Where to begin...
October 24th ~ our household became a 2-teen house. Taz turned 13 (and got a haircut a couple of days after this shot!)
His world still pretty much centres around drumming ~ it is his passion and his dream! And he is PRETTY good!
November 27th ~ Another Birthday...
Lilo is now doing pretty well in school. Her reading is improving weekly, in accuracy and fluency. She is still quite well behind her 'peers' for literacy I'd say, but I know she will close the gap over time and I am not worried. She is a happy, well balanced, intelligent, creative child; who would happily spend all her days drawing and colouring and living in a make believe world! Who knows ~ maybe she will write a book someday! Strange as it may seem, I think she is the one of my children MOST likely to do so. She tells me she gets herself to sleep at night by making up stories in her head!
She's been working on 'Explode the Code' online for a few months now and I do think that's help her confidence tremendously, but because it was free (with lots of trial codes we are now up to almost 6 months free) I signed all the youngest 5 up for reading eggs/express. Lilo does 2 days of ETC and 2 days of Reading eggs and together they are working beautifully ;D BUT she often chooses to do extra on the RE site ~ because there is simply more to do & it is loads more fun!!
December 21st ~ birthday number 3 ~ Baby turned 1!
We did smash cake and bubbly water play for his 'party' fun. He was hesitant about both, but soon got into the cake! The bubbles never quite worked.
Since his birthday he has begun to babble more meaningfully and make clearer non-verbal communication too. He also took off on his pins this last week and has practised it to mastery. He doesn't crawl hardly at all now, and is not even very tottery. That seems to be the theme with my children ~ wait until they can and then do it really well!
Oh ~ and he has also mastered ascending and descending the stairs! We keep the stair-gate on though ~ just so we can contain him safely on one floor!
And he started to refuse being 'fed' so now he makes a hideous mess, but feeds himself...
Other STUFF...
On the day before Christmas Eve, my eldest little girl became a 'woman'. We've thought it was around the corner for quite a while, but it doesn't seem fair to start at only 10 (11 in Feb). That said, she is almost as tall as me ~ there's only a fraction in it, and her feet are already bigger than mine! She is turning into one beautiful young lady ~ one half woman the other half girl ~ she is very much that just now :D
Stitch got a 'big boy' haircut ~ he was looking a mess in his mop I'm afraid!
SCHOOL STUFF
We've done some interesting Art so far this year, looking at Op art, in the style of Bridget Riley
(L-R, T-B: Mine, Bugs, Minnie, Lilo, DD, Bugs being coloured.)
And surrealism in the style of Rene Magritte.
(L-R, T-B: Mine (XXX), Lilo (8), TP (10), Minnie (11), Taz (13) & Bugs - not quite finished (14) )
We had some fun with geomag...
This was almost entirely DD's (6) own creation ~ I just helped him stabilise it a little ~ he did EVERYTHING else alone. It took him about 2 hours!
....and Stitch did his very first 'real' drawing ~ it's just not something he really has tried up til' now.
Shame it wasn't on paper and could have been kept ;(
Stitch has been keen to learn to read and as such has also moved on a LOT from this (taken in November)
...and is now reading really well ~ map 5 on Reading Eggs for those 'in the know' and reading almost everything he attempts :D No pushing from me at all ~ it's all been his own doing. 2 maps in 2 weeks ~ and he's doing the worksheets too!
We had a snow day...
But it did only last a day and a bit, so we made the most of it and just had fun that day!
We might be getting some more this week..!
Ten Minutes From Home wise...
I've done two paid photo-shoots now, plus a semi-informal one for the toddlers Christmas party at church. I am selling the pictures to the mums like the schools do, with proper envelopes and all. I have done some commission work for my B-I-L and have some more lined up for a friend of mine who wants some images to help promote the re-branding of their business. I have also been asked to shoot for the wedding of someone at church. I am praying about that one though ~ it's not something I ever envisaged doing, Weddings are a LOT of hard work, but they do pay well ;) So things are beginning to take off ~ which is nice :D
And that's us really. I can't promise when the next update will be, but I'll TRY not to leave it so long.
Let me just leave you with a little more baby cuteness, mostly from just last night (click to see them bigger)...
