Spring Kid Videos

With Patrick away I've been trying to capture videos of the kids in their 'natural' state.  Here are a few from the last few months.  This first one is of Clayton at the Clifford the Big Red Dog exhibit at Imagine It! Atlanta Children's Museum.  He loved moving the big bones around.

The next one is from Clara's birthday.  She rode her new bike A LOT that day.  I like this video because she also started singing her own made-up song while she rode.
 
Next we have Clay crawling through my parent's cat door.  He had already crawled inside while Mom, Grandma and I sat on the porch watching him so I grabbed the camera to see if he would play cat and come out, too.  I love that Grandma is concerned about the 'cat dirt' and holds the door off his clothes.  He gets into so many messes on his own it never occurred to me to be worried about a little 'cat dirt'.


About a year ago I started coupon-ing with vengeance.  Clara has watched and now enjoys clipping her own coupons, too.  Hers are just pictures from a scissor skills book, but she loves to pretend they are the real thing.


In this next one I found Clayton had helped himself to some toys from the toy closet.  Not only that, but the toys he decided to play with were Clara's.  Thank goodness she didn't find him with her beloved princesses.  I shows how his verbal skills are progressing.  I filmed it about a month ago and he already his a lot clearer and has more words, but "Sissy" is still one of his favorites.

And my final video just shows the two yahoos playing.  They are just crazy, but they sure have fun and love each other.

Learning to Read

Back in January I started teaching Clara to read.  I am using the same phonetic based reading book that my mother used to teach me when I was Clara's age.  It is called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  Ironically my mother and I only got about a quarter of the way through before we both gave up out of frustration, but that wasn't enough to sway me from trying with Clara.  I am pleased to say that she is much more into it than I ever was.  Today we finished lesson 52.  At the end of each lesson there is a short story for her to read.  This video shows her reading today's story.  It isn't smooth or perfect by any means, but I couldn't be prouder of how hard she is working at it.  Go Clara!

Clara Ballerina

We got Clara's ballet pictures back today.  I'm very happy with her individual picture, but I do wish she would have smiled in the group shot.  It looks more like a mugshot. Oh, well.  At least she isn't the only little ballerina who forgot her smile at home.