Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, September 1 - 3, 2015

Tuesday was pretty much spent watching one of the Pooh movies on Netflix. And drawing pictures for a scrapbook she was making (one of which was of her wearing a Norman mask and it was super surreal and awesome). But when I mentioned offhand that the story of them substituting Piglet for Baby Roo and hoping Kanga wouldn't notice was my favorite part of the books, she got out the book and started reading. And then she read and read, and she got to one of the poems and she cracked up, and she read some more, and I got out the other book, and she it. And then she drew some more pictures (of course).

Wednesday was almost exclusively taken up by Lucy making many episodes of a TV show about lizards. She got her little plastic lizards and had them do stuff in front of her tablet camera. They're actually impressively coherent -- there are three main characters, all with their own personality quirks, and each episode starts the same way: Ronaldo Lizard is sleeping in his bed, he wakes up with a start realizing his alarm hasn't gone off, grabs his bag and his travel mug, and goes off to a different job, where two lizards are waiting to show him how they do the job. There is also a special episode where they watch Star Wars and decide to make their own Star Wars movie (so meta). (Also it should be noted that the last time Lucy watched a Star Wars movie she was 2 and she does not remember this. But she found my vintage pop-up Star Wars books the other day and has been reading them.) She would shoot an episode, and then come show it to me. And then all morning Thursday, she's been rewatching them. Here is the episode where Ronaldo goes down to the docks.

Wednesday is also library day, and before she had a massive screaming, flailing frustration freak out that I handled very calmly and refused to be embarrassed about (which drained every last piece of my emotional energy and then I was cranky with everyone the rest of the day -- you win some, you lose some), she made some really cool digital art on the computer!  There's a program where you can take webcam photos and then edit them with a paint program. She started a series of photos of her playing Blue's Clues. It was going to be super cool! Here's the one she finished:



Also this drawing of one of the Disney Fairies cooking? (I really like the egg being cracked into the bowl!)

A large portion of Thursday afternoon was spent using both Star Wars pop-up books plus the inventions pop-up book as sets for some of her Duplo people to have adventures on.

Then she said she wanted something new from the Homeschooling Cabinet (TM), so I opened it up and she picked these dress up fashion plate type things where you switch out swatches of fabric to make new clothes for the figures (kind of like these). Apparently that was great fun.

Thursday also meant the first Girl Scout meeting of the year. Big group, ice breaker type things. She had to ask some people what they are most scared off, and one of the grown ups said "credit cards!" so on the drive home we had a great talk about how credit cards work and how Norman and I use them and why they might be scary to some people.

Wednesday and Thursday, August 26 & 27, 2015

Wednesday:

Library, as usual. Norman put a hold on the Lumberjanes collection that had an issue she hadn't read in it, so she pretty much just plonked herself down in the children's section and read it. While she did that, I looked through all the juvenile graphic novels and picked some out that I thought she might like. She read two of them while we were there when she was done with Lumberjanes. Then she drew a picture. Then she made friends with a brother and sister (the sister's name was also Lucy) and they bonded over Lego books.

She made me a bracelet! Clever design, really. (A strip of newspaper and foam stickers)

Oh and she finished that fish lantern that we got in the Kiwi Crate.

And she wrote "LUCY MOM B-DAY" on her leg, reportedly because those are the words she can spell.

Thursday:

She's been all over her Girl Scout manual the last few days. She's been like doing some of the activities and reading the whole thing (again). Some stuff about money and who knows what all else.

Somehow we started talking about the Quints (some characters on Curious George) and we couldn't remember all of their names, so I looked it up, and then she pretty much just read the whole Wikipedia article of the list of Curious George characters.

Also watched some Curious George.

I found out about Amazon Underground (which deals in completely free apps with completely free in-app purchase so like heck yes sign me right up), and put a fun little cooking app on her tablet, so she played that some.

Read Lumberjanes some more, and there's something about 100 cookies and a Yeti or something? She started talking about how if she had 100 cookies she would trade them for 10 cookies because 100 is way too many. So then she was muttering something like, "...and 9 times 10 is 90, so I would give up 90 cookies!" Ummmm yes. Yes you would. o.O

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Disney Fairies movies

She figured out how to turn on the Spanish audio and subtitles on Netflix.

