Friday (from the iPhone)

I think I've become a bit lazier since getting an iPhone (which has an okay camera on it) and having another baby. I still get my camera out and shoot away, but it's not attached to me like an appendage the way it used to be. So all of today's pictures are courtesy of the phone. Anyway, after almost 31 straight days with rain, we finally had sunshine yesterday. We walked to the park. Eric, Cate, and the dog stayed at the park while I walked another block to the record store. Colbie Caillat was supposed to have a new CD out this week, but apparently it's been pushed back to July. So I got the new Allison Kraus and Union Station CD instead. Brennan tried out his sunglasses that I bought for being at the pool this summer.
Today, we went downtown to the main branch of the Cincinnati library. Because parking is cheapest a couple of blocks away, it's always better to go when the weather is nice out. My friend, Nicole, and her daughter accompanied us.
We came home with quite a bit of reading material. The top four are for Brennan. He loves books with high contrast images and will stare at them, totally engrossed.
Our trip wore the little guy out, as he is currently doing this:
He's also been a little fussy lately. He had shots at his 4-month checkup on Wednesday and the one bruised his poor little leg. And the excessive drool tells us teeth are on the way. He still manages to stay relatively smiley though. He weighed in at 14 pounds, 15 ounces and is 26 inches long. Woo hoo!

We checked out some "big books" this trip too. Remember these? My elementary school teachers had tons of them. They made reading to the whole class easier as everyone could see the pictures. Cate loves having such giant books at our house.
Speaking of books, only 2 people seemed interested in keeping the traveling book going. According to the random number generator, Mama Marchand is getting it next. Girl, I need your address. :-) Sorry Mikala! :-( It's worth checking out from the library though.
I think that about wraps it up. In case I don't post again before Sunday, Happy Mother's Day to all the mama's and mama's-to-be reading my blog. My mom is on her way to Cincinnati as we speak. We have a mother/daughter brunch that we're attending at my grandmother's church tomorrow. On Sunday, my sister will be arriving in town. We're planning to see Something Borrowed Sunday night and head to the zoo on Monday morning.

I enjoyed reading through the comments on my post about our house. We will most likely purchase our "forever" home in a few years. Mostly because neither Eric nor I work in a field that transfers people for work. So unless we decide to up and move, we're here for the long haul. And once that home is paid off, well...you it's better than paying rent. We're hoping to put down a sizable down payment on our next house and pay whatever we owe on it off within 10 years of purchase. Just in time to pay college tuition. But I thought the perspective of the renters was interesting and the idea isn't totally off the table for us. We'll just have to see what's best in a few years when we're ready to move.

~Melody :-)

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Book

A couple of months ago I won a book from my in-real-life friend's, Tudor Rose's, blog. Are You My Guru? How Medicine, Meditation, and Madonna Saved My Life by Wendy Shanker. You can read Miss Rose's review by clicking here.

I love a good memoir/personal narrative. In fact, I've been reading a lot more of those than I have fiction in the last few years. This one didn't disappoint. The author was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder in her late twenties, a time when she really had a lot going for her (she had worked at MTV and Oxygen network and met dozens of celebrities). She begins a years long fight to save herself from this disease and has to find the combinations of treatments that work best for her. This is NOT a book full of lots of medical jargon. It is a book full of self-deprecating and sometimes dark humor and lots of pop culture references (especially to Madonna). It's a quick and easy read too.

Tudor Rose sent me her actual copy of the book, which was sent to her by one of her friends who lives in Malaysia. So if you want to keep the book traveling and would like it to show up on your doorstep, leave a comment below. I'll choose a random person at the end of the week and get in touch with them to mail the book. And it would be totally awesome if you'd keep the book traveling when you're finished with it. I might even get creative like Miss Rose and send you my own mix CD of my favorite Madonna songs (does "Like a Prayer" bring back memories of middle school and high school for anyone else?).

Happy reading!

~Melody :-)
P.S. Don't be fooled by their looks today. Miss Cate got up twice last night-- once to pee and once just because. And Brennan, who has been a pretty good sleeper lately, decided he needed a 3:30am snack instead of waiting until his normal 5:00. I am one tired mama today since 3:30 was NOT one of the times big sister got up.

