Rachel and the rest of us

I have to brag for a minute. Rachel amazes me everyday and a couple days ago she did something that really wowed me. I was helping Kaitlyn write sentences for school and Kaitlyn asked me how to spell "the." Since this is one of the words she is supposed to know, I asked her if she could figure it out. This was when Rachel chimed in and said, "The, t-h-e, the." :-O Yes, Rachel is not only recognizing words on packages of food and in books, she apparently can also recall how to spell them. She was doing a word find, which is one of her favorite parts of coloring books, while Kaitlyn was working on the sentence and not long after that, she said, "Look mom! I found it! I found this word!" She usually can find small words by herself but needs help if there are more then 5-6 letters in the word. The word she was so excited that she found was "vegetables." When I looked at her book, she had circled the first three letters and then the rest of the word. I guess if I was actively teaching her all the same things that I have been trying to teach Kaitlyn, this wouldn't be quite so amazing but since she is just barely 4 and I try really hard NOT to include her in school time with Kaitlyn, she amazes me. She is just like a little sponge that soaks up knowledge and can not get enough.

While I'm at it, Kaitlyn loves school. She is only going half day in the afternoon and for us this is perfect. She is a little bit behind in some things, writing skills mostly, but she is learning quickly and she is trying hard. She is much more excited about learn when mom isn't the teacher which is just fine with me. She is more willing to work with me when she knows it is something she is doing for her teacher.

Jeff is loving it here at work. The training isn't so much skills training as it is learning how to make a store better and learning how to talk to the big bosses to make things happen for your store. These are skills that he was definitely NOT being taught in Kansas City and he is just soaking it all in.

I have been busy keeping up with the girls and have started a few new sewing projects. While Kaitlyn is at school, sewing is something that Rachel and I can do together that she actually is interested in. She likes to cut strings and take out the pins as I sew. She would like to do the actual sewing part too but I think she is still a little to young for that. Plus, she can't sit in the chair and reach the pedal. ;) Over all, we are pretty settled in to the new house. There are definitely things that are taking some adjustment, but it is a very nice area and we are just a few minutes from anything that we normally would do on a regular basis.