About Reading

Ella has a love for reading and loves to read to her sisters. It brings me so much joy to see her snuggled up with Juju or Karis reading a book. Juliette has shown interest in learning how to read so I'm starting to teach her some of the basics. Juju is so much fun to teach and has a different learning style than Ella. She wants to read like her big sister, but is not quite there yet. The other day I overheard this conversation:

E - Juju are you learning to read books like I can read?
J - I know how to read books.
E - No, you don't know how to read yet.
J - Yes, I know how to read. But I read with my eyes closed. (she went on to "read" from a book with her eyes closed - really funny to see her scrunch her eyes right closed and say a bunch of random words)
E - (a little bent out of shape at this point) That's not a thing, Juj. Reading with you eyes closed is not a thing.

I love Juliette's lighthearted personality. I'm so thankful that God blessed us with her in our family.

Things they say...

On being nocturnal...

While we were camping I saw an owl one evening. It was so beautiful. Unfortunately, I was the only one in our family who saw it. In the morning I was describing the owl to the girls and explaining that owls are nocturnal - awake while we are sleeping and sleeping while we are awake. Ella's dear friend Jonas lives overseas and is in a timezone that is pretty much opposite to ours. When we pray for him before we go to bed we often talk about how his day is just beginning. So after hearing about the owl's day starting when we go to bed, Ella's eyes got quite big and she asked "Mom, is Jonas nocturnal?"

Camping at Shuswap Lake

This year we did our annual camping trip at Shuswap Lake Provincial Park. We loved this campground. The lake was great for the girls (warmish water and a sandy beach) and there were tons of trails for them to ride their bikes. We think we will return to Shuswap next year - as a family of 6 :)

We are reading "Little House on the Prairie" for our read-aloud right now. The girls thought it was funny to see Dadda chopping wood and kept calling him "Pa." They then renamed themselves after the characters in the book as well. This works well for us since the Ingalls are also a family of 5 with 3 little girls.

Making and eating s'mores was a highlight!

There was also a learn to fish program that Ella and Juliette participated in.

We didn't catch any fish, but the girls had fun learning!

We built lots of sand castles!

Driediger Farms

We celebrated Momma and Dadda's birthdays by going to pick strawberries at Driediger farms. It was a wet morning, but we got lots of berries and some of the ones the girls picked even made it into the bucket (except for maybe Karis who may have eaten all of hers.

Year-end Ballet Pictures

Preschool Wraps Up

We had so much fun with our preschool this past year. The kids learned a lot and looked forward to preschool every week. It was also amazing for me to work with and hang out with the other moms every week. 

Our last unit was on countries. Above are some picture of our high tea party while studying the United Kingdom, and below is a picture of the kids playing baseball while studying the USA.

We had our year-end party at Crescent beach. It was a beautiful day to play in the water and eat ice cream.

Happy 2nd Birthday Karis!

Yesterday our baby girl turned 2. We love you Karis!