Everyone Communicates, Few Connect - A Booksneeze Review

It's Papa E's turn to write a review. I recently read Everyone Communicates, Few Connect by John C. Maxwell. While I'm not much of a fan of the typical leadership genre, I was intrigued by this book for a couple of reasons. First, it seemed to focus on a different aspect of leadership than many current authors in the field. And second, I feel as if I am becoming more skilled in the area of connecting in my job, and thought this would be a natural fit.

First off, I will say that you need to read this book with a grain of salt. Some of the specific examples and skills are hard to relate to, coming from a man who is a millionaire leadership expert. That being said, there are definitely some good anecdotes and some great examples of the principle of connecting.

At the outset, Mr. Maxwell defines connecting as "the ability to identify with people and relate to them in a way that increases your influence with them" (3). He goes on to show how this can be relevant in sales, management, relationships, or even volunteering. He continues to develop this definition throughout the first section into an attitude that permeates your interactions with everyone, and is very others-focused.

In the second section he goes on to describe how you can cultivate and grow in this skill by putting a couple of tools into practice. These include things like finding common ground and keeping it simple.

I definitely enjoyed the book. It was rather refreshing to read a book that tried to cultivate an attitude rather than giving you a grocery list of things you must do to achieve success or be an effective leader.

- Papa E

One Hand, Two Hands- A Booksneeze Review

For this Booksneeze review, I had the chance to share a book with Cate. One Hand, Two Hands is written by one of my favorite Christian authors, Max Lucado. He's actually written several children's books, but many of them are too wordy for a two-year-old to sit through (perfect for kindergarten and up though).

Anyway, One Hand, Two Hands takes kids through the day and all of the many uses of their hands. From washing their hands, to holding a cup, to showing love, our hands do can do a lot of things. At the end of the book, it talks about folding our hands to pray. There's also lists of things we can do with our hands to help, to love, and to be kind that serves as a sort of discussion starter for children and their parents.

With simple, rhyming words and cute, appealing illustrations, One Hand, Two Hands is a perfect book for toddlers and preschoolers. It teaches them all of the many ways they can use their hands in positive ways, reminds them to be thankful for their hands, and is fun to read!

Cate is excited to add this book to her collection and I hope we have more opportunities to review children's books in the future.

~Melody :-)

Saturday Look(ed) Good to Me

In case you were wondering, the title of this post is a reference to a band I've come to like over the last couple of years-- except they're called "Saturday Looks Good to Me." Anyway...

This Saturday was a pretty good one. After a full week of school, I was W.I.P.E.D. out. Whoever decided to start school with students on a Monday (as opposed to having the teacher workday on Monday or Tuesday and then having the students start on Tuesday or Wednesday), was clearly not a teacher. Thankfully, I seem to have some really good kids (which will make the next 15 weeks easier) and a hardworking student-teacher (which will make life until October 15th easier). We went to the football game for the district where I work on Friday night and met up with a woman I used to teach with and her husband. Cate was all over the place, so I don't have any pictures from the game. She had fun though and we all slept well Friday night.

