10 Months Old {Ameliya}

Little Sissy is 10 months old today.

I dressed her all up and tried to take a picture.  She was too busy to look at me.

She is such a pretty girl though.

She was able to smile when her brother and sister sat with her instead of distracting her!

Precious bundles.  

Anyhow...

at 10 months old, Ameliya

• weighs 24.8 pounds
• is 28"
• wears size 24 month clothes
• stands and is starting to let go to balance
• claps, waves, and smacks kisses
• says Mama, Dada, and either Bubba or buh bye (Xabe says it's Bubba!)
• crawls on all fours
• loves eating

 

 

• is quite possibly more stubborn than any other child her age I've encountered
• drinks straight cow's milk out of a cup

• loves books and being where brother and sister are

  

 

 

• loves her Kira baby
• still nurses but is slowing down {this makes me sadder than I thought it would-truly}

This week Ameliya battled a low grade fever for 36 hours or so.  She was so sad.  I think we literally held her nonstop.  Okay, she did lay on the couch while I got food for the big kids (and looked so big and sweet I obviously stopped and took a picture before tallying on).

 

She is the poster child for wanting to be well, though, and drank and nursed like a champion through the fever.  I made her some homemade chicken noodle soup and she ate quite a lot of it, even though she dozed between bites and barely held her eyes open while eating.

 

 

Thank goodness for Kira and blankies and the Ergo and the ring sling and elderberry and Vitamin C and big kids who love & understand and, and, and, the list goes on...  

Today she was back to pretty much 100% - just as quickly as the fever came, it fled. 

After Natalee and Xavier go for their quiet time/rest time in the afternoons Ameliya and I sit down together, tummy to tummy, and have silly school.  We find our noses, play bully, look for our ears and eyes and tummies.  This is such a sweet time for me.  Today we were sitting and she pointed her finger right on her button and looked at me with expectant eyes.  

"Button, Ameliya!  That's a button.  Look!  You have 1-2-3-4 buttons!"

She communicates so well for a little shaver.  Always watching and learning and wanting to give and take with others.

(Sorry that my shirt is pulled up.  We were looking for mommy's tummy.  Be grateful for the under tank!)

Silly school continues with lots of loves and snuggles.

And then we say, "Yay!  Ameliya is all done with school today."  When I say "yay" she claps.  Because she's precious like that.

I can't believe we only have 2 months until we are looking at a year old.  I thought time would go slower since I'm home with her everyday but it doesn't.  Time marches on so quickly, and I'm so grateful for these irreplaceable moments.

He Likes the 'e'

"One "e" too many, Buddy," says his loving teacher mama.

"I know, Mama.  I like the e's best."

And he makes beautiful e's!

Great work, my little preschooler! 

Good-Bye Ninevah!

We've been learning about evil, ugly Assyria in our Mystery of History lessons.  We role played Jonah running away from his task of going to preach in Ninevah, being swallowed by a big fish, puked back up, and eventually obeying God and going to talk to the Assyrians.  (um, super scary - they were NOT nice people)  While Jonah's teaching did redeem them for awhile (we rejoiced) we were sad to learn they Assyrians fell away from God again and he had to wipe out the humongous city of Ninevah with a flood.

Today, we built Ninevah with the moon sand the kids got from Kea and Miguel for Christmas and then we wiped it out!

The moon sand was very moldable without being sticky on the hands and the kids enjoyed it a lot.  As a disclaimer - when we first opened it it was quite stinky so we left it open in the tote on the front porch to air out for a couple of weeks.  It doesn't dry out so I didn't have to worry about that while it was airing, which was a bonus!

Good-bye Ninevah.  We're sorry you couldn't get it together.

Christmas Money {Legos}

The kids had Christmas money from Great Grandma Betty burning a hole in their chore cups so we online shopped a bit this week.  Xavier chose knee/elbow pads to wear while roller skating and skateboarding and the electrician Legos he's had his eye on for a few weeks (he was going to use his chore money and was saving but Gma Betty saved the day).

Natalee chose a pink construction vest (Xavier's orange one has long been a source of argument around here because both want it everyday.), a yellow Belle dress up dress and Rapunzel Legos.  Natalee has outgrown all our 4-6x dress up dresses and went through a great period of sadness about it.  Granny and Papa gave her a Cinderella dress for Christmas that is seeing lots of daily love and she was excited to grow her "bigger sized" stash a little more with her birthday/Christmas money!

Tonight after Ameliya went to bed, we let the big kids stay up to build their new Legos (the goodies all came today!).

This kid + Legos = love.

 

  

 

 

Funny goobers!  Their commentary is pretty entertaining.

Highlights of School

School was BUSY this week - the good kind of busy but nonetheless busy!  

A few highlights...

This whiteboard + low odor markers have been game changers for Natalee when she wearies of paper/pencil tasks.  

 

In History we touched on a couple of prophets, including Jeremiah and Nahum.  We also talked about King Josiah and made scrolls to remind us of the first five books of the Bible that were found during his reign.  I simply let Xavier draw Bible characters on his scroll and let Natalee choose between drawing or writing Bible words (she chose writing and went to get her Bible for inspiration).

 

She looked in her Bible until she found the picture of King Josiah that she remembered was in there.  Such a good memory, she has!

Xavier worked on the Letter R and was especially impressed with the racetrack worksheet his teacher mama found!

In Science we continued talking about invertebrates - today's discussion of coral reefs was especially fun and I'm hoping to find time this weekend for the kids to paint coral reefs!

Today we had a mini lesson over Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  We talked about equality and the children brought up the word "fair" several times in our discussion.  We watched a short book video on Netflix and I was a little sad to see a bit of the children's innocence slip away as they realized, perhaps for the first time, that life for all people hasn't always been "fair."  The children's books I ordered on Dr. King, Rosa Parks, segregation and civil rights arrived today and I intend for these lessons to continue gently, with lots of discussion. 

After the movie I asked the children to draw me one thing they learned about Dr. King. 

 Xavier drew Dr. King on his knees praying for the people.

Natalee drew Dr. King marching and helping the people.

In math, Natalee started subtraction and is LOVING it!  I'm so relieved as I was very nervous to begin this topic.  It's helped her memorize her addition facts a little better and she's started to understand the relationship between number families!

In reading she's chugging along - we're working on letter cluster pairs - she loves rules so of course she's loving learning each cluster/combo's "rule. :)  She has a passion for reading that is such fun to watch grow!

That's it!  Tomorrow is co-op, catch up (though I think we actually made it through every lesson plan this week!) and eye appointments for Natalee, Mike and me.  I hope you learned as much this week as I think we did!