Kayaking

Even when Lake Travis seems to be drying up by the recent drought conditions, my boys still can find plenty of fun things to do together! Thankfully, we won't be doing any boating this drought season. We learned an expensive lesson in 2006 when our boat stuck a rock in a cove during that years severe drought.



Organizing Art Work

With the close of our 1st pre-school year, I was left with the daunting task of deciding what artwork to keep forever and what to toss. I knew that I wanted some sort of long-skinny "art box" but nothing I ever saw seemed to be quite right.

Until about month ago, when a stroll down a Target aisle brought a smile to my face. There it was, the perfect organizational box for Taylor's school work.

In less than 15 minutes Taylor and I went through files and piles of his work and decided what to keep and what to recycle. Of course Taylor really wanted to keep everything, but with a little encouragement to purge some things, he finally released some unneeded pictures.

Here are some favorites from this past year:

His first picture of his family. Daddy's in the middle, I'm
on the right and Taylor is on the left.

An early attempt at writing his name.

4



When you were four...

your best friend of 4 years was still your best friend.

When you were four...

you had playdates at other friends houses for the first time.

When you were four...

you learned to swim.

When you were four...

you learned to read.

When you were four...

you were kind and helpful to friends younger than you.

When you were four...

you learned to burp on purpose.

When you were four...

you learned to say "excuse me" when you burped on purpose.

When you were four...

you learned to do a forward flip on a trampoline.

When you were four...

you learned to do a "cannon-ball" in the pool and were fascinated by "belly-flops".

When you were four...

you decided that napping every other day would be best.

When you were four...

your favorite dessert was still chocolate.

When you were four...

your favorite color was still green.

When you were four...

you learned to play Hearts, Crazy Eights, Animal Rummy, and Old Maid.

When you were four...

you wanted to dress and look just like us.

When you were four...

you amazed your proud momma and daddy by growing so much (and so quickly) in confidence and independence.



When you were four...

you made your momma sad because with some things you didn't need my help anymore!

~You're no longer a "toddler" but are truly a "little boy" ready for any adventure the world might bring you!

"Look Momma I Can Swim!"

With the rest of the summer ahead of us, and lots more swimming to do, I can't wait to see Taylor's swimming abilities come August!

Shark Attack!

We just realized about a week ago, while downtown for a concert, that there is a putt-putt mini golf course in town. We obviously don't get out of the suburbs much since it's been there for 50 years and we've lived here for the last 6 of those 50 years. I feel like in California there was a putt-putt golf course everywhere, Austin only has a few. We had a fun morning in the sun. Get there early in the morning if you want to play in this Texas HEAT!

Taylor's favorite hole...I wonder why?

Who else seems to always take pictures with sunglasses on?



Who Says There Are 14 More Days Till Summer....

You definitely wouldn't know that it's NOT officially summer yet by the 100 degree temps that we've been experiencing this week.

And for Taylor and I, it IS officially summer since the last day school ended last Friday!!

 

 

We have an early swimmer on our hands this year!

 

 

Pool parties with family await us...

 

 

Relax and enjoy whatever the summer bring you!

Everything is BIGGER in Texas!

Even the Bullfrogs on Andrew's golf course!

"HOLY COW" were my exact words!!

It makes me wonder what kind of froggie food they're stocking the lake with???

 

 

Can It Really Be?

Shhhhhhhhhh.....!

Don't tell Taylor, but I think he's READING.

It's mostly memorization and letter/sound recognition, but he LOVES it.

Ever since Taylor was a baby we have read to him every single night. When he was 2, I freaked out because he didn't want to read books before bedtime anymore but wanted to play instead. Luckily, it was just a phase and he came back around. At 2 1/2 years old, we had to remove ALL the books in his room because he wouldn't go to sleep. He would spend hours looking at books and not fall asleep. Luckily, that was just a phase too, and the books were able to be returned. When Taylor was 3 we decided that he needed a reading lamp on his bed because he was trying to look at books by the light of his nightlight! Not so good for the eyes!  From that point on, Taylor was only aloud to have 3 books of his choice during nap and bedtime. Well those days are long gone, and since Taylor turned 3 1/2 he has been able to happily look at as many books as he wants and then turn out the light and go to sleep. Tag readers have definitely helped to increase his interest in books. You can touch anything on the page and it will talk to you or you can touch the symbol on each page and it will read it aloud to you. Awesome invention!

About a month ago, I decided to do a little pre-summer experiment.

As a teacher who teaches reading, I just couldn't wait to see if Taylor would take to reading and pick it right up, or would he be completely uninterested and bored with the whole idea and want to play wrestle mania with me instead. Prepared with a few teaching tools: sight word cards (mostly 2-letter words, but some 4-letter words too), some repetitive beginning readers (level A), and an oh-so enticing green reading book bag. I told Andrew and myself that if he liked it, then we would keep going, if he didn't like it then we would stop and wait until he showed more interest.

Well true to form, Taylor loved every minute of it, and now asks for me to "teach him" his new books. Well if that doesn't make a teacher-parent happy then I'm not sure what would. He amazes me every night with how good his memory is! I guess when you don't have daily grocery lists on the brain then you have a little extra space to store all those new words and skills.

Congratulations Taylor for jumping over one of the biggest hurdles I know!