She made and wrapped some birthday presents for me from some of the characters from the Fairies movies. I opened them right up because she used some of her blankets that she sleeps with to wrap them. She wrote an illustrated story called Beauty and the Bees about a male fairy ("sparrowman") who gets turned into a bee and then a fairy falls in love with him, etc, etc. Apparently the title is a throwaway joke from one of the movies, but she drew it for me!

And also a field journal by the disbelieving dad of the human girl in one of the movies. Illustrated rock journal! With bonus butterflies!







(I'm really digging her spelling process. She still puts "water writing" in the middle, but more and more often she's put the first letter of the word, and sometimes even the last letter too! Progress!)

We worked on a Kiwi Crate, which means we built rubber-band-powered paddle boats and decorated sails for them, and started on a mod-podged fish lantern! (to be completed tomorrow)

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Lots of writing today... and drawing.

She made a quiz sheet for me to answer and then wrote down what her stuffed animals thought too.



She saw a post on FB about the questions I ask her every so often (to see how her answers change) and wanted me to ask them again, but I wasn't going to, so I said maybe she should ask me questions instead, so she did, and she drew the answers. (She got frustrated when she was almost done and crossed it out. But then after she calmed down she copied it all again to finish it. Progress!)



She drew a picture that has something to do with that Mickey Mouse Christmas movie.



She saw this anagram in one of the Lumberjanes comments and was obviously smitten (we are not immune to finding potty humor hilarious).



She learned about polygons "tiling the grid" from a Tumblr post I saw and showed to Norman. So then she tried to do it with hearts and circles.



She read a bunch more from the Jesus Storybook Bible.

She got out her Pop-Up House of Inventions to read, and then decided that it would of course make a great dollhouse with her Duplo people.

We went to the library and she did some art paint program on the children's computer.

She had her last swim lesson. I signed us up for membership at the place with the indoor pool, so we'll go swimming once a week for the foreseeable future.

Oh yeah and she took some photos and filmed an intro for some new show about lizards that she's planning to make.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Woke up and immediately started reading her Disney Fairies comic book.

Came with me to Bible study -- watched Frozen (kinda) and used her tablet to play a hair salon game and mess around with the calculator.

Watched Pokemon.

She and I played a new board game I found online last night. Kind of simple, but you get to build your minifig before you start. :-)

Then consequently (long story) we talked about dimensions (one-dimension, two-dimension, three-dimension -- lines, squares, cubes).

She built a Pokemon battle ground (whatever they're called) for the grass types:

Watched a bit of Tangled.

Played outside in the sprinkler. Got brave enough to try to stop the flow of water with her hands, her butt, and a shovel. Decided that she and the sprinkler were going to be BFFs and gave it half of a leaf as a friendship charm.

Built some more cool Lego stuff.

Watched a Disney Fairies movie.

Took some plastic Easter eggs and a bunch of her various small toys and made "toy surprises" like the lady opens on DisneyCollector. Then she used her kids camera to film herself opening them in the style of DisneyCollector (and with amazingly similar syntax and vocal cadence...). 

And then she played outside some more.

And then she took her Pokemon book to bed with her. 

Friday, May 15, 2015

Last theater class -- they weren't preparing for a show, so they just played the movement, self-control, and direction-following games they've been playing. Lucy got a certificate which she is very proud of, and struggled not to cry because she will miss it. They kept saying there will be another class "next fall", and all this time she thought they meant the fall of 2016, so she was very glad to learn about calendar years vs. school years in the car on the way home. :-)

Oh and she played basketball before theater class because that's what they do because it's held in a gym.

She's been working on a Lego hotel, so at the moment she's working on the water slide for the pool.

Amazon shipment day! We got a new container for her Legos, a set of 64 (SIXTY-FOUR) different colors of markers (which I want to keep for myself but I'm resisting), and a bluetooth keyboard for her tablet. I need to find a good typing game for her... Oh, and the box it all came in is huge and if I get my way it will be turned into a TARDIS, but at the moment she's just using it as an awesome fort.

The keyboard set her off on playing several of her tablet apps, and she eventually wound up on the PBS kids website, playing Peg + Cat and Dinosaur Train games.

Watched Kiki's Delivery Service.

Then decided that we need to start our own delivery service.

I installed a (pirate themed!) learn-to-count-money app on her tablet, and she immediately took it and started playing it.

Drew a picture of an "alicorn" because we looked it up because one of the girls in one of the plays last night was playing one.

Week of September 29, 2014

Okay, we're gonna try this summing up the week thing.