Fully recharged from a good night's sleep, Cate and I decided to head to our main library downtown. Eric had to staff a workout for Team in Training. Let's just say that our little branch library that we walk to often could fit inside just the children's department at the main library. Cate was in heaven-- she loves kid-sized furniture and this place was full of it. The children's librarian helped her get started at a computer and Cate was mesmerized by the eBook programs.
We left with a stack of books for Cate...
...a few to feed Mommy's interests...
...and a couple for Mommy to use when doing book-talks with her students this week (book-talk=read an interesting portion to get kids to go check it out or order it from the book order for you non-teaching readers).
Since we were already downtown, we made the quick drive to Friendship Park (next to Sawyer Point and the Boathouse for you locals), where a set of hidden steps leads down to a great little view of the Ohio River.
Cate and I sat for about 20 minutes and talked and watched the boats.
Needless to say, she was exhausted and crawled right into bed for a nap. Notice the "ookie" (pacifier)? Those went bye-bye Saturday night. More about that later.
I was pretty tired after our morning adventure too. So after dinner, Eric took Cate and Zoey, our dog, to another local park (French Park), with a long, hilly, hiking trail. All three walked about a mile and a half.
Later that night, Cate left all of her "ookies" out for the ookie fairy. This fairy turns your old "ookies" into a toy or two and brings new ones for your baby brother.
Cate was excited about the prospect of getting some new toys (and some ookies that she could give to Brennan), but there was one flaw in our plan: Without her ookies, Cate didn't know how to put herself to sleep. Well, she did know how because she does it every day when she naps, but night-time was a whole other beast. It was almost 11:30 pm by the time she fell asleep, ookie-less. Two hours after she went to bed. She didn't cry or fuss. She just didn't know what to do with herself. Considering that she woke up at her normal time, it's no wonder she did this on our walk Sunday afternoon:
And then did this when we brought her inside:
Yes, that's the kitchen floor. Yes, we are mean parents and made her wake up after our 20 minutes stroll since it was later in the afternoon and we wanted her to be tired so she'd go to bed that night...on time. She eventually woke up and went right back to playing with what the ookie fairy left her-- a Matchbox car size Sally and Doc (from the movie Cars-- she's a little obsessed with the movie right now and only had a Lightning McQueen before).
We also installed a fridge lock/latch thing this weekend. Cate has been getting into the fridge both when she's hungry and bored and then brings them to us wherever we happen to be. The door didn't always get closed tightly afterwards and sometimes she left things out and forgot to put them back-- Mommy and Daddy would later discover them. So this was a proactive move on our part before things got out of hand and we ended up with say, broken eggs or a gallon of milk, all over the floor.

In all, it was a pretty good weekend. Saturday night was rough, but everything else seemed like a wonderful way to spend time together after a full week of work.

~Melody :-)

Random Ramblings of a Now 28 Year Old

I have no age complex, so I have no problem putting my age in the title. Yesterday was my golden birthday-- I celebrated 28 years on the 28th day of the month. It also happened to be a Wednesday, which was the actual day of the week I was born.

My wonderful husband went and got me Starbucks before I left for work. He also cut some beautiful flowers from our yard to put in a vase. After school, my grandmother (dad's mom) brought over a made-from-scratch Boston Creme Pie...yum. Eric took me to dinner at Nada, a contemporary Mexican Restaurant downtown that I've been dying to try. Then he surprised me with a totally awesome gift-- Photoshop Elements. I can now take my picture-editing to whole new levels. I haven't had much chance to play around with it yet, but you can bet I'll post new pictures as I learn things.

It's actually been a busy week here. The Flying Pig Marathon is this weekend and since Eric works for Team in Training, he's been BUSY. It was also state testing week at school. Boring, but busy-- if it's possible to be both. I did get to enjoy this book:I got some money and giftcards for my birthday from my family, and this book just came out in paperback this week. There are a lot of notes and drawings in the margins that add to the story, which is why it's not available for my Kindle. I was slightly surprised by how much I missed the weight of a book in my hands. :-)

All said and done-- a perfect birthday! Lots of well-wishes and good times.

And now...a few random thoughts and pictures:

Cate got some new wheels a few weeks ago. This was a consignment store steal. Brand- new condition for $20. I appreciate the handle in the back so that I can push her when she gets tired. Cate looks stinkin' adorable in these two pictures-- the first is of her in the dress I just finished up for her and the second is of her last weekend in my parents' landscaping.And finally-- I'm not so sure math is going to be Cate's strong suit. The other night Eric told her she could pick out two books to read before bed. She went into a frenzy, repeating "couple of books" and grabbing all of the books her little arms could hold. They ended up reading seven. She's gonna be a reading/language arts kind of girl like her momma.~Melody :-)

Captivating-- Booksneeze Review

Today's review: Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge.

