Oliver Easter!

We had a great Easter this year. It was a nice sunny Sunday and all was well. Here are a few pics of the girls in their dresses that we made this year, enjoy.

my sewing sweety

O.K. so you all know that I spend a lot of time on the sewing machine. i guess that addison has seen me on it so much that she has figured that she must be missing out on something great by not being on the sewing machine too. she has been begging to sit on my lap or at the machine by herself. this is what it looks like.

irlen.com

last year we became very concerned when andie's teacher realized that her reading had not improved at all during the 1st grade school year. we had no idea what to do and were considering holding her back to repeat first grade. we decided to think on it over the summer before deciding. the weirdest thing is that she was strong in every other subject, but language arts. my friend tina agreed to work with andie when she found out our concerns. they were listening to a book on tape and andie was supposed to be following along with her finger, but her finger was moving along in a wavy line instead of straight. tina thought this was interesting and it reminded her of something she had heard at a reading conference she had once attended. she ran home to get some colored overlays. when she laid the overlays in different colors over the words in the book for andie to look at they talked about how pretty or funny the colors looked. when they placed the gold colored overlay on the page andie said "oh my goodness, the words are staying straight". ding, ding, tina figured out what was going on. it is called irlen syndrome. it is only recognized in 3 states so far and NO ONE at our school had ever heard of it before.
andie could not read because the words were moving all over the page, but when she has the overlay (different colors work for different people) the words stay still. i want you to visit irlen.com and go to the sample distortions. there are aprox. 6 there, andie sees all of them, but 2, all at once. we decided to send her on to 2nd grade where she is doing well and she is getting special help with reading at school and she is working with a tutor at home several days a week. we are so excited that she is now improving and moving forward in her reading skills. instead of taking an overlay with her everywhere she goes she got special lenses for glasses, so she can see everything easily where ever she goes. i feel so blessed to have friends and teachers who have helped us figure this out and help andie make up for all of the reading instruction she missed out on before now.

little miss. NO

Addison is definitely in the no stage. She knows how to say yes, but chooses not to. Katherine and Andie are getting a big kick out of this. They like to play 20 questions. I goes something like this...

Addison do you like carrots?
no.
Do you love mommy?
no.
Do you love daddy?
no.
Do you like candy?
no.

Then comes the kicker...

Addison do you know what you are taking about?
no.

The girls think this is sooooooooooooooooo funny. It is fun to see them playing and having fun together.

IKEA what?

IKEA fabric that's what. As I walked into IKEA a few weeks ago with Katherine I fell in love with a fabric, like that has never happened before... he, he, he. I decided then that we needed a new shower curtain, I mean who doesn't right. I purchased 5 yards and headed home. I decided that it needed lining and everything!
With the left over I had just enough to re-cover my ironing board. I wonder how long it will take me to get tired of it now that it is all around my house, anyone want to bet?


A close up of the bird.



The awesome ironing board, because ironing is boring enough so the board should not be!


The shower curtain in our bright orange bathroom!

2littlemammas giveaway!

check out the 2littlemammas blog for a great holiday giveaway. you leave a comment and it enters you in for a chance to win a great felt hair clip! click on the link to the right for easy access!

beter late than never...

Happy Halloween! I left town the day after Halloween to go play with mom and Buffy in Texas so I haven't had time to blog. Now that I am home and it is quiet (11:00 P.M.) I think I can do it. I was so embarrassed by our costumes last year that I decided they had to be good this year. I did all the sewing about a month and a half before so I wouldn't have to stress. Katherine and Andie were witches and Addison was a clown. We had a great time, I hope you did too.