She spent a lot of time outside this week. The weather has been lovely! She's been digging and "cooking" and swinging and getting herself all disgustingly wet and muddy -- it's great!

Still watching some Phineas and Ferb, but not as much as a couple weeks ago. It's cooling.

She asked to make gelatin, so we did that this week with grape juice. She decided she didn't like it.

She asked to make an apple pie, so we did that this week. She mostly just helped with mixing the ingredients for the crusts. Then I did the rest of it. But she came back to help use the cookie cutters on the extra pie crust to make cookies. She decided she doesn't like the pie. (??? It is delicious if I do say so myself.)

She wrote this on the calendar with absolutely no input from me (meant to say "driving eve"):

Still talking about the house lizards all the time. Here we have a note written in lizard tongue sticking out language (obviously):

Grocery shopping. Library. She played with that story writing computer game again. It's a big hit.

She also used her tablet this week to have Google translate say things out loud again. And she finished a section of her geography game. And she and Norman worked some more on the Phineas and Ferb game.

Girl scout meeting. She got inducted or whatever they call it.

Skating lessons. She's doing awesome. 

She wanted to try climbing the trees in our front yard. She got up pretty high in this one!

Lots of Duplos and Legos, as always. 

She tried to pour herself some juice. That was an adventure, but she got the juice out of the fridge and got herself a cup and everything all by herself without asking. Which I actually consider a step in the right direction.

Sunday school, we talked about St Francis and made bird feeders out of pipe cleaners and Cheerios.

Then we went to our church's Blessing of the Animals this afternoon. She got her teddy bear blessed and played on the playground for awhile. :-)

Bedtime reading has been books about Lego Friends and Disney Fairies and assorted other advertainment, but ::shrug::  

Oh yeah, and when Norman and I were cleaning her playroom, we found a strip of paper where she'd written all the numbers up to 20 or so out in a row, mostly correctly. This is a big deal! She didn't want to write most numbers for the longest time. And she's also been writing random letter and number combos on some old checks I gave her to play with.

Wednesday and Thursday, September 10 & 11, 2014

Ehhhh it's Thursday. Oops.

Well, today she played outside a lot. Lots of fake food cooking and mixing. Crazy swinging. House lizard traps.

She spent a long time playing with her action figures. I heard a song she made up, some of the lyrics of which were, "Give thanks to Elsa!"

She played a geography game on her tablet.

She played Super Mario Galaxy, both by herself and with Norman. Both today and yesterday she spent kind of really long periods just reading the storybook that's contained within the game. And also the user manual.

I read her a book about Australia before bed. She was very interested in the info on the Great Barrier Reef, I think because they mention it in the game she was playing on the tablet.


Yesterday we went to the library. She played that story typing game again, except this time she figured out how to get the computer to pronounce the things she typed. Mostly nonsense, and also some very long numbers. She was delighted!  And then she was doing a coloring page, but instead she turned it over and copied the words "Weekly Events" from the dry erase board that they have up in the children's section.

She has been VERY into puns lately. On Sunday some kid said something about how flies bug you, and she's been laughing about that all week.  When she was copying the thing at the library, she pointed out that a "k" looks like a see-saw sideways, "but an underwater one. Sea-saw. Get it?" Ugh.

She's been typing messages on the Wii again. All the time. She spends a lot of time typing numbers in order. Like, up to 19. And sometimes the alphabet too. Or sometimes she wants me to spell long sentences for her.

After dinner last night we spent some time typing things into Google translate and then having the computer read them. Sometimes in different languages so it would have an accent. Good times.

We did a little bit of a sign language book before bed yesterday.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Whew, rough day today. Mostly just a whiny one. 

She played with her new tablet first thing. A Toy Story game, the PBS kids video watching app, and a whole bunch of painting app. (The painting app has some "stamps", one of which is a little fire flame. She drew a little stick person who had one of these on their head. She showed it to me and Norman, and we were like "???", and she said, "This girl is on fiiiiiirrrrre...." LOL)  Also apparently Daniel Tiger's mom is having a baby this week -- it's a super big deal. She is SO excited.

We went to Chuck E Cheese because I knew it wouldn't be crowded and we needed to get out of the house. Starting in a couple weeks, Tuesday mornings will be Bible study time, but for now...

[Horse riding game at Chuck E Cheese]

She wears the headphones because it's so darn loud in there, even without a bunch of kids. But then it's hard for me to talk to her. She got SUPER freaked out by the guy in the Chuck E Cheese costume. Although I don't know where she saw him because I didn't see him. That whole place is very hit or miss with her. But hey, we got to play skeeball!

