Quiet Thursday Happenings

So as C sleeps this early afternoon on this frigid, frigid Thursday (looks like winter's finally arrived in Minnesota!), I took a picture of her. Because who can resist this?

"And the Packers score their seventh touchdown!" Yes, Honey, only in your dreams.

Then P saw me taking a picture of her, and he said, "Take a picture of ME, Mommy!" So I took several because he had to practice not moving and actually looking at the camera.

 

Notice the sparkly white teeth here! P visited the dentist this morning with Papa, who also got his teeth cleaned. No cavities for the Olson's! Even more impressively, P sat and had his teeth cleaned without Mommy or Daddy sitting next to him, and when he was finished before Papa, upon being asked by the lovely dentist office staff if he wanted to watch a movie, he said, "No, thank you. I'll just play with the blocks." Sigh. Awesome kid moment.

Then,as if he hadn't already made his parents really, really proud, he floored us in what we call Letter Lessons (you can read about the beginning of this process here).  We started double consonants at the ends of words last week, so I wrote a few words on the whiteboard as part of his review. The first one was "mess." I didn't 1) remind him to look at the letters from left to right, 2) prompt him to sound out each letter one at a time, or 3) repeat the sounds of those letters to help him blend them all together, and P read the word all by himself! "Mmm--eeeehhh--sssss. Mess. MESS!" It was MIND-BLOWING! He can recognize letters and identify them and figure out what they say together. He can make meaning by himself! Suffice it to say this was one of those moments that make me want to home-school FOREVER!

Anyway, then P read a number of other words--today we started "ck" at the end of words--one of them being "rock." And as soon as he read it, he looked at me and said, "Like Little Rock, Arkansas?" Great-Grandma Elsea, who was born there, would be very proud.

And not to be unfair here, I thought I should take a picture of S, too. Here he was as I found him.

I love our little guy! He's talking like crazy and running and getting into things (like dumping two 100-piece puzzles all over the kitchen floor this morning) and telling me lots of things like, "Nice to meet you, Mommy." "What's that?"--that one constantly, sounding like a foghorn "Wat's DAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?"-- "No cry, Clara. Pacifier, Mommy"--even when Clara is sleeping or not crying. I like to think he's just very protective and comforting to his baby sister. And at times in the afternoon like this, I am really glad that, like when S plays, he plays hard, when our big little S sleeps, he sleeps hard. I did move the blanket to get this shot of his face.

Life. Is. Good.

Now I've got to go switch out my Christmas dishes from the hutch, just in time for another holiday coming soon! See future posts for details.