Ava, Attorney at Law

I always say Ava us going to be a lawyer some day. She can be argumentative and is very good at putting two and two together to figure things out. So on the day after we put our Christmas tree up, she and Shelby had a hard time keeping their hands off the ornaments. I had to tell them repeatedly NOT to touch the ornaments.
Shelby: Mommy, Ava was playing with an ornament.
Ava: No I wasn't!
Shelby: Yes you were. I saw you.
Ava: Just 'cause you saw me do it doesn't mean it was me!

Church Ettiquette

Hubby's great-aunt passed away last week. On our way to the funeral service at the church, we realized the girls had never been in a church before. We decided against explaining the whole death thing right now, but did tell them that they had to be really quiet inside and not to roam all over the place. So after listening to the eulogy for a few minutes, Ava leans over to me and whispers, "Is he telling a story?" "Yes, kind of," I answer. She listens for a few more minutes and says, "When do we clap?"

Frugal Fashion

Here are the girls with their cousin Q. I bought the dresses at Goodwill for $2.60 each. The green one is embroidered velvet, the purple one's skirt is velvet, not sure about the bodice fabric. When I bought them, they looked like they'd never been worn!

Atlanta Children's Parade

Books and Reading

There's a school of thought out there that says you shouldn't teach a kid younger than 6 how to read, or any academics for that matter. I disagree! I learned how to read at age 4 all by myself! I would look through other kids' readers and it just made sense to me. Granted, Spanish is my first language and the fact that the vowels have just ONE sound each made things easy (at least for me). So I can't imagine not knowing how to read.

My girls know all their letters and their sounds, but reading is a different story (it is English, after all). I've been working on it with Ava (4), but she just doesn't get it. Hakuna matata I say. But it does boggle my mind how she knows the following on sight: Kroger, Walmart, McDonald's (of course), Wendy's, Home Depot, and Lowe's among others. We went to see Sam the Lovesick Snowman (a really cute story about a snowman who falls in love with a stove) at the Center for Puppetry Arts today. Ava has a fascination with buildings, especially tall ones, of which there are many in midtown Atlanta. So on the way home she points to a building in the distance and says, "Mommy, that building with the red letters says 'Coke.' " It was, in fact, the Coca Cola building (and it says Coca Cola, not Coke), but my point is, how does she know??? We rarely buy sodas!

Another quirk my children have is that they like to sleep with books. OK, stuffed animals and books. If it's one we've read that night that they especially enjoyed, they fight over who gets to sleep with it. And not under their pillow, but next to them. I don't know how it started, but it's kind of peculiar, don't you think? Does it mean they'll have a life long love of books? I sure hope so. I remember back when I used to read *sigh*. I love books, too, but I don't sleep with them! I hope this means I can look forward to all of us sitting around reading or discussing books we've read. One day, when I'm not so exhausted at 9pm, maybe I can start reading again...