For those of you who know me, you know that I am not a gardener…at all.  I do not have a green thumb.  I don’t keep plants because I typically kill them…because I forget to water them.  So yeah, not a gardener.

Well, in our backyard we have a raised portion that the previous owners used for a garden.  It’s a really big area and would be great for a vegetable garden.  However, it being Spring and all, it is full of weeds.  A lot of weeds.  While Dan was mowing the lawn today I decided it was time to weed that area so that maybe next weekend we can plant some stuff.  I know I’m probably a little late in the season, but we’ll see if we can get some tomatoes and other fruits and veggies going.

Here’s a “before” shot of the garden area (along with a before shot of our un-mowed backyard).  Click for a bigger version.  I had actually weeded a little on the right side of the photo before thinking about grabbing my camera, but you get the idea.

This is the “after” for today (click for bigger version).  I got about a third of it done, and then I was DONE.  Hopefully the weather will continue to be nice and I can finish it up this week.

Anna, of course, was loving digging around in the dirt.  She helped me pull weeds and found lots of worms (and slugs, eww) for her critter cage.  Here are a few pics..

Hopefully I’ll continue to fix up the garden area and actually plant some things.  It would be great to grow some of our own veggies to eat.

Anna wrote and drew this little post-it note “story” for me today.  I didn’t help her with the words at all.  I’m so proud that she’s actually writing some of the words she knows.  She can sight read a TON of words now and doesn’t have to sound them all out like she used to.  While we’re in the car she’ll sometimes be in the mood to spell words, so we’ll play the spelling game with 3 and 4 letter words…but we haven’t really worked on writing words other than her name.  We write individual letters from time to time, because she still needs to work on quite a few of the letters.  I think we’ll try to write more in the coming weeks.

Anyway, here’s her story.  The 2nd picture says “Car,” in case you can’t tell by the picture..  ;)  (Click on the picture to see a larger version.)

I have more than just Anna updates, but I’ll save those for another post.

Anna’s reading has improved so much in the last couple of months.  It really amazes me how quickly she’s picking it up.  I have no idea what her “sight” word count is up to, but she knows a ton of sight words now (those are the words that she doesn’t have to sound out anymore…she knows them by “sight”).  She’s really good with words that have short vowel sounds (cat, hat, fish, hog, wash, etc..) and is doing really well with words that have the long vowel sound and a silent “e” at the end (rose, hike, kite, etc..).  She’s also remembering sounds that are a little more difficult like ea, ow, aw, ar, er, ir, etc.  It really amazes me.  She can figure out most words now, though there are a lot of those weird words that I have to help her with.  “Yes, ‘ow’ says ow like in ‘gown’ but it also says oh like in the word ‘show’.”  So confusing for young kids.  She’s getting it though.

She’s almost done with the first half of her online reading program, Headsprout.  I think she has 2 lessons left of the first 40 lessons.  We’re still unsure if we’re going to purchase the second half because I feel like she’s way ahead of the program at this point because she reads to us on a daily basis and also goes to other learning websites (Starfall.com is another good one).  We’ll see though.  She still really enjoys doing the lessons and asks to do her “alien game” (because the first few lessons involved aliens) on a daily basis.

I’ve also been having her do some activities out of a 1st grade reading/writing activity book that I picked up at Walmart or somewhere.  She can already do most of the first half of the book.  I’m enjoying sitting down with her and going through the activities.  She can pretty much write all the letters now, though there are some that still give her trouble (Z, e, g, q, z).  I have also started introducing her to basic addition concepts.  I took some macaroni noodles and dyed them a bunch of fun colors and we’ve practiced adding groups of noodles together: “2 red noodles and 3 blue noodles makes how many noodles?”  It’s fun for her and she’s learning at the same time.  And then when we’re done we put all the noodles back in the big tupperware container and she lets her little princess dolls swim in the noodle pool..  :-D

I’m really liking teaching her, which I guess makes it good that I’m still going for my teaching degree.  We’ve been tossing around the idea of homeschooling for awhile now and I’ve been researching more on that to see if that’s something I think we could (and should) do.  Anna can’t start Kindergarten here until Fall 2011 so I think we might try a trial run with homeschooling next year.  She’ll still do Pre-K preschool, but we’ll do some learning at home on a regular basis as well…….though that’s probably going to cause her to be ahead of a lot of the kids when she would actually start Kindergarten.  We’ll see though.