When I was little, I liked going to church, for the most part. Even in college I sought out a church that I could temporarily call "home." I joined a Christian sorority and attended the weekly meetings of a couple of different faith groups on campus. It was really in college where I began my search for what it meant to be "a woman of God" in earnest. I still don't know what that means all the time. For awhile, I thought it meant that I had to look perfect, serve my husband, and throw myself into volunteering at my church. You burn out quick trying to do all of this. Blogs and other social-media didn't help. My message from them (what I was hearing, not necessarily what they were saying): if you're not an organic-eating, home-schooling, church volunteering, husband-serving, perfect-looking woman then you are doing something wrong. I began to question myself a little. Was it okay that I worked and had a family? Was it okay that I asked my husband to do some (okay, a lot) of the cooking and cleaning? Was it okay if I said "no" to something at church? And finally I learned that the answer to all three questions is "yes."

Captivating is one of the first books I've read that really talks about what it truly means to be "a woman of God." This quote in particular really resonated with me: "The culture of women in the church today is crippled by some very pervasive lies. 'To be spiritual is to be busy. To be spiritual is to be disciplined. To be spiritual is to be dutiful.' No, to be spiritual is to be in a Romance with God. The desire to be romanced lies deep in the heart of every woman. It is for such that you were made," (129).

That's right-- to be a "woman of God" means to let God romance you. And that's just part of what the Eldredges (mostly Stasi) talk about in this book. Throughout the entire book, the Eldredges talk of how God wants women to live out those three basic desires we have as little girls: to be romanced (to be desired), to be part of a great adventure, and to be beautiful.

No matter where you are as a woman in life, God sees you as beautiful. He is captivated by your beauty. He desires you to live the life you were born to live and designed to live-- to take part in the great adventure he has planned for you (whether it's motherhood, starting a business, traveling, being a missionary, volunteering, continuing your education, etc.). For those women who are married-- it's no coincidence that these desires line up with the desires most men have as little boys-- for a battle to fight, for adventure, and for a beauty to rescue. One of the things my husband told me when we first got married was that he'd always fight for me, for us (he'd just read John Eldredge's book, Wild at Heart).

I love the way these desires fit together when a man and woman are in a relationship. In Stasi's words, "A woman in the presence of a good man, a real man, loves being a woman. His strength allows her feminine heart to flourish. His pursuit draws out her beauty. And a man in the presence of a real woman loves being a man. Her beauty arouses him to play the man; it draws out his strength. She inspires him to be a hero," (19).

And if you're not married...not to worry. Married or not, God fights for you every day. He wants you. He wants to rescue you. He wants to be a part of your great adventure.

Those lies I believed at one point in time or another are just that-- lies. God created me to go on the adventure of teaching middle school kids. And I love it. He created me for the shared adventures of marriage and parenthood. And I love both. That's who I am-- it's not how every woman has to be. It feels wonderful to know that Eric finds me beautiful all the time (and tells me all the time) and even better to know that God finds me beautiful too. If you read my Freedom post, you know that God has rescued me...and that wasn't the first time. And when Eric helps out with cooking and cleaning...he's definitely my hero (he's my hero for other reasons too though).

So to the women out there reading this-- know that you are beautiful, you are desired, and God has big plans for you.

~Melody :-)

Booksneeze

So here's the thing: I like to write about what I want to write about when I want to write about it. Which is why I'll never do paid advertising on my blog. (Sidenote: I did consider this at one time-- even had my application accepted with a major blog advertising placement group-- but then I read about requirements for how often you have to post, etc. and decided not to go through with it). I'd rather promote things and businesses I whole-heartedly love and support (like my friend's boutique, Stop Traffick Fasion)-- things I don't get a kickback from. Besides, some blogs I used to enjoy reading really changed after they began accepting advertisements. For one, they now take forever to load. Secondly, I came to realize that some of the posts seemed to have been posted just for the sake of posting, making the blog less interesting to read.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox. I don't hate you if you have ads on your blog. It's just not for me. That's all.

So Booksneeze---the lovely button at the top. Advertisement or not? Well, it works like this: I sign on to Booksneeze's website whenever I'm in the mood. I pick from their selection of books that need to be reviewed (or not if nothing interests me at the time). They send me the book. I read it. I post a blog reviewing the book (being honest-- however I feel about it). I do get to keep the book. Once a review is posted, I can repeat the whole process. If I want.

