it's time...

Renée decided this weekend that it was time to read...and she's doing it! She's known the sounds for each letter since she was about 18 months, thanks to the Letter Factory dvd! She's quite proud and has been reading everything in sight! They are still working on letter recognition at school...i guess she decided that was for the birds...here she is with some flashcards (modeling what's in hand as always).

and then there are the faces that orum taught her...after each of these she had to look at the camera to see what she looked like...



she's even been reading to elijah, but was obviously not in the mood at the moment...I still think it's crazy that i have a child old enough to read!

attempt no. 1...

today it was a nice 72 degrees so we went to the pumpkin patch to take some pictures...only there were no pumpkins, so we went to the park instead.


this is how it went...they sat on the bench and took some really sweet pictures--although there was only one where they were both looking at the camera. there were a lot of people walking by talking about them, so this is what you get...

then they went to stand by the tree...well, renee did.

elijah found a stick and an ant bed and went to town. he is obessed with them both. sticks are the new gun!

renee did a little coarsing and got him to put the stick down for a few more pictures...although it didn't go far-it's behind his back.


i'm not sure why, but renee always does this pose for pictures and with everything...easter eggs, flowers, and now pumpkins. i guess elijah picked up on it too...

after this we went to a birthday party, and on the way home we saw the pumpkin truck! they are here and ready to be unloaded! hopefully real pumpkin patch pictures soon!

a trip downtown

since orum gets out of class at lunch on fridays, we've been taking advantage of this free time. a few weeks ago we decided to go downtown and eat...well, this week we decided to do the same, but opted to take the street car. (although i never call it the street car...the kids call it the trolley or the choo-choo train, but that really irritates the locals...)

well, it was fun and elijah enjoyed the ride.

we got downtown, ate, and headed back to get renee from school. only to find that the trolley going down st. charles had no power. we talked to one of the trolley drivers and he said he didn't know how long it would be. sometimes it's 10 minutes and sometimes it's a couple of hours. our options: wait for the power or walk a few miles to the bus stop that would take us back to uptown. orum was determined that it wouldn't be long...well, an hour and a half later the trolleys still had no power.

they finally sent a bus to get the people waiting for the trolley. we got on and elijah went right to sleep (good thing). a mile down the road they made everybody get off (bad thing)--the power was back up. not wanting to wait i started walking to renee's school...orum used the gps on his phone and counted that it was 22 blocks away...after 15 minutes of walking we finally saw the trolley and hoped back on.

thank goodness for after-school care! we were an hour late getting renee! i think we'll take the car next time...i woke up with a stomach virus early saturday morning. it had to have been from all that public transportation! i also think i've earned the right to call it a trolley if i want to...

now some pictures from the the trip downtown a few weeks ago at Café du Monde

baby's first beignets...he loved them! and i guess i should stop calling him a baby...he is 2!

how many princesses do you have?

well, apparently i have 2 and they are ready for the royal ball!

several months ago while elijah and renee were playing this was the result...renee claims that he dressed himself, which i guess is possible, and he was quite proud! we bought him some boy dressup stuff...knight armor, fireman hat, bear hands, etc. that fun lasted for a while...

but i guess renee's stuff is just more fun. notice his stuff in the background.


we thought it was a phase. since we hadn't seen him in anything since we moved to new orleans, but then he came out of her room looking like this! he was only missing the shoes! which i'm sure was because renee had them on!

i'm glad halloween is right around the corner...it should make expanding his dress up much easier! do i have the only boy who likes to dress up?

what's cool in PreK?

HEADBANDS...our bow wearing days may soon be over if Renee has her say!













I held out as long as possible, but finally gave it. She asked for a headband in her hair every morning for the first few weeks of school. I do have my limits...we will not be wearing any of those cheap hideous looking headbands. We all know how that turns out...those are also usually the ones that hurt behind your ears and then lead to a headache anyway.

I decided to make her one out ric-rac. It was so cute and defintely wouldn't be hurting! She was very exctied--keep in mind these pictures were taken before 8 am, so the excitement hadn't kicked in yet! She wore it for a few days. She then decided she wanted to wear it with her ponytail...i told her no, that it would look funny...there's a little piece of white elastic in the back. Her response: "well olivia does and that's because she bought hers at the store." What?! not only have the friend battles started, but now everything has to come from the store!? CRAZY i say!

Earlier this week she got a pink rhinestone one from the bookfair at school, and won't wear this cute red one anymore, maybe i'll have to make it in pink. Apparently, Renee got the last pink rhinestone one and she has been using this to her benefit...she traded headbands with a little girl today. Let's hope it makes it back...she's so trusting and would be devastated if it never did!