Here is Anna’s latest reading video.  This was a couple of days ago:

On to gymnastics…  Since my last update we decided to pull Anna from the really nice gym that she’s been taking classes from and put her in classes at the YMCA that we’re members of.  They have a decent gymnastics program and Anna has been in the free preschool classes for a couple of months now.  I talked to the gymnastics director about what is involved in the recreational and team programs to see whether they could get Anna in, because she definitely wasn’t being challenged in the preschool program.  The director had me bring Anna in and she had her do a few things and said that she’d like her to start on their Level 1 pre-team.  She decided that she would start up a new group of girls and has about 6-8 new girls starting with the Level 1 group and they’re all 4.5-5 years old, so I am very excited about that.

She’ll start that next Monday and it will be twice a week for 90 minutes each day, so 3 hours a week.  She’s going to love it.  The director told me that she is going to coach the group herself (her daughter will be in the group too and is only a month older than Anna…they’ve played together a couple of times) and wants to keep coaching them throughout their “career”, or whatever, at the Y.  She told me she’s going to try to have them ready to COMPETE Level 3 in the fall!  I don’t know if that’s possible, but it will be fun to see how she progresses now that she will be in the gym for so much longer.

I got an email from the director which made it seem so official.  She said each of the girls, now that they’re part of the team, get a cubby.  We’ll be contacted by that level rep who will let us know about the booster club and all that goes along with that.  It’s pretty exciting!  Anna doesn’t really get it at this point, just knows that she’s starting a new class next week at the Y.

Here are a couple of videos of Anna’s gymnastics.  The first was at home (obviously).  She got her pullover on the bar recently, and also her backwards roll.  The second video was today at Open Gym.  She didn’t have gymnastics or preschool this week (Spring Break) so we found a gym that looked like they had a fun open gym and tried it out today.  She had a blast.

The last Anna thing, which I almost forgot about but just saw the video that reminded me.  About a month ago, Dan’s brother, Steve, and his wife, Kathy, came for a visit and we went down to Mt. Hood, OR to ski for a couple of days.  Anna skied both days and did SO GOOD!  Before Anna was even born I was awaiting the day that I would be able to ski with her, so this was very exciting for me.  The first day we used the harness with Anna (like we did last year) and she did really good with it.  The next day I took her to the magic carpet beginner area and had her try it by herself.  She had the little thing on her ski tips so they would stay together but other than that she did it by herself!  She did so well there that I took her to the beginner chairlift and she did awesome coming down that slope.  We probably did that slope about 15 times.  We took a couple of runs down harder “green” runs and she did so good.  I probably had a smile plastered to my face the whole time.  It made my year watching her ski.  I’m not sure that we’ll be able to get out anymore this year which is a shame since she did so well.

Here’s a video of her skiing all by herself:

That’s all the Anna updates I have.  I have more non-Anna updates too but I’ll save those for another post.  I promise it won’t be 2 months from now the next time I post.  I PROMISE!

We found a good deal on a used gymnastics bar for Anna and couldn’t resist buying it.  She LOVES it.  Here she is today playing around on it.

About a month ago, I started an online reading program with Anna and she LOVES it.  It’s fun and more like a game to her, but she’s learning how to read while she’s “playing”.  It’s amazing.  There are 80 lessons total, and we’ve gone through the first 13 lessons and she has already read the first two “books” (they’re each 3 pages long, but they’re real books to her!) and is up to reading about 15-20 words.  I’m so proud of her and amazed at how quickly she’s taken to reading.  Here’s a little video from the other day.  Yes, I did have to bribe her to read the second page because we all know my lovely, stubborn daughter will never do any kind of showing off on demand.  :-p

I have decided to attempt to take one photo each day, starting yesterday (Jan 1st) going through Dec 31st.  I will try to take a picture that in some way describes or sums up that day, but as my life is fairly boring there are likely to be a bunch of random photos thrown in.  In any case, each photo will be taken on the specified day…I will not go back and find old photos to use.  I will be posting the photos on my Photoblog in this category: http://theboghs.com/photoblog/?cat=18.  (The first photo in the list will be the most recent one taken.)  I don’t know how interesting they’ll be for anyone other than myself, but I think it will be cool to look back on them all at the end of 2010.

Happy New Year everyone!

