Reading

Mia has been doing great reading. She's recognizing a great deal of sight words and using strong phonemic awareness to sound out words too. Her expression is great too. So proud of her.

Here she is reading, for the first time "The Little Cookie" by Margaret Hillert. Hillert is a great author for emerging readers.

Mia also has been doing great at writing sentences to match pictures to tell a story. She is using inventive spelling and sight word recognition. I was teaching this to my kindergarten kiddos mid year!



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New cousin

We traveled to columbus this weekend to meet Patrick Kenneth our new cousin/nephew and to celebrate Christopher's birthday. Mia slept over with Christopher and had a great time. Dad, Annie, papa and I stayed at the hotel. Annie and Mia love their new cousin - kept kissing him and rubbing him. Annie loved holding him The girls had fun playing with their cousins and aunts/uncle and papa.
On the way home we stopped at the Children's museum in indianapolis to break up the long drive. What a great museum! We loved the Lego, Dinosaur and Matchbox car exhibits. It's the biggest in the nation, it wasn't reciprocal to our membership but we went anyhow. After lunch we headed home.
































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Yesterday after swim lessons we met Grandma, Aunt Stacy and Jonah at the children's museum in Glenview. We had lunch at Cosi inside the museum. The girls had fun. They really loved the simulated train, real grocery store, art room and pretend baby hospital. It was lots of fun. Grandma came home with us to babysit while mommy had her haircut. It was a fun Wednesday!



Today Mia wanted to skip swim lessons do we could go Downtown. Since she has an extra class tomorrow I said why not. We went to the free kids tent at Millinium Park to see a concert and do some activities. Mia mostly wanted to do the building station. She also made up a short story for the Art Museum's giant kids book. We also heard stories from a storyteller then had a picnic lunch. The girls were hot so I let then splash awhile in the splash fountain. Annie ended up getting soaked while screaming " ohhhhh water! Alright water!!". We ended up at old navy to buy new outfits :) we took thr trsin bsck and went to the Flossmoor Caboose for ice cream then to the pool. It was a fun summer day.








Mia's story. I wrote what she told me. It was brief but exactly what the fact that she was able to say beginning, middle and end was awesome !!


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Growing up

Mia went to the park this afternoon with one of her best friends. Her mom and I are friends which is nice so i trsuted her to take the kids for a few hours but it hit me how fast Mia is growing! Already going out without mommy there. I stayed home while Annie napped.
Here is a picture from
Her playdate today.



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Brave

July 4th it was so hot out we opted to skip the parade (especially since we did parade and fireworks in michigan). Corey and I took the girls to see the new Disney Pixar movie "Brave". It was Annie's first movie. The movie was really good, a good mother daughter movie. Friends had told us it was a little scary but Mia did great. Annie did get a bit scared during a few loud parts but ended up falling asleep during the movie! It was fun and one we will for sure watch again.


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Summer house fun!

The girls and I headed back to our summer house in Michigan Thursday morning. We took a pontoon ride with grandma, papo, aunt stacy and her grandkids. It was SO hot we only went around the lake twice. We all came back to the house and swam in the pool then had lunch. Later grandma and I took the girls to Driftwood for some ice cream then we went over to Aunt Stacy's to play and visit. The girls were able to see where mom and dad got married. We mostly played inside since again it was just so awful out. We headed home then Grandma, Pap and the girls and I had dinner at Timberline. Uncle Brian and Kelly came up after the girls were asleep and we stayed up late playing Monopoly. It was fun busy day!
Friday Grandma and I took to the girls to St. Joe's for an early morning visit to the splash pad, then the carousel, Discovery zone the kids museum to cool off in the heat. We had lunch then headed back to the house. Aunt Christie and Uncle Chris came by to visit for a few hours on their way from Ohio up to visit Grandma Puroll. The girls played in the pool a ton then after I made them dinner they headed to bed after Grandma gave them a long bath. We played scrabble and all had a fun visit.
Saturday morning we all got up early again to have coffee and breakfast on the Pontoon. It wasn't as hot but still pretty bad. Everyone swam in the pool all afternoon while Grandma and I went to Contessa Winery and did our shopping for our BBQ. We played in the pool again then had a nice BBQ with everyone.
Mia is doing great at swimming. She is jumping in so great, doing cannonballs and doing really good floating on her back. She has swim lessons for two more weeks and I can just see such a huge difference in her swimming. The girls had a blast, they did a whole bunch of water coloring while we made our bbq last night....Mia had to show everyone even the beagles her creations and made everyone, even Kelly, a painting. Annie liked the pool, she would hang out in her turtle and even rode on Bluie. She mostly likes spraying everyone with the water guns or sitting on the edge throwing in the dive bombs. Yesterday late afternoon it finally cooled a bit so she and grandma played in the sandbox for a good while.
I was able to get a few runs in even though it was so awful out. But the lakes are always so pretty to run along and the country hills always make for a fun challenge!

We had a great pre-fourth of July weekend at the summer house. The girls and I got to the house late afternoon Friday. Papo and grandma came then we went to capt jacks for dinner then driftwood for ice cream.

Saturday we all got up early so I could run the Cherry Run 5k in Watervliet. We did the kids fun run and Mia received her first ribbon! After we went to breakfast, shopped at meijers then we packed up snacks and took a ride on grandma and papo's new pontoon boat. We came back and did a quick swim in the pool before the big parade started! We had pizza for dinner then at dusk walked over to the lion's club to see the fireworks. The girls enjoyed their glow sticks. Annie was super tired and fell asleep on me after the fireworks started. Mia didn't like the loud noise but ended up enjoying the display. It was a late night! After a pontoon boat ride today and lunch we headed home.


















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