Reading!

Ewan and I have been spending about 2 hours each morning doing home schooling.  We started a few weeks ago in an effort to see if home schooling is something that might be a good fit for our family.  We are sort of doing a trial run, for myself and for Ewan.  This helps me to have discipline, routine and follow through, and for Ewan it just gives me an idea of how he might do in a home school setting.  So far he seems to be enjoying him self as am I.  We start off our time with a craft time and then do a reading lesson and then a reading time.  Ewan has been really excited most days to do his reading lesson which just makes me feel giddy.  It has been really amazing to see him learning right in front of me, to see his ability to retain information and recall it.  He is doing really well.  So now that you have a little back ground on our reading situation I will now share my exciting news.  Ewan read his first sentence today!!!!!!!!!

See me eat.

That was the sentence that Ewan read this morning!  He did an awesome job sounding out each letter and then putting all of the sounds together.  I am very proud of him, as if it is not obvious!  So that is my big news for today, Ewan is on his way to becoming a reader:)

The quilt

For Christmas this year my sister totally out did her self, she gave me a quilt that she made herself.  This is why Meghan totally out did her self; she is in school full time, she works full time, she has 2 children, two cats, one dog and a house.  If that is not enough, she had never made a quilt before!  Whoa!  When Meghan gave me the quilt I was in total shock, I could not believe that she had made this beautiful heart felt quilt that represented our lives together as sisters.  It is truly amazing.  The center block is a celtic knot design that says The clan of two. That is the name of a poem I wrote for her over 10 years ago that spoke of our relationship as sisters.  The history, and sentiment go really deep with this quilt.  So I know you are just dying to see what this qulit looks like, well here you go.

The whistling bird

Yesterday morning my son Ewan got up before dawn and I along with him.  We were sitting at the table and he was eating cereal and I was trying to stay awake when we heard what Ewan described as a whistle sound.  I told him that it was a bird singing and he gave me a strange look and then told me he thought in not so many words that it was cool that the bird was singing.  I wondered for a moment if it had just been that the long winter had caused Ewan to forget about singing birds, which I think is the case.  You see I am a birder and I take Ewan with me sometimes, though he is reluctant to go most of the time.  So I know he can recognize a bird singing.  I guess that I take for granted that I know the sound of a bird singing and that to a 4 year old child if they go many months without hearing it they may forget what it sounds like.  I decided to take this bird singing as a sign of hope that the long cold winter is almost at its end, and soon we will be hearing the birds sing every morning.

False advertising

I am lactose intolerant and to make things worse I am allergic to lactaid pills.  So I have to stay away from dairy unless I want to feel like crap.  I try really hard to not eat dairy but it is a struggle from time to time because I know the glories of milk, cheese, ice cream, etc.  This Lent I decided to give up all dairy for 6 weeks to see if really cutting dairy completely from my diet made me feel better.  In an effort to stick with my lenten fast I have sought out alternatives to cheese.  One of the alternatives that I have tried is call Veggie Shreds.  It is a soy product that is flavored like cheddar or mozzarella cheese.  The flavor is there but as for it acting like cheese not so much.  I don't feel like it is asking a lot to want your cheese to melt, or your cheese alternative to melt, especially when it says right on the package Melts Great!  Well apparently there must be some stipulations to the Melts Great claim.  Like here are some, Melts Great unless you use it on pizza, or on lasagna, or on top of any food, or maybe they could substitute Melts Great for Gets Hard and Tough to Chew.  So apparently Veggie Shred only Melts Great if you put in into your food not on top of your food.  So I suffered one bad night of pizza, and one bad night of lasagna, lesson learned.  Here is a picture so you can see how Veggie Shreds Melts Great!

A whole new world

Blogging is pretty new to me, I have only been a blogger for a few months and in that time I have grow to love it.  I have this blog and another that is dedicated to my adoption process.  Doing my adoption blog helped me to get my feet wet in the blogging world and lead me to want more.  I wanted to be able to write about life, love, kids, the environment, you name it and maybe I will want to write about it.  I try to keep my adoption blog entries focused on adoption things so I am excited to be spreading my wings with this blog.  Who know what I may write about next:)