Letters, Reading, Riding - 9.22.14

We've been working more consistently on letters lately! Cole and Sadie enjoyed the letter games we played. He even prayed about it in his nightly prayers. 

Cole is coming up with wild stories all the time. About all the things his brother gets to do. I wonder if they sprouted because Lucy goes to school and comes home telling us stories about her day. I try to do fun things with him and Sadie in the morning so they don't feel neglected, but I guess it isn't that exciting.  It may also just be from an overactive imagination. 

Cole has started making up songs and will sing then as loud as he can all around the house. 

Monday got a new bike with pedals today. This evening we all went across the street to practice. I was impressed with how quickly she picked it up! Devin was a wonderful teacher and guided her through her fears and frustrations as she learned. Starting and stopping are still really hard for her but she has the balance and pedaling down really well! 

(This video is from the other night riding with friends...I kept forgetting to bring my camera so this was the first night we were able to get a picture.)

Cole had a lot of fun showing me how fast he could go around the parking lot too!

Sadie is taking off on her little car/bike/thing. I was amazed at how well she handles and manuvers that thing. We tried to get her to go on Lucy's old strider but she wasn't having it and I didn't think pushing it was a good idea, since we already had one kid learning how to ride a new bike. 

We finally had a picnic outside for lunch! We haven't been able to do that for a long time. Either because it was too hot and we don't have shade in our yard or because it's been rainy and wet. It was fun to feel the sunshine and the kids loved being out there. We have such a wonderful yard I feel like we should use it more. 

On that note we did set up a swing for the kids to use. Our trees aren't big enough and the ones that are, are outside of the fence...So we used the laundry poles! 

It has been so fun for Lucy and Cole to have something new to do in the back. 

We switched around our rooms so the kids could have the bigger room. We needed to move Sadie to her own bed because she was keeping everyone up. She'd play with Cole, and get Lucy to come down out of her bed. She really is quite the mischief maker. Since we moved stuff around she has been napping better and Cole has been allowed to nap as well. 

Sadie has been talking so much lately! It is so incredibly sweet how she sounds. Looking back at some of Lucy's videos when she was this age I realized they sound almost exactly the same. 

She is singing "Let it go" from Frozen mixed in with some "ABCs" and "If you're happy and you know it"...

Lucy told me a while back she wanted to learn to read. So this last week we got her a "Dick and Jane" book, and started working on sounding out the words. She picked it up incredibly fast. I am blown away at how well she is doing, and how many words she has memorized already. I think I am struggling more than she is. I don't remember learning how to read so teaching her how to blend the sounds and tips on how know which sounds the letters make in which situations...it's a lot to remember and I need to figure out how to teach her better. Thankfully its only been a week so I can't mess it up too much yet right??