My 5-year-old twin daughters Greta and Cora are in a video with Cathy Puett Miller, an expert on early reading who travels to speak about literacy and who happens to live here in Huntsville, Alabama. Cathy is known as The Literacy Ambassador. In the video, they are playing Rhymin' Simon, which is featured in Cathy's new book, Anytime Reading Readiness (book can be purchased at that link). There is, by the way, a book for parents and a separate book on the topic for teachers, plus Cathy has many other books available. Check it out!

Here's the video:

Video of boys eating, sort of....

Well, since a video of Carlton and Franklin eating out of Baby Dipper bowls has been requested, I tried to film a video using a camera we bought for Cora for Christmas. Suffice it to say that the film quality is poor and there is no sound. So, I'll narrate in advance: That's Franklin on the left and he is first very interested in the camera itself, then concerned about a dot of yogurt that got on the high chair tray, and finally gets down to the business of feeding himself. Moving on to Carlton, you can see that his grasp of the spoon is, uh, not the best, holding it with his fingertips at the end of the spoon handle. This is probably their fourth time using the bowls and he hasn't made much progress, but I know it will happen eventually. Last, but not least, I pan over to where Cora (in the crown) and Greta are eating yogurt themselves. Don't you just love the *rolling eyes* look Greta gave me right at the end? So, there's a glimpse of mealtime at our house. Does that look familiar or is it just scary?

My review of Let's Get Ready for Kindergarten

Yes, it's my turn to actually write a review this time. Stacey Kannenberg of Cedar Valley Publishing and I decided to swap products to enjoy and review, so I sent her a Baby Dipper bowl and spoon set and she sent me copies of Let's Get Ready for Kindergarten and Let's Get Ready for First Grade. Since my twin girls, Greta and Cora, are 4 1/2 years old and will be going to Kindergarten in the fall, this is the perfect time for us to check out the Kindergarten book and use the First Grade book as something to aspire to. I have also looked through the First Grade book and found that it is indeed almost all new topics from Kindergarten, so that will give us something to work from over the next year or two.

So, Let's Get Ready for Kingergarten! Since Stacey sent a copy of each book for each of my girls (thanks, Stacey!), we sat down on the floor with a copy of the Kindergarten book in front of each girl and went through it page-by-page as long as their interest lasted (not quite through the entire book). The inside cover of the book lists skills to practice, so it makes for a handy checklist as Cora and Greta learn to do each of the tasks. I like the "mix up the alphabet page," especially that it shows both uppercase and lowercase letters. We've been working on uppercase letters for a long time, but lowercase is something pretty new that they definitely need to learn. Another favorite page of ours is the skip count page, showing the kids how to count by 10s, 5s, and 2s. Greta and Cora have been more interested in skip counting since seeing that page in the book. The two things that I think will be the most difficult to learn will be money and telling time on a clock with hands. We've already started on these, but this book reminds me that it is a skill that Kindergarteners need to know.

I wish we'd had this book a couple of years ago since we have already covered many of the skills here, but not all of them. I think about age 3 would be a wonderful time to get Let's Get Ready for Kindergarten or to give it as a gift. That way the child might already be on his or her way to learning some of the skills, but the book would help guide parents towards other important things that can be learned slowly over time as the child approaches Kindergarten age. I should mention also that I love that the pages of the book have a fabulous laminated finish so that you can write on them with a write-on/wipe-off marker. Kids love actually being allowed to write in a book!!!

And the winner is.......

Stacy! She wins the Baby Dipper bowl and spoon set I gave away as part of the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival. Stacy commented, "Love the non-slip base" at 2:54 p.m. on January 26. I have emailed her to let her know she won. My daughters, Cora and Greta, helped me with the drawing. I printed out all 95 entries, cut them apart, and put them in a plastic tub. Cora mixed them up (over and over and over and over again!) and then Greta selected the winner. Thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaway!

Milestones everywhere!

With 4 kids, there are certainly lots of opportunities for milestone moments, though some are more monumental than others. Carlton and Franklin are now almost 7 months old and are getting more and more interested in rolling over and sitting up, so we're not far off from those true milestones and then it won't be long before they'll be MOBILE!!!!! Just a few days ago I put Franklin and Carlton in the outdoor baby swings for the first time. It was one of those cool, but sunny days we have here in the south that makes for a wonderful respite from the usual dreariness of the cold and/or rainy winter days. They truly enjoyed swinging the sun and watching their big sisters run around and swing on the big kid swings. That's Franklin on the left and Carlton on the right.

Greta and Cora are 4 years, 3 months old and are so verbose and creative these days. They are constantly wanting to work on art projects and their preschool workbooks, particularly enjoying the mazes and the "what doesn't belong" games. Just this week at my parents' house, as they pulled into the garage, Cora said to my mom, "Oma, does that say 'off?'" Indeed it did! It was the control box for the sprinkler system. Later that same evening, she read/remembered aloud a book about a horse named Blaze that she loves to have read to her. After Mom got the girls to bed that night, she was at her computer and Greta came up behind her and told her that she wants to read 'off' and Blaze like Cora can. Oh, and then there are the things the girls have said recently. Greta told me, after spending all day with me at the children's museum, playing and eating at the mall, and shopping for a new washing machine, that I'm cool! I paused and asked if she meant cool as in cold (it was cold that day) or cool as in fun. She responded, "amazing." I'll have to remind her of this when she is 16. Mommy is cool. :) And, the latest from Cora was as they were driving through a town called Rainbow City on the way to my parents' house. There is a giant rainbow ribbon sculpture on the side of the road and they discussed the colors of it as they drove past: red, blue, lellow, green, etc. My mom took that opportunity to work on saying Yellow rather than Lellow and asked them to "yeah - low." Cora was getting frustrated and told Mom, "it's a work in progress!" In these photos, that Cora, Franklin, Carlton, & Greta on the swing set and then Greta & Cora watching the new washing machine.

So, as I've said before, I'll try to post some more here, but things are always super busy as I try to take care of Baby Dipper and the 4 kids, so my "spare time" is virtually nonexistent. I should mention also that I will be giving away a Baby Dipper bowl and spoon set here on my blog next week in the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival hosted by Don't Try This At Home. So, keep an eye on the blog and tell your friends to come post a response for a chance to win a Baby Dipper bowl and spoon set!

Jumping in the Leaves on Thanksgiving

So, I tend to post things out of order, but at least they get posted eventually. Though we had cold, rainy weather the day after Thanksgiving, we were treated to a beautiful, sunny afternoon on Thanksgiving day. We were at my parents' house in Glencoe, Alabama, where my dad had already raked up a big pile of leaves for Greta and Cora to jump in after lunch. We had beautiful leaf-jumping weather two years ago, but last year the bad weather came ON Thanksgiving and the leaves weren't as plentiful either. This year we had 13 adults and 4 kids there, so it was lots of fun just hanging out, but by far the highlight of the day was watching Cora and Greta run and jump in the leaves. Here are some of the best photos:



And our shadows started to get really long, so that was about the end of it:

Here's hoping that Thanksgiving 2009 brings another warm, sunny afternoon with lots of colorful leaves for all four kids to jump in! Carlton and Franklin will be 17 months old then!

Um, Greta....

OK, so now I'm going to post a picture of Greta from July 4th eating a cupcake to celebrate the birthday of the USA. The reason for posting it is actually to enter in a contest to win a $500 gift card from Prego on the 5 Minutes for Mom blog. So, here is Greta (with all of us in the background saying, "Um, Greta, do you realize that you have a TINY bit of red icing on your face?"):