I like Booksneeze because I don't have to give a glowing-review if I don't want to. I don't have to read a book if it doesn't interest me. And Booksneeze could care less about how many times a week I post, how many comments I generate from a given post, and how many page views I get a month. I'm not promoting them. I'm promoting a book. And since I do that anyway on my blog (see the Reading tab under categories), this was kind of a no-brainer. Free book to read as long as I post my opinion about it.

So in the future, please look for Booksneeze reviews from me (and maybe some from my hubby too). I'll be posting my first review of Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge soon.

~Melody

Back to Work

Tomorrow I go back to work. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. Spring break has re-energized me and given me the rest I need to gear up for the remaining 8 weeks of the school year.

Over the weekend I traveled with Cate and my grandma to Hudson, OH. My awesome hubby stayed here and cleaned the entire house....like really, really, cleaned it (and bought fresh flowers). He even endured some of the colder night temperatures we had here to keep the windows cracked so that the house would really air out.

I did a little sewing on my mom's machine while I was up there (pictures to come later), graded a few papers, met a friend and her son for lunch, and did a little reading (I started Love and War by John and Stasi Eldredge-- hubby and I are reading it together and it's great so far-- as well Brief Encounters with Che Guevara by Ben Fountain-- a book of short stories that's also captured me so far).

But my real reason for making the trek up I-71 was for one of my dearest friend's bridal shower. Her sister went to culinary school so the food was to. die. for. It was great to see her and the other bridesmaids as well as to meet some of her family. I wished she lived closer because she got some awesome kitchen gadgets and she cooks well too. I'd be over there every night for dinner.

You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you that I didn't take a single picture the entire weekend, but that's the truth. I pilfered this one of me with the bride (the one standing next to me with the ribbon bouquet I fashioned as she opened gifts) and 3 of the 5 other bridesmaids from Facebook. The wedding is two months from tomorrow, which means I really need to start practicing walking in these heels-- the shoes all the bridesmaids are wearing for the ceremony.

It was a good trip despite Cate's upper 2-year molars deciding to make an appearance and rendering her grumpy. We'll be heading back up in a couple of weeks for my sister's sorority family day. I'm looking forward to more time to spend with family.

~Melody :-)

Eye Candy

I made these yummy snow pops to take to Book Club tonight. They look (and taste) delicious. They weren't too hard to make, although next time I make them I will make sure my husband or someone else is here to entertain Cate. She watched a lot of Elmo's World while I made them. Wouldn't red, pink, and white ones be cute for Valentine's Day? I can see them being a good treat for Cate to bring to school on her birthday in a few years (let's not rush things, okay).
I think the vase makes for cute display, however it means that the other dozen or so will be arriving in ziploc bags and will replace others as they are eaten (aka: they don't all fit in the vase). If you want to make some yourself...the recipe is here (luckily I didn't have to add rolled oats).

And because no Eye Candy post would be complete without this girl:
Ahhh...I love me some blue-eyed toddler in brand new fleece sitting in a Cracker Barrel rocking chair drinking milk out of a sippy cup!
~Melody :-)

P.S. Our latest book club read: The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. Up next month: 1000 White Women by Jim Fergus (already downloaded to my Kindle...I love that thing).

Catching Up on Our Reading

With Cate under the weather this weekend, all of us decided to take some time to relax.  I got out of my pajamas long enough to go to a Saturday night church service and Eric did the same on Sunday (it's so nice that our church has services on two days).  Eric and I are still healthy (thanks for the prayers), and Cate remains as active as ever despite still having a pesky cough/runny nose and a fever about a degree above normal that seems to come and go.  At least she doesn't need Tylenol.  She's been normal all night tonight, so hopefully on Wednesday we'll have been fever-free for 24 hours and back to business as usual. 

In the meantime, Cate has developed a love affair with this book:

I love the illustrations in the book and remember reading it as an elementary school kid.  When I saw the over-sized board book edition at Barnes and Noble last year, I couldn't resist.  It had a few too many words for Cate to really sit still long enough to read it...until now.

