Cedar's learning to read!

Cedar is so different from Aspen in so many ways that sometimes I forget how much they are alike. Up until a few months ago, Cedar had no interest in learning to read. He didn't like to be told what sounds what letter made, and he was just fine forgetting half of the alphabet. Aspen on the other hand was reading books by this time in her life. I wasn't worried about Cedar. He is very mathematically inclined, he loves to count and figure out math problems, he is visually - spatially inclined, he can beat many adults at Blokus and can find geometric shapes in anything he looks at. A couple of months ago Jonathon commented that Cedar was ready to read and that we should start actually teaching him. It was the end of the school year and a very busy time so it got put off. But now that we have slowed down, we have started up EFS. (English Family School-more on that later!) I have little assignments for each of the kids to do, and I have started teaching Cedar from Alpha Phonics. (My favorite learning to read book!) He is so excited about it. He knows words from the -am, -at, ax, -an, and -as families. He has about 30 words he can read and is so cute when he sounds them out. he puts his hand over his mouth and sounds out the word, says it out loud, then seems so surprised that he recognizes it as an actual word. It is very funny to watch and as a mom and a teacher makes me feel like I'm doing something right. (The picture is of Aspen and Cedar -in the middle- at the primary summer activity.)

Olive's prayer

Olive said the cutest prayer last night. Usually I help her, but last night she said she wanted to do it all by herself. She hasn't quite got the opening or the closing, but it's even cuter for that. This is what she prayed.

"Thankful for my mommy who was so nice to me doing the monkey bars. Thankful for my favorite pal which is daddy. Thankful for Aspen and Cedar. Thankful we have a car and go places. Heavenly Father, Amen."

I wish my prayers were as beautiful!

Cute summer swimming pictures

Here are some cute pictures of the kids swimming. We have a little pool and even better, we have a friend with a big pool!

Art Camp Tie Dye

Aspen and Cedar are in Art camp this week. The other day they made tie dye t-shirts. They turned out so cute! Aspen's has lots of white with really bold definition that I love and Cedar's is nicely blended with a cool spiral. They are having so much fun. They get to make crafts like crazy and there are a few teen age boys who help out and play in the gym with them with the balls, which is Cedar's favorite! (I cannot for the life of me figure out how to rotate pictures!!! I also can't figure out how to get to a bigger editing page. I did it on the one for memorial day, but I can't remember how to get there. If anyone knows more than I do I would love the help! Jonathon is out playing basket ball right now or I could ask him.)

Dolly Parton

So today I went to get the mail and there was a manilla envelope for Jonathon and I. When I got up to the house to open it I pulled out an autographed copy of Dolly Parton. As I searched further I found that there was a note from one of the Dollywood people saying how happy that they were to see us on CNNMoney.com. It was very nice of them and they even sent us a gift certificate for $50.00 at Dollywood! (though it is a toss up, I think I like the gift certificate even better than the picture.) Being famous is great! I need to try it more often.

Cedar and Soccer Camp

Cedar had soccer camp last week. He had a really good time. This summer for our "summer vacation" instead of going on some big trip, we are doing lots of fun little things. This is one of the things that Cedar gets to do! The pictures are Cedar with his coaches.

President of the United States

So what do you all think about the presidential prospects? It's always a hot topic in my house. I am a registered republican and Jonathon is an independent who supports Obama. This years primaries has been so interesting to me. First of all I don't ever remember caring about the presidential election until a week or so before it was time to vote. But this year I have been following along and am really excited to see what happens. I for one am really glad that Hillary is out of the running. I only hope that she isn't Obama's VP choice. Of her I think that she is an OK woman. She has a lot going for her. I just can't stand the thought of Bill being any closer to the white house than a normal visitor is allowed. I know he wouldn't actually have any "defined" position, but we really don't need him around. I think that I might have listened more closely to the things Hillary said if Bill had been less prominent in her campaign.

So who do I want to win? Right now I want McCain. But I am glad that there are 5 more months to become educated and figure out where each of the two candidates stand. I think that the choice of VP will be very telling as to what each candidate wants and where they would go if they were elected.

What matters most to me? To me, the most important thing is that government preserves the sanctity of life (I am so anti-abortion that although I will listen to whatever someone wants to say about it, but if legalizing abortion is on their agenda, no matter what their other positive plans are, I cannot vote for them.) The other is preserving marriage between one man and one woman. I may present myself to be intolerant when I say this, but if a prophet of God says that's the way it should be, who am I to argue? Those are my top 2. As I look at some of the other issues, the war...I am torn, do we just up and leave? Do we stick around for the rest of forever? The should haves and would haves of that issue are things we can't even discuss. It is past. The economy...I don't really know what to think about that either. We as Americans are so driven by our pocket books and what we can buy, that we can't see past our noses. I count myself among those who likes money and what it can do, but it scares me to learn the number of Americans who live on credit, who have no savings, and who are not willing to change their habits. We need jobs to live on, but we also need to prove ourselves smart enough to live on less than we make. Health care...I'm pretty ignorant on this issue. I do know how wonderful I feel as a mother to know that if I need to take my child to the doctor, I can. I know that there are a lot of OB/GYN's (Other Doctors too, I'm sure) out there who face unbelievable malpractice insurance and so have to up the cost of their service. Those kinds of issues need to be addressed (maybe they already are.) Education...this is near and dear. What do we need? How do we change? Teachers are key, but teaching is among the least paying professions. Had Jonathon stayed teaching, we as a family would qualify for the federal free lunch program, we would qualify for free extra health insurance for the kids and we would (most likely) qualify for food stamps, and a whole slew of other government subsidized programs. Is that right? If you want good teachers, don't make them live in poverty.

OK, I've gone on and on. Thank goodness I'm not a politician. What do you think???

Ouch!

I should have seen it comming. I haven't been to the gym for several weeks because of everything that was going on with the end of school, visitors and a big change of schedule. But it still crept up on me and took me by surprise. Yesterday, in the middle of splash country (Which was super fun!) I blew out my back....AGAIN! Luckily because we were out I had no choice but to keep going and keep moving. (That is the best thing for me. If I stop and sit or lay still, I tend to freeze up and that really hurts.) It isn't nearly as bad as a few months ago, but I feel like a 200 year old woman walking all hunch back and holding on to everything for support. Let this be a reminder to myself to get working out again!!!