Hello poor, neglected little blog.  Wow.  It’s been about a month and a half since I last posted.  I didn’t post for the entire month of November!  What’s up with that?  Here’s what’s been going on with us:

Anna turned 4!  Can you believe it?  I sure can’t.  Where has time gone?  I think I say this every year, but this is such a fun age.  She’s very independent and loves to play on her own but she’s so smart too.  She picks things up like crazy.  She can consistently count to 40 and has counted as high as 70 with no help.  She can write a bunch of her letters, and has been able to write her own name for a long time now.  She knows the sounds that most of the letters make and constantly asks us what words start with certain letters.  I’ve recently started to try to teach her how to sound out simple words and she’s starting to catch on a little!  There’s no doubt in my mind that she’ll be reading before she starts Kindergarten…especially since she won’t start until the Fall of 2011 when she’ll be turning 6.

Anna also started preschool right after we moved back here in October.  She goes twice a week for two hours each day and LOVES it.  She loves her teacher Ms. Cathy, and has a lot of fun with all of the other kids.  The preschool she goes to is a co-op preschool, which means that each day, three parents stay to help out.  So I’m there about twice a month working in the classroom which Anna just loves.  Every school day she asks if I’m going to be a “teacher” in her class that day.  We’ve gotten to go on two field trips with her school, one to the pumpkin patch in October and then to a Christmas tree farm a couple of weeks ago.  We were supposed to go to a fish hatchery in November but it rained the day we were supposed to go.  (Rain in Seattle?  Shocking, I know.)

We’re in our new house!  Hooray!  We moved in the second week of November and are so happy to finally be settled.  We’re still working on getting furniture…but we’re getting there.  While it was nice knowing that we have GREAT friends here who shared their homes with us when Dan moved back in June, and then all three of us (plus the dogs!) once Anna and I moved out at the beginning of October, it’s great to finally be in our own place.  We have a ton of space to fill and Anna loves all the room to run around…especially our 3rd floor bonus room that she has decided to call her “gymnastics room.”  It’s a great house, and seems like a great neighborhood.  Hopefully when the weather warms up a bit we’ll meet some of our neighbors.

School.  I’m still going for that teaching degree that I’ll hopefully get someday.  This last semester was pretty rough with all the moving around, but I finished up at the end of November and started a new semester December 1st.  I get a lot of teaching courses this semester (Classroom Management, Testing, Diversity & Inclusion..) so those should at least be a bit more interesting than the boring old Econ and World Civilizations I had last term.  If I continue as planned, I should do my student teaching in January 2011 and graduate in June 2011.  I just need to keep on keeping on..

We had a small little Thanksgiving feast with just the three of us, which was nice.  We cooked a full Thanksgiving meal complete with turkey, ham, stuffing and all of the other fixin’s.  Anna actually ate pretty much all the food you see on her plate.  She loved it!  We had a second Thanksgiving with some of our friends on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so needless to say, it was not a very healthy long weekend….but everything sure was yummy!

Anna’s gymnastics is going very well.  We tried three different gymnastics schools before we found one we really like.  She’s in a preschool 3-4 year old class right now and since she started there has only been one other little girl in her class so she’s gotten some great individual attention.  Her instructor told me that they’ll be moving her up to the 5-6 year old class before too long (even though she just turned 4).  She still loves doing her cartwheels and handstands and has gotten really good at them.

Probably the biggest piece of news is that my best friend, Mary, and I decided to start our own photography business.  We’re calling it Giggle & Click Photography and we’ll cater to children and families.  We’ve been working hard getting the business license and all the stuff on the business side of things (Mary’s taking care of all that) and also getting the website going.  We plan to “launch” on January 1st and will start advertising soon.  If you want photos taken of your family or children, let us know!!  We’re very excited about it and I’m super excited to turn my hobby into a business.  I think it’s been a long time coming but it feels great knowing that we’re getting everything going and will be in a business we’ll both enjoy.  Oh, and become a fan on my Facebook Giggle & Click page!  You know you wanna.

So that’s about it with us.  Christmas is coming up fast and though we’re spending it without family and there may not be as many gifts under the tree as in years past, I know we’ll still have a joyful time.  This is my absolute most favorite time of year and I love seeing it all through Anna’s eyes.  She’s so excited for Christmas and keeps eyeing the gifts under the tree.

I’m going to try to be better with the blog (I know I’ve said that before..) but if I don’t post before the holidays, I hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

(Ok, does this win the award for my longest blog post ever?)

I got a bunch of GREAT pics of Anna at her little impromptu photo shoot we did and I made this little collage.  Click here to see the whole album of pics from the shoot.

