Conferences

Little curled piggies with her new short hair

Maddie's long hair before the cut

Minni cutting 5-6 inches off her hair

My cutie patootie after the cut

Annie just being cute. I said "smile, show me your teeth"

Annie's first tatoo

Since the last post Ryan went to Canton OH for a prospective project with work. He enjoyed visiting the football hall of fame and came home with the coolest football pen. It has a little foam football on it that spins. I love it, but it's for Maddie so I will just have to envy her.

Last week Madeline and I attended her school conferences. She's following the rules better and seems to be improving in that respect. She still has a way to go, but at least she's going forward and not backward. She had her first visit to the pig too (I guess it's an incentive to keep still and follow the rules). She was very proud of being able to go to the pig! She picked out a chocolate egg. Chocolate is a great incentive for her as it's her favorite food/type of treat. Academically she is doing fantastic. She's excelling at all of her subjects, knows all of her sight words for the year and reads very well. She's in the highest reading group at school. Interestingly enough, she doesn't really care for reading or any of her academics actually. I hope she started to apply herself so she can really excell. Spanish is still going very well and now Madeline and Lisset focus on conversational Spanish.

Maddie had dance on Saturday and it was parent observation week. She is doing fantastic at coordination and following the steps, some of which are pretty difficult. We're thrilled because it's a huge improvement for her. She struggles with coordination and we're feeling pretty happy that she's improving. Recital is coming up soon. Her dances are very classy and her costume is cute. It's blue which is Grandma Linda's favorite color. I know if she can see Madeline she will love her costume this year.

Annalise is doing great. She's still working on getting her final molar in and that last front tooth. They're coming in slowly. Her vocabulary is great. She says just about everything you can imagine. She calls Maddie "sister" in addition to "Maddie". She can recite entire sentences of songs or repeat a sentence of what you say. It's spontaneous so we never expect it when she does it. It's funny and I can't remember right now what she's said. It's a little hard to understand everything she says, but it's getting better.

Pretty soon we'll trekk out to New York City. Madeline is looking forward to going up into the Statue of Liberty. I'm looking forward to eating lots of great New York food, especially the pizza. My best friend Mona is lending us her apartment for a week while we visit. She just happens to be in India and Moscow during that time at a wedding and it's unfortunate we will not be able to see her, but I think she's happy NOT to spend a week with all of us in her apartment. HA!





ETA: I forgot to mention Madeline's hair cut. On Saturday she had 5-6 inches cut off since she's no longer growing it out for the wedding. It's super cute curled under.