She came home and didn't touch the tablet except to introduce it to the bouncy ball we got with our tickets. She mostly played Legos the rest of the afternoon, including building this "castle" which may or may not also be a house lizard trap:

After dinner she pretended to be a "junior female mailman" and delivered notes between me (in the craft room) and Norman (in the living room). 

We read Apes and Monkeys before bed.

Monday, August 18, 2014

Grocery shopping day. She got to try out her brand new answer to almost every question she'll get in public places for the foreseeable future: "I'm homeschooled!"

Played Super Mario Galaxy upon waking.

Spent a good long while with the dolls. She set up like this little bedroom thing inside an empty clear plastic tub even though she owns a dollhouse. ???

She and I played Scrabble. Kinda. We spelled words on the board. She is amazingly consistent at knowing what letter a word starts with, but anything after that she just kinda gives up. I got her to figure out the last letter in "leg" by telling her to pretend like she could see the word on a piece of paper in her head. She got it in a snap. Cool.

She and Norman played Super Mario Galaxy together. Sounded like they've actually been talking about, like, space science as a result of this. Like, planet, solar system, galaxy, star, etc.

After dinner I showed her her new tablet that came in the mail. She was quite pleased with taking photos and videos, and then she found the Netflix app and was very serious about that, which is weird because she can watch Netflix whenever she wants on the TV with the Wii. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (It's super cool -- it's a small Android tablet, but it has a kid's mode that can be controlled by a parent. I can pick which apps she can access and set time limits, and then I can also switch it to normal mode for the grown ups.)

I finished reading her a book about jobs in the video game design industry.

Bonus hot dog cart from over the weekend:

Friday, August 1, 2014

Norman made her this Duplo tower later Wednesday night. It had exactly 100 Duplos. He showed it to her Thursday morning, and they counted the Duplos by tens, then put it back together, then knocked it over spectacularly, of course.

 

Mario Kart. 

They went to Target, and he bought her a calculator, which she had been asking for. She had fun seeing what it could do until she got frustrated with it. But what's new? And of course I did the only decent thing and showed her that you can spell "hello" with it upside down. 

We read a book about mail carriers.

Today, more Mario Kart. She worked hard and under Norman's coaching, finally unlocked something she'd been trying to unlock for a while.  She drew a picture of one of the characters.

[I'm not sure what's happening here, but she likes to try to tell whole stories with just pictures and arrows. I feel maybe Blue's Clues is behind this.]

She's been a bit obsessed with handing out her play money (bills and coins). Not sure what that's all about.

She watched a Blue's Room DVD about Blue getting her baby brother.

Currently trying to get her decide between ice skating and karate lessons for this upcoming semester. I think she's leaning toward skating.

I read her a (pretty boring and useless) book about adoptive families before bed. She noted that it was boring and useless, so I showed her another, better one, which she read part of before it was time for bed.

 

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Yesterday: Mario Kart. She spent like 20 minutes or half an hour just reading the Mario Kart manual.

Costco was one of our grocery shopping stops. In addition to sampling various convenience foods that I never buy, she noticed that Costco "looks like a warehouse" (which she learned about in that book we read about grocery stores a couple days ago). Then she wanted to know how they get stuff down from the high shelves, so I explained forklifts. With my entire body. That was fun.

Duplos for hours. Yeah, probably hours.

Before bed I read her a Cat in the Hat (knows a lot about that) book about camouflage in animals.

Today: VeggieTales, mostly the DVD extras, which included a maze game.  She was then seized with the sudden need to build Duplo maze.

[That gray circle is a little guy at the starting line. I'm going to call him Lestrade because I can.]

Spent some time on the computer watching Hour of Code videos and using the Sheppard Software site.

Had some sort of drama playing out with her dolls. (She was in a pretty grouchy mood all day.)

Mario Kart with Norman.

Letter writing practice on a new dry erase workbook.

Legos.

Oh, and she's been poring over this Sesame Street cookbook she has for like 3 days. She just reads and reads.

I read her a book about the postal service before bed. (And I just need to point out that the one and only review of this book at the link is pretty much the height of irony.)

Saturday, July 19, 2014

First thing when she got up (apparently), she played some Mario Kart because Norman had unlocked a thing for her last night after she went to bed.

