Tuesday, February 7, 2012

A special request & Picture Challenge Day 5

Nash's first grade class is learning about letter writing.  Since one form of letter writing is postcards, they are learning about that as well.  His teacher has asked for any postcards we might have at home that they can look at.  They've also asked that if we have family or friends in another state or country if we could have them send the class a postcard.  If you're willing to do it, you would need to address the postcard as follows:

Mrs. Olsen
Canyon Elementary
270 S 1300 E
Hyrum, UT 84319

If you're willing to do it, will you please let me know when you send a postcard their way so I can let his teacher know to watch for it?  Thanks so much for your help!

I'm not too happy with any of the pictures I took today.  Mostly I think it has to do with the lighting.  I do like the lighting in this first picture (it's natural day light).  Guess I'll have to take pictures in more varieties of light to see what I like best.  I'm not sure how much it will change by me changing the setting on my camera. Guess I'll have to play with that too.

I took this first picture while I was waiting for Samantha & Nash to come out of school.  I took it because he was thoroughly entertaining himself.  With what you ask?  With the hole in the knee of his jeans actually.  I could hear him talking about pirates and something about "Matey."  I had to smile.


I only went to work for about an hour and a half today (instead of 6 hours) because Brooke ended up having her fever spike back up and was super sad.  So, we spent the day at home until it was time to go to dance class with Sam.  My mom kept the boys & I took the girls.  When I got back to get the boys, I was eating an M & M cookie.  Brooke was tracking it like a bloodhound.  So, I gave her a taste.  That wasn't enough.  She ended up with half the cookie.  She was so cute with it.  I kept trying to get pictures of the faces she was pulling while she was gnawing on it.




I recently started giving Brooke an occasional sippy cup of water.  The little girl LOVES them!  Not sure if it's because of the cold water or if it's because it's a sippy cup and she thinks she's a big girl now.

Caleb was being goofy and wanted me to take his picture.  I only kept this one because of his hair that's standing straight up in the back.  I actually combed the kid's hair this morning.  Apparently Nash & Caleb hair requires that it be combed in opposite directions.  I can never remember which boy is which direction.  So, after messing with it for a minute I said "Well, that's going to have to do."  Not 3 minutes later after it dried I realized I had combed the wrong direction!  Poor goofy kid went around with his hair like this all day!  Good thing we kinda like him.

I took this one because Brooke was climbing all over Caleb while he was laying down on the floor.  I tried to get a picture of it but she was too quick and got away.  Then she was playing really cute with the wipes.  Nope.  Wasn't fast enough to catch that either!

He had to have a picture with this particular story.  Not sure why.

Nash has been really good to practice the piano whenever I tell him to.  I think he'd actually sit and plink at the thing all day if I'd let him.  He's using the books "Little Mozart."  Sam started with the Bastien series.  The Little Mozart series focuses more on rhythm at first.  Poor Nash is the ONLY kid (so far as I can tell) that wasn't born with a natural rhythm to the music.  It seems to be ingrained in the other 3, but not him.  Maybe that means once he finds his rhythm he'll keep it.  Whereas the others might not use theirs as readily because it's always been there.  Who knows?

Brooke was in her walker right next to Nash the entire time he was practicing.  Have I mentioned how much this little girl ADORES her big brother Nash?  She seriously cannot get enough of him.  It's quite adorable actually.  She was getting her groove on while he practice piano tonight so I had to snap a picture of that.


And last, but not least.  Samantha has finished the primer level in the Bastien books & has moved up to Level 1!  I'm really impressed with how good she's getting.  Now, if I could just get her to practice her flash cards without arguing, I'd be even happier.  She struggles to name the note & identify it on the keyboard.  She can do it, it just takes her a lot longer than it probably should.  Her dad taught her a word trick to remember how to figure out which note is which.  She relies quite heavily on that trick & I think if she'll just do some more drill & kill with the flashcards, she'll get it ingrained into her brain.  I do just fine with the treble clef still.  It's that dang bass clef that kicks my butt.  Perhaps that's why I've had a hard time learning to play piano!


Thought Provoking


A good friend of mine posted this on his blog today with the caption: Why I Write.  I couldn't agree more.  I absolutely loved this and had to share.