It's been one of the two books she's requested over and over again lately.  I think I just about have it memorized.  Her other book of obsession is one we checked out from the library a week or so ago. 

The Little Train is also a little more wordy than the books Cate typically sits still for, but I'm pretty sure we've read it to her at least 50 times int he last week...most of those times being this weekend. 

Eric and Cate got out for some fresh air this evening and stopped by the local comic book store up the street from us.  Cate was so cute as she walked in the door with a big "Hi, Mommy" and handed me this:

 

I'm not a big comic book fan, but I am a big Colbie Caillat fan.  I absolutely love her music!  Shortly after school started, Colbie's new CD came out.  While reading reviews of it online, I stumbled across a fan site that discussed her cameo in a Veronica comic book.  I mentioned it to Eric, and I think he actually went up to the store to check for it back in September, but couldn't find it.  I'd pretty much forgotten about it until they came back from their walk this afternoon.  It's a cute story.  :-)

And because my husband is amazing and knows my reading tastes pretty well, he picked up this for me a couple of weekends ago:

I loved The Time Traveler's Wife and have been waiting ever since I finished it for another novel.  Finally,  Niffenegger delivers.   I've been pretty busy at school and here at home, obviously, so I haven't been able to read as much as I would like, but I'm about 40 pages in and am really enjoying it so far.  Hopefully it won't disappoint. 

What have you been reading lately?

~Melody :-)

I May Be MIA For Awhile

Not because I'm going anywhere-- though one of my dreams is for Eric to arrange childcare for Cate, pack my bags, and whisk me off to a beach somewhere for a weekend.  But because our computer is having some major problems.

It's user error-- Macs are still the best.  And I won't go into the details except to say that I was not the user who made the error.  And I am praying that we have not lost the 2,000 or so pictures we had stored in iPhoto, the 5,000 or so songs we had in iTunes, and the countless tax documents, papers from grad school, papers from undergrad, addresses we'd stored, etc.  It seems like a petty and insignificant thing to pray for, but it really is a big deal for me.  You know it's bad when the people at the Mac Store Genius Bar tell you to take your computer elsewhere to see if they (the people at "elsewhere") can recover everything from your hard drive before reinstalling the operating system on your computer.

In the meantime we have a borrowed computer to use.  I can't upload photos to it-- unless they're from my phone and I email them to myself.  Like this one of Cate:

This was at the library earlier this week.  She loved this little shape-sorting peg board.  And speaking of loving our library...if you live in our area, there is a very important issue coming up on the November 3rd ballot.  Issue 7 is an important library levy.  If it doesn't pass, many branches will be in danger of closing.  And the levy will only cost the average homeowner $2.50/month.  I don't know about you, but we use our library a lot.  And it's always busy-- kids being tutored, adults applying for jobs, teenagers writing their first resumes, story-times, summer programs, sewing clubs, outreaches to the elderly, etc.  Keep our libraries and their invaluable, often-free, programs alive by voting "yes."

Until I can post again...have a good weekend.  And enjoy this poem about Cate that my awesome Aunt "B" wrote.

~Melody :-)

P.S.  And if it doesn't seem too insignificant to you too, would you mind lifting up a little prayer for the recovery of our hard drive for us?  We do have a several things backed up on an external hard-drive, but we still stand to lose a lot.  Thanks.

When Daddy's Away...

...the Riggs girls wear themselves out!  And he's only gone for one night!

Cate played hard at the sitter today and took an early nap (before lunch).  Mommy had fall field day at school.  Then we came home and kicked around a ball that's half Cate's size.

Which was followed by the discovery that sidewalk chalk (at least the good Crayola kind) marks on your feet too!

 After a walk around the block and a quick trip to Target (during which Mommy once again indulged Cate's Elmo fascination by getting her an Elmo board book about colors from the dollar bin), we came home, took a bath, and read one of our latest discoveries.