I am absolutely in love with this picture I got of Anna.  Love it, I tell ya…LOVE IT!  It’s just so Anna.  And I love it.  Did I tell you I love it?  I do.  It’s my desktop on my laptop right now and will probably stay that way for awhile.  I just love it that much.

It has been a very busy couple of weeks.

The weekend of October 3rd, we headed up to Charlottesville, VA for my sister, Andrea’s wedding.  Anna was the flowergirl and the wedding was absolutely gorgeous.  We had a great time and Anna had a blast running around with all of the kids.  The brought in a hot air balloon and tethered it so that it didn’t go up very high and everyone, especially the kids, had a blast watching it and riding in it.  Anna didn’t want to go up in it until they were putting it away and by then it was too late, unfortunately.

For all of my pictures from the wedding, click here for the different albums.

Immediately upon getting back to Chattanooga, with the help of my mom we got the house pretty much packed up for the big move back to Seattle.  We left Tuesday, Oct 5th to make the drive out.  The first day we were in the car 11 hours and made it to Kansas City where we stayed with Dan’s parents.  They threw a little birthday party for Anna and let her open some gifts.  She had a blast (as usual) with her cousin Alex and he even stayed overnight and had a little sleepover with her.

On Wednesday, Oct 6th, we drove 12 hours to Cheyenne, WY and stayed in a hotel.  When we got there it was probably 65-70 degrees.  When we woke up the next morning there was snow on the ground!!  It was about 25 degrees outside and FREEZING.  We definitely weren’t expecting that!  Anna had walked in the hotel in flip-flops so I had to go dig some tennis shoes out of the car.  Crazy!  So it was a little slow going getting out of Cheyenne with the snowy weather.

Thursday, Oct 7th was a nice, “short” 7 hour drive into Salt Lake City where we stayed with a friend who I met on my online “mommy” message board.  She has twins who are a couple of weeks older than Anna, so they all had a bunch of fun together. (The first two pics below were at a stop in Utah.  The last is of Anna having fun with her new friends.)

Friday was my longest day.  I was determined to make it into Seattle by the end of the day so that we’d have all day Saturday to spend together for Anna’s 4th birthday.  I think I was in the car a total of 13-14 hours.  We left Salt Lake City at 7:30am PST and got to Puyallup around 11pm or so at night.  We hit traffic right before coming over Snoqualmie Pass (the only real traffic of our ENTIRE trip) and that tacked on about 45 minutes to an hour which was very frustrating since we were so close and SO TIRED.  We had a short stop in Snoqualmie to visit our friends Andre & Mary and their kids, and then we headed down to Puyallup.  We were exhausted but happy to be home.

Saturday, October 10th was Anna’s 4th birthday!  I can’t believe it she’s 4!  Time flies.  (I think I say that every year..)  Since we’d just gotten to town the night before we didn’t really have a birthday party planned, but we did have a little impromptu one with some friends and let her open presents.  She got her “big” presents when we got back to the house: a new Disney Princess bike and a balance beam!  She loves both.

That last picture I took on her birthday at exactly 9:25pm, the time she was born.  :)

Saturday afternoon we went to the pumpkin patch with our friends David & Claire and their kids (and Claire’s mom & brother too!).  Anna had a great time with the boys and I got a lot of great pictures.  Here’s a few, but check out the whole album here: http://theboghs.com/photos/thumbnails.php?album=104

Tuesday, Anna started preschool!  She goes Tuesdays and Thursdays for 2 hours each day.  She had a lot of fun and seems to love it.  She’s very excited because she gets to go on her first field trip with her class next Tuesday to the pumpkin patch (again).  I get to go with her so I’ll be sure to get even more pictures.  I didn’t get a “first day” picture on Tuesday, but here’s one of her right before going in on Thursday.

Tuesday afternoon we tried out a new gymnastics class.  In hindsight it was probably a little much to do her first day of preschool and first day of gymnastics in the same day, because she was pretty tired.  The class that they put her in was way above her level…all 6 year olds (though it was supposed to be a 4-6 year old class) and I think the instructor didn’t really know what to do with her.  Here are some pics of her on the beam though.  The rest start here in the Fall 2009 album on my website.

So I think that pretty much catches you up with what’s going on with us.  Anna and I both have colds now, but hopefully those will go away soon.  We’re trying out another gym class next Wednesday (not on a school day again!) and hopefully this one will be a better fit.  ‘Til next time…