Legos.

Got another new idea for how to trap and/or befriend the lizards in our backyard. This one involved building a lizard out of Duplos, so they would think it was a normal lizard like them, but she was stuck on how to "control the Duplos lizard without them noticing me". This Duplo lizard was so involved that it had a small bee charm on it's big red Duplo tongue. (Because they eat bugs, ya know.) She later took it outside and taped some leaves to it "so it will look even greener."

Played some more Mario Kart.

Invented a dance and a song to go with it where the lyrics are the instructions for the dance. It was quite vigorous.

Went to the park with Norman. There's this spinny thing there that is like the best cooperative play and negotiation teaching tool ever. Only two kids and get on it at once, and then they have to decide who's going to spin and how fast.

Played some Dinosaur Train games on her computer, but that was after trying to log into the Disney World website and set up dining reservations, during which this conversation happened:

More Mario Kart. So much. She's in that sweet spot where it's not too frustrating to play, but she doesn't care so much about the results, so she isn't upset that she always comes in last place.

We went through some more of that sign language book before bed.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

I woke up this morning to find that Lucy had migrated from her bed to the couch in the middle of the night, and (as a result?) was still sleeping soundly about 2.5 hours after she normally wakes up. What?

She got the urge to dust things this morning. That happens every so often. Obviously I allow it.

Played with Duplos.

She has informed me that some of those beads that she's constantly sorting are vegetables.

She spent some more time on that Hour of Code website. Played some games and watched some videos about STEM-type stuff, I think.

It was library day. Luckily this summer, our branch has been doing special programs on the day we normally go to the library anyway. Today it was "Sciencetellers". This involved a female scientist in a tie-dyed lab coat, dry ice, fire, instruction on the states of matter, and lots of corny jokes. It was awesome. :-) The lady did a card trick, which prompted Lucy to ask me on the way home how people do card tricks. I pretty much told her that the magician practices a long time to get really good at distracting you so they can hide the card where you weren't looking, and that I never know exactly how they do it, and it's really cool. When we got home, she decided she would try it, but with leaves instead of cards. (?) At one point she told me there were four leaves under a throw cushion, and when she lifted it up there were only three. Then she opened her laptop that was sitting on the coffee table and pulled out the fourth one. :-)

[Tie-dye scientist with bucket of dry ice]

She asked for the second volume of Pixar shorts on DVD from the library. She spent several hours watching the same three or four shorts over and over. Possibly she was trying to suck every detail from them. It is Pixar, after all. There's a lot there.

Unfortunately for us parental units, Lucy seems to be the most prolifically creative in the hour around and past her bed time. Tonight is was constructing this Lego motel.

[Believe it or not, it involves a pool (with three slides and a diving board), hot tub, front desk, continental breakfast area, 2 beds, a TV, a lamp, a couch, a chair, a sink, a fridge, and a closet with hangers. She was very thorough.]

At her request, we also picked up several books about sign language today. We spent the time before bed reading one of them and practicing some of the signs. [As a linguist, I must say, I am fascinated by the gender markers on family member terms!]

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

The big thing today was going ice skating. She asked on Friday if she could take lessons. I told her we should go sometime to see if she liked it enough to sign up for lessons in August. (I take lessons, which is why she talks about taking lessons sometimes.) She had much more stamina and determination than she did the last time I tried to get her to skate over a year ago. We also got her a little PVC pipe walker thingy -- that helped a lot. Her spirits kept up and she kept at it even though she couldn't go very fast. This is seriously a major improvement -- not sure if that's apparent!

She's really into puns lately, and explaining why they're funny. On the way out of the ice rink, there's a sign that says "Have an ice day!" (::groan::) She read it and was like, "Have an ice day! Haha! It's like have a nice day, but it's have an ice day instead!" She did this the other day with something on Jake and the Neverland Pirates, too. Something about a bird's birthday (bird-day)?

What else what else?  I think she did in fact work on the house lizard house outside a little more.

She played Mario Kart with Norman.

She sat with Norman and read through that Batman book from last night again to herself.

She spent some time on her computer on a coding website, which is actually really cool. I found it for her after she asked me one day about making her own website. (I suggested a blog -- turned out she meant from scratch.)

She seems to spend a lot of time sorting her beads? Every now and then she'll make something with them, but mostly she sorts them into categories and sees where certain kinds of beads will fit on other toys she has.