Babybug Magazine is geared towards toddlers.   Since I think we've checked out just about every board book at our local branch of the library, I picked up a few of these issues more out of curiosity than anything last time we were there.  It has a lot of bright illustrations and is full of simple stories and rhymes.  The pages are thick and glossy (read "waterproof-ish" and "hard to tear").  I think we may be getting Cate a little subscription soon.  It will be fun for her to get some mail.

We spent the rest of the evening before bedtime, reading, I mean, stacking books.

Cate loves to stack things.  Blocks, toys, books, you name it, she'll try to find a way to stack it.  It's been so cool to watch her fine motor skills improve.  She's getting the hang of putting bigger books on the bottom of her stacks and leaving the smaller ones for the top.  We also watched a little bit of an Elmo DVD (It's Not Easy Being Green has Paul Rudd in it and teaches kids about environmentalism...although Tina Fey in Elmo and The Bookaneers is probably still my favorite that we've checked out).  So that's what Cate is looking at in the above picture.

And now?  Now, we're both worn out.  Cate has been snoring in bed for 45 minutes and I think I'm going to be right behind her. 

Daddy is in Dayton for the night with a team of Team in Training participants who will be running the Air Force Marathon tomorrow.  Good luck and go team!  Run fast so Daddy can get home quicker!

~Melody :-)

Enjoying the Warmer? Weather

It was 45 out today, which meant that it was warm here, for winter. So we loaded up the wagon (Cate needs some toys to keep her busy) and headed up to the park.
She enjoyed the swing.
And crawling through this little tunnel about a million times.
We shared a banana before heading back home. Clouds were rolling in as the sun started to set, so it was getting a little chilly. We played on the floor for an hour until Daddy got home.
It's supposed to be cold the rest of the week, so our playtime will be limited to the floor or the museum (thank goodness it's so close). I will be spending the rest of these cold nights with this pile o' books:
We've been having a book fair at school and I got a wonderful surprise this morning letting me know that since I had taken the time to come visit the book fair and fill out a teacher wish list, I was being given a $50 gift card to spend at the fair. It makes up for the fact that I've never had a parent actually purchase me anything off of my wish list. My $50 didn't go too far considering that 3 of the 4 books I chose were hardcover...but still, it beats no books at all. I haven't read much young adult literature this year other than the books I've taught, so it's exciting to get some new stuff to read...for free!

~Melody :-)

Bookworm

I am a bookworm, Eric also loves to read, and it looks like Miss Cate is following in our footsteps. We've been reading to her since birth. We even read to her a couple of times while she was still in the womb. While Cate doesn't understand the stories we read to her, it's great for her to pick up on language patterns and vocabulary. We started out with a Taggies soft book that was a gift from my mom's friend and a bath time edition of Rainbow Fish. We've carried and read those two books to Cate in more places than I can remember.

Lately she's been very curious about her board books. She kind of turns the pages. She bites them and chews on them. She pats them with her tiny little hands. She scratches at their textures with her fingers to see how they feel. She loves her bin of books. Her favorites right now seem to be: Click Clack ABC, Rainforest Discoveries, Goodnight Moon, and two books with pull-out shapes from Pottery Barn Kids (Andrea got us one of them...thanks...it's a hit). We have plenty more books for her to explore as she gets older. Her grandma just bought her a ton of Little Golden books, and I've been collecting children's books since before Cate was even a remote thought in my brain. My friends Jenn and Jane have also sent Cate books to read.

I encourage you if you're reading this to pick up a book and read...to yourself or to your children. In fact, I'm off to read some more as soon as I finish this post. But first...some pictures of Miss Cate and her books.

We love the different textures in Rainforest Discoveries.
Hmmm....which books to choose.
This one looks good today.
Time for another one. We keep her book bin on the lowest shelf of our bookcase so she can get to it. Although, since Cate is not quite into everything yet, we usually move it to the floor during playtime so that she can reach it.
But...Cate did crawl today. Up on all fours. For about 4 or 5 feet. Then she flipped out, belly-flopped, and gave up. She can go from her tummy to sitting though. So that's exciting. And it apparently looks like she's literally a few days away from crawling...but only time will truly tell.

~Melody :-)