The Linda Family

I started telling Wes about the phone calls Ashleigh is making, and I decided that I better blog them so we don’t forget!  She sure is priceless.  I came upstairs to put away the clean laundry, you know, the exciting stuff moms do, and she followed.  She has an old cordless phone and she is talking to her friends.  Of course, I’m only hearing one side of the conversation.  Wait.  Guess there really is only one side…..

So she talks to her freind Rhiney and then turns to me – “Mom, do you know where Rhiney is?  She’s in Africa.  That is where she lives.”

Silly me.  I thought her freinds were local….I sure am glad they’re imaginary friends and she’s not really calling Africa, because the conversation goes on….

“Ok Rhiney, I’m sorry, but I have to go.  I have to talk to someone else.  Hi Wanda.  No I’m sorry, we can’t come.  We live in the city.  WHAT?  He weighs a LOT? A WHOLE TON??  WOW!”

Then she moves on to the next freind…”You can come sleep in my bed with me.  What do you mean you can’t fit?  How big ARE you?  You’re FOUR?!  Well, I’m going to bed soon.  Oh, you too?”

Her later conversations included sharing with me that there is a Giant in Bumbee’s town.  Apparently it’s a stomping giant, and that makes Ashleigh spin 4 times (yeah, she spun in a circle 4 times and made herself so dizzy she fell into the closet door).  She also took a moment from her phone call to discipline Rosie, who is one of her 6 kids for those of you who aren’t aware.  She also wants to go see her freind Susie.  Too bad Susie lives by Crocodile Lake.  She tells me Crocodile lake is a lot further from our house.  Further than what?  I don’t know…I’m just guessing it’s too far to just swing by for a soda.

Maybe we should scratch the art class idea and look into acting class…Do they have acting classes for 3 year olds?

We have officially finished week 1 of preschool.  Ashleigh is LOVING it.  Really loving it.  I am more than surprised at how much she has retained, considering her apathetic attitude at times.  I’m learning how to get her to write her letters without making it a chore, and she’s learning how to sit and pay attention.  We’re both learning.

This week we worked on A, B, and C.  She can now tell you what sound all 3 letters make.  She also can write all 3 in uppercase and lowercase form!  Now that surprised me.  She already knew big A, so no big deal there.  I just didn’t think she caught onto B at all.  Apparently she did.  Today we learned C and reviewed Aa & Bb.  She made both A’s and both B’s with just a touch of help.  Her first b looked like a Q, she put the line on the circle wrong, but when we tried it again she did great!

She is not a fan of coloring pages.  This means I’ll have to be more creative.  But, as time goes on and we learn more letters, we can use a lot more of the resources I have in the house.  It’s hard to do a lot only using A, B, and C!  Her favorite part of the lesson is the craft.  She has made an Apple, a Butterfly, and a Clown.  I need to take pictures of them before they get dispursed to the person she has designated for each of them .  Funny how she didn’t make any of this week’s crafts for Mommy & Daddy….I guess we see who is really important.

I just wanted to give an update, I’ll try to post each week with what we’ve done and what she has learned.  For now I’m going to stick with 3 days a week, one letter a day, with reviews of previous letters.  It seems to be working so far.  We’ll see where it leads us!

I know, I know…I am horrible at updating….I will try to do better.  I blame it on, well..life!  We went to the midwife a few weeks ago and baby was doing well.  Heartbeat sounded good, nothing to report.  This one sure takes after his/her big sister with energy levels.  My goodness!  It’s a good thing the baby is only 12 inches long and 16 ounces at this point, or I’d be loosing sleep already.  I think Ashleigh will have quite the playing partner in a few months.

As for Ashleigh she is still very excited about being a big sister.  Every Wednesday I get my weekly baby update from one of those parenting sites.  It’s usually a bunch of sillyness, but she likes hearing how big baby is, and having something to comepare it to.  This week they told us that baby is 12 inches long, or roughly the size of an ear of corn.  I think that’s a pretty big ear of corn, but at least it gives her a visual to hang on to.  We also learned this week that baby’s taste buds are starting to form.  Ashleigh had a little anatomy lesson about tastebuds and how we all have them and what they do.  She was a little freaked out at first as she heard “taste bugs” instead of “taste buds” but I think we’re all straightened out!

We also have other new and fun stuff going on.  This week I finally forced myself into actually starting a pre-school program with Ash.  It’s something I had planned to do starting about 3 weeks ago.  We have learned about the letter A and the letter B.  She loves the school time.  We learn to write the letters, do some puzzles or flash cards that pertain to the letters, and then some activity sheets and a craft. Craft time is her favorite.  She LOVES gluing and making things.  We’re getting into a good pattern with her learning, and as we learn more we can add more fun activites to the whole day.

Wes is keeping busy with Hopkins, WorldFire, and PassionSpice.  I’ve been working on getting our name out there and preparing the house.  On Tuesday Wes and I are driving to Olean, NY to pick up all of the PassionSpice inventory and bring it back here.  We’re a bit fearful of the sheer volume of merchandise we will have in our home, but we’re excited about having actual physical control over our products and shipments.

I forgot to mention that at the beginning of September Ashleigh headed to CT for a weekend to visit Aunt Beth and Uncle Roy with Nana and cousin Virginia.  She had a blast!  She came home with some fun new clothes, a new game, and a book she loves!  We have read Where Do Balloons Go so many times in the past two weeks that she knows most of the words.  It’s quite frightening how much of a sponge she is.  At least I can be sure that now is the time to teach her good habits and lots of things that will help her through life!

I’m sure we have pictures floating around here somewhere, but I don’t know where right now.  The next update won’t take as long and I’ll find some pictures!