Cheating..... Online

I've been doing a little facebooking lately and can't help but feel like I've been cheating on Blogger. But I swear, I was thinking of my blog the whole time. To ease my guilty conscience, here's a little catch-up. (I know, the title was a little sensationalized. I had to spice it up somehow)

Katy's baptism was great. That same morning she got to go to day camp for her first Achievement Day Activity. Being the first in her class to turn 8 and not seeing the other girls from our ward in senior primary on a regular basis, I think she felt a little lost in it all, but there were girls and leaders there who I know went out of their way to help her feel welcomed. She has already made a few of the recipes she came home with and is looking forward to her next activity. She looks so pretty in her all white dress and it's neat to see her begin a new chapter of life. She is quite consistent with her bedtime song requests and it's been sweet to see it recently change from A Child's Prayer, to I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus.

I'm really jonesin' for our up coming track break in March. Katy has been taking the same breaks as Chucky and I can't wait to focus on some projects around the house.

The kids have been reading a lot lately. It's really nice to watch. We finally got legit with the library again and replenished our bag full. There is this one guy at the checkout station who laughs whenever he sees me coming 'cause he knows how habitually late I am with our returns.

Katy and Chucky make a great reading team. While she continues to progress, reading has been a bit of a struggle for Katy. When I first noticed in Chucky his natural aptitude for it, I worried how this would play out in their dynamic.

My friend Julie recently posted about finding serendipity in our lives and this has been a perfect example for me. Their styles differ completely. Chucky's full speed ahead approach allows him to feel very accomplished, making him confident enough to want to spend up to an hour at a time working his way through a story. He doesn't know every word, but he gets the gist and really enjoys it. Kate on the other hand demands perfection from herself and is easily frustrated. She is not satisfied until she has gotten not just the words right, but the meaning and the inflection in her voice down perfectly. With Chucky's stamina and Katy's more advanced arsenal for figuring out any unknown words, they are both getting far more out of the experience together.

I re-read Thidwick The Big Hearted Moose and couldn't help wishing, as I always do, that it might be read out loud to Congress on occasion.

Also, Anna got quite a kick out of this image we found in the sky the other day. She has been a little obsessed with drawing the letter A on everything for a few weeks now and just loved that someone had dawn a letter 'A', a heart, and what was so obviously her face in the sky. She was sure it must have been Daddy.

And finally, a great mystery has been solved today. Some time ago the kids mailed a letter to their friends in Minnesota which never arrived at it's destination. Katy wrote a letter about her birthday trip to Disneyland with an enclosed picture of her and Minnie, Chucky was seeking information on what Lego sets and video games he and his friend share in common, and Anna drew A's with little girls inside the top halves (she told me they were not afraid to be up there) for her friend Amelia. Alas, this was all the reply they were to receive:

We will try again soon and be sure not to over stuff the envelope this time.