And her favorite hobby at the moment seems to be talking about Disney World every waking moment. This is my fault for letting it slip so far in advance of our trip (months and months) that we will be going there this fall. And then giving her the Disney World vacation planning DVD to watch to her heart's content. Oops. There was also a point today where she decided to be a travel agent. I was supposed to tell her what kind of stuff I like, and she would suggest a vacation. (I lobbed her the easy "I like Disney movies and camping." She was all over that.)

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Lucy's 5th birthday is in three days!  The weather has been gorgeous here for the last couple weeks, so she has been spending hours on end in the backyard. She makes fake food with water, dirt, and leaves; she contrives plans to trap and/or befriend bugs, birds, and lizards; she digs holes; she rides her bikes; and she just generally runs around doing goodness knows what. 

Today we went to the library and picked up the latest Disney Fairies movie, The Pirate Fairy. (Actually not to bad, as far as Disney Fairies movies go.) She watched it, loved it, and then apparently (when I wasn't looking), built this contraption similar to the one the fairy uses in the movie to make different kinds of pixie dust. That's a water wheel with tape, glue, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, and leaves. 

 

She also wanted to get on her computer after she watched the movie to look up more stuff about it. When she's using the computer, she'll consistently ask me, "What's the next letter in [whatever word she's going to search]," because she knows the first letter for pretty much anything she wants to spell. Cool.

And she made me this thank you card to thank me for... helping her catch house lizards? Not quite sure [but that's definitely a house lizard and a trap].

 

I read her a Tangled book that she got in the mail today for her birthday, but she had already read it to herself immediately upon opening the package! 

 

[Note the unopened bubble wrap thing and the card that had to wait]

Thursday, September 19, 2013, etc.

Whew, the days just get away from me sometimes. What Lucy has been up to lately:

She set up her old broken play laptop and her wooden cash register together to imitate my set up of transferring VHS tapes to my hard drive. The VHS tapes were the two-hole wood pieces from this tool box set. She was also pretending her old broken little calculator was an iPod. She's push a button and then start singing a song in the middle, then push another button and stop.  [PS - Yes, old broken electronics are awesome toys. Maybe when she gets older she'll want to take them apart.]

She wrote this out.

I said, "Oh, you spelled 'Lu-lu!'" and she was like, "No, it says 'Lu-lu-lucy!', like Piglet says when she's scared and needs help from someone." Ohhhhh...

She found some pompoms and some cardboard bingo markers in the craft drawer and decided they were tiny plates and food for her dolls. Man, that takes me back... Exactly the kind of thing I used to do.

Wednesday we went to the library and she played that Magic School Bus computer game again. She loves that thing! This is like from the mid 90s or something. It's super fancy. Then we hung out with like a two-year-old and his mom, playing non-magnetic magnetic poetry.

Today we went to a Talk Like a Pirate Day book and craft event with a local homeschooling group. We dressed up like pirates, she made a pirate puppet, and ran around playing with the other kids.

[Okay, she looks kinda deranged here. And like she's missing teeth, but she's not. She's got her princess wand tucked into her belt, and she's wearing a fuzzy tiara.]

Oh, and she refused to be a pirate, but instead had to be a princess pirate. Obviously.

Today she drew a picture to send to a friend in the real mail!

She's been watching Cars, Despicable Me, Bear in the Big Blue House, Charlie Brown.

Last night we read a Magic School Bus book about flowering plants.

Thursday and Friday, September 5-6, 2013

 

We went to a children's consignment sale. There was free popcorn! Lucy got to see the cool bridge we have around here.

I got her a new (to us) dollhouse at the sale. I'd been looking for a plain, sturdy wood one for a while. This one is great and so was the price! (Elmo is a baby in a crib with a nightlight in the photo.) 

She watched Winnie the Pooh.

Dotty read her If You Give a Dog a Donut.

Friday: She created an office for herself (looks like the offices at the bank we've kept having to go back to lately). She made herself a name tag with letter stickers, then insisted on making me one with "Jessica" instead of "Jessie", so I spelled it out for her while she found each sticker.

Watched Blue's Clues (measuring, playing store, birthday party, numbers, and counting to 100).  

[PS - Have I already mentioned this here? If you have a Wii, you can download an Amazon app for free that will let you watch Amazon streaming from your TV. Which means if you have Amazon Prime, you can watch all the free shows and movies from your TV! And you can set up a PIN so your kids can't just buy stuff willy-nilly through the Wii. Very cool!]

