off the medicine I had gained 9 pounds. Besides when I was pregnant I have never had this happen before. I first took it causally,  tried to deal with it by increasing exercise, but saw no results.

 

Well, I needed something to be done because now half of my pants/capri pants didn’t fit, and I REFUSE to buy the next size up. I have heard so many great things about Weight Watchers that I decided to sign up for the online program (there is a app for the iPhone). To tell you how much of a lifestyle change I needed: The day before I started I calculated what my daily points were (when I eat what I want) I had 55 points. The program set up a daily allowance of 21 points for me. Yikes, I was eating more then twice the amount I should have!!!!!

 

So I tried the diet for 3 days, and as of this morning I quit. Yes, I quit. Here is why, I felt guilty eating such things as fruit or a simple plain turkey sandwich on wheat bread, because they were a couple points. It isn’t the plan for me, especially since I am only trying to lose 10 pounds.

 

SO I am writing down my new plan, so I can hold myself accountable:

 

• I am going to snack healthy: fresh fruits/veggies, half of a turkey sandwich, yogurt, salad
• When I am eating fast food, I will make good decisions about the ‘entree’ and get fruit instead of fries
• After dinner, I will not eat anything else. (Karl eats a dessert every night and I had gotten in the habit of joining him)
• I will be conscious of my portion sizes.

Hopefully by the holiday time I will be able to blog again, that 1. I stuck to my plan and 2. my 10 pounds are a thing of the past. Wish me luck!

go Wolfpack!

We decided to break out the NCSU cheerleading outfits for tonight’s game. Well most of you know Brady is a tiny girl that stays in the same size through multiple season. I assumed that her cheerleading dress would still work.

 

Here is her in it last year:

 

 

Boy was I shocked when she put it on today…

 

So it may be a little short now, so now she gets to wear her big girl cheerleading outfit! (she is trying to imitate Karl doing the wolfpack sign)

 

 

Guess who gets to wear the dress now?

 

When I took the first picture of Reese (who napped through all the previous pictures of Brady) I asked her to say go wolfpack, and she threw her hands out just like that! It is in her blood!!!!!