Threw her own pretend surprise birthday party. I gave her a new dress-up dress.

She wanted to know how they get the two cars to your house if you win two cars on The Price Is Right, so I looked it up and found an interview with someone who won on the show. Cool info.

She also knows how to switch to the Wii on the TV a different, easier way than I had ever done it. Seriously. It's starting. She can work the TV remote better than I can. Insert all the cliches! here.

Met and played with a new friend while I chatted with her mom.

Played with her instruments and old, broken microphone. That was fun to watch.

Dotty read her That Big Guy Took My Ball! (Gerald and Piggie)

She wanted me to write down the names of the two kids we met at the park a couple weeks ago. Then she decided to try to write some of the letters. Then some numbers. Then a "hunting bag", which it turns out she meant what I would commonly call a "hobo sack". Then I made her a "hunting bag" for real with a stick and a bandana. She loves it!

 

Wednesday - Friday, August 28-30, 2013

 

Wednesday was my birthday. She made me this card unbidden. It's very special -- the first year she's been able to make me a present herself. (She asked me to tell her which letters came after the H to spell "happy". Then she got tired and had me write the "birthday". But she did the exclamation points!)

She watched Between the Lions on Wednesday before we took it back to the library.

We went to a different library than we usually do because it's near the store where we had to pick up my birthday cake. It's nice! I might try to find a way to get over to that branch more often. Its children's area is better laid out than the branch we have been going to. They have a lot more puzzles, a road map rug with cars, and the kids computer is easier to use (and she did use it to go through that Green Eggs and Ham thing again).

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday she watched Bear in the Big Blue House non-stop until I couldn't take it anymore and told her we were turning it off. Each day this happened. Between the fact that there are only 3 episodes on the DVD we got, and the fact that the show is BORING, I just couldn't take it anymore. But she seems to love it. It's about using your senses and stuff. 

In fact, because I always turn on the captions when she watches something, she wrote this ("Ojo", one of the character's names) all by herself. Cool!

Oh and at some point in the last three days she switched to her Mo Willems Scholastic DVD.

Today we broke out the paint ice cubes I made earlier this week. I mixed some of our paint powder with water in an ice cube tray to make a bunch of different colored cubes. First we tried writing/painting with them on paper in the Turtle. Then we put them over by the water table so she could "make perfume" (something one of characters was doing on Bear in the Big Blue House). Then we rinsed out the Turtle and turned it into a swimming pool. She spent a good long while outside. I'm so happy to finally have a backyard that can truly function as a second playroom for her!

 

 

 

 

 In books, we've been reading her Alexander Who's Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move, Harry the Dirty Dog, and Have You Seen My Dinosaur? She's been looking at a lot of her books by herself. She found a Little Golden Book about Brave that she has, and read the inside front cover: "This book belongs to" and decided to add her name to it. LOL. Makes sense!

And, ya know, Dulpo-ing. Always Duplo-ing.

Oh and Thursday afternoon she handed me a Jasmine action figure and had me act out how Norman and I got married (she was Norman/Eugene). It was very... simplified. And there was a Dulpo guy pastor. But she made sure I had flowers.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

So... Packing and moving and unpacking and organizing -- apparently not very blog post-conducive.

While I've been gone, Lucy has pretty much learned to read. Every day she surprises us by reading something that we had no idea she could read. Things that we haven't read to her. "Sisters Forever." "Do not block driveway." "The Grouchy Ladybug." "Do you see a mouse?" She is also spelling more and more, especially with the letter magnets on the fridge. (Easier than the hand-eye coordination required to write, and less frustrating, I suspect.)
 
Today we went to the library. Typed on the computer, put together a USA puzzle. She wandered around the magazine section, choosing titles like Mother Jones and Hot Rods to sit and flip through.

Our lawn care guy came by to introduce himself (he is landlord-appointed). At one point Lucy busted out with a clear and friendly "Nice to meet you, Doug!" He said she was better at names than he is. LOL.

Lots of Blues Clues this afternoon. She's been watching a lot of it the last couple days, probably because she hadn't watched it in a while, because it's not on Netflix anymore, but I only just figured out how to play Amazon Prime videos on the Wii (password protected against purchases -- whew!).

FYI, other parents -- there are a couple of great groups on Facebook solely for sharing educational videos on all subjects that are available on various internet sites. A large one is called Homeschooling with Netflix or something like that. I recommend looking them up!