Hello!!! I'm not writing anything tonight, other than to say here's a lot of pictures. Our visit last weekend was great! Thank you everyone for your gifts and for making Josephine's 6th birthday a great one! I'm off to bed, I have to play piano for Church tomorrow morning - I should've been in bed a long time ago!

My Mom sent this adorable puzzle in the same box she sent Josephine's Birthday presents in. Josephine helped me some, but I've done most of it... I've really enjoyed doing it, it's almost therapeutic! Josephine LOVES her new Barbie diamond castle princess doll and Tiara! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Champion! She has played with it every day since she's got it!

Here's a picture of her spelling words from today. I wanted to show how well she's done learning how to write in cursive, almost on her own. I've quickly showed her a couple times how to form a few letters, and the rest she's just figured out by looking at other peoples' cursive writing! Just last week, we've formally started working on cursive together (she's practiced a lowercase "i" and "t" in her handwriting book).
Here's a much overdue picture of her CAT (California Achievement test) results. I've "painted" out our address and last name for safety reasons.... I was very proud of her!

Finally, Maureen's progress... She doing well with her preschool! Maureen, Josephine and I are all having fun with it. It's amazing how much Josephine wants to be involved when I'm teaching Maureen, she gets so excited to "help out." She's like my little teacher's helper :) Every week in her "Little Saints" preschool, we focus on the same topic/subject for the whole week. Two weeks ago it was letters, then last week was numbers, this past week has been farm animals and where our food/milk, ect. come from.

We're also on Lesson 9 in "teach your child to read in a 100 easy lessons." I repeated lesson 8 like three times, just to make sure she was retaining all the information! and We've done the first half of lesson 9 twice. She's doing really well, I'm just being careful not to move too fast, since she's so young. I'm in no hurry (like I was with Josephine!)... in retrospect, I should've taken my time and repeated lessons w/ her too. A lot of times I'll just copy information from the book onto our Fisher price "lite sketcher" to make it more fun for her. She knows the sounds of the following letters: short a, long e, t, r, s, and m. She's also read a couple 2 or three letter words, using those letters. We review throughout the day, too, when I think about it. Today at dinnertime, I sang "I have a secret letter, and it sounds SSSSSSS. Do you know what my secret letter is?" and then she whispers it in my ear... She gets a kick out of it every time! We went through all 6 letters today, doing it that way...

Here's another story... I had to write/type it down before I forgot.

yesterday, during josephine's math lesson, we were doing a repeating pattern, which she had to finish. Once she got the answer, I said, "Yes, that's right! And it just keeps going, and going, and going..." and josephine said "...until the end of the world!" I said, "Yeah, I suppose!."

then, you could tell she was thinking hard... "Mommy, when is the end of the world going to be?"

"I don't know, Josephine. Nobody really knows."

"When it is the end of the world, will the earth just disappear?"

"Maybe, it does, but I really don't know."

Again, she was thinking hard.... "If the earth does disappear, where would God put all the people?"

"That's a very good question. I don't know the answer to that one, either!"

"Well, maybe God would make another earth/world for the people to live on."

"I think that's a good idea, Josephine.... Now, can we get back to math?"


I thought that was pretty abstract thinking for a 5 year old (almost 6!!).

My dear, sweet husband bought me some flowers early last week! It was a pleasant surprise :)

We add 10 new words every week to Josephine's "spelling tree." It helps break the monotony of doing all the written work in the actual book. She's also started cursive handwriting... she has actually learned a lot of it on her own, she wanted to learn it so badly! So now, we're actually formally working on it together. I'll try to remember to post a picture of her cursive sometime.


More crafts: the one on the left is Josephine's, all the other ones are Maureen's. I started potty training, again, last week. She's gone about 7 days with only 2 accidents! She has almost consistently come to me telling me she has to go (instead of me asking her).

here's a quick story... we've given lots of praise to Maureen every time she goes potty... a couple days ago, she was in the bathroom with me while I was going, and afterwards, she goes "Yay!!! Mommy, you pee-peed on the potty! I'm SO glad you pee-peed on the potty!" She said it in her quiet, little voice, but very animated for her!

Here are a few arts and crafts we've done so far this year... the ideas come from Maureen's preschool book, and oftentimes I'll let Josephine do the same craft Maureen is doing.



Two times in this past week, Veronica fell asleep while watching a Baby Einstein video with Maureen!



I had to take a picture of my new clothes and post it... For a grand total of $18.00 I bought all that you see (11 shirts, 2 jackets for Josephine, 2 pants, 2 capri pants, 1 pair of Stride Rite shoes) AND three maternity shirts and one pair of maternity pants (I'm NOT pregnant, I just bought them because they were so cheap and I know I'll be pregnant again someday after Michael is done with school). I went to 2 different thrifts stores originally looking for jackets for the kids, and browsed the woman's section and found tons of clothes that I liked and fit me! Some of the clothing brands are Gap, Old Navy, Anne Taylor loft, and Cherokee... out of curiosity, I checked out a single pair of brand new Stride Rite shoes on the internet, and for girls' shoes, they ran anywhere from $36.00 to $52.00!

Here's some pictures! I'm not writing much today, I'm exhausted and going to bed! I'll have more pictures next time, too.





Julius and Michael remember when this elephant used to be at Pontchartrain Beach, LA, and it's trunk used to suck up / vacuum up your trash!

Josephine as a Hula girl/dancer! Mee Mee and Paw Paw Julius bought her(and Maureen) this dress-up costume last time we were ALL down in LA. I made a coconut top out of construction paper and yarn!

This is a moth (I think it's a moth because it has "fuzzy" antennae) on the outside of our front window. I had to take a picture of him, he was so pretty!


Well, it's been yet another busy couple of weeks. We've had our new computer for almost 2 weeks, but I've been too busy to post. We had company for a few days (as most of you already knew, Granny, Paw paw Louis, and baby Louis). It was a wonderful visit, and the girls especially enjoyed playing with baby Louis! Then, Michael, Josephine and Maureen left yesterday to go to LA so Michael could go see the Saints game (GO SAINTS!!! WHO DAT! - on behalf of Michael). this is the first time I haven't gone to LA with them (not counting the first week that we lived in this house). It has been SOOOO quiet without everyone here! Taking care of only one child, compared to three, is LIGHT YEARS easier! It's so easy, it feels like I'm actually getting time to myself! I've done plenty of cleaning (the whole house was a mess when they left) and lots of window shopping. I did buy some summer shirts for Josephine from Wal-mart (for $1.00 a piece!!!) I bought her one for now, and two that will fit her next summer. I also went to Payless shoe source and bought myself three pairs of shoes and Veronica a pair of sandals. I haven't bought a pair of shoes I think in about 2 years!

Anyhow, I've kept very busy, and spent plenty of time w/ Veronica. I even took her to the park yesterday - she had a blast. I think she's enjoying all the extra attention, but at the same time, I know she's missing her Daddy and big sisters. Many times today, she's said "Da da, Josephine (in sign language) and Maureen." Michael and Josephine talked to her over the phone today and her face lit up and she got all excited with both of them.

I wish I had the camera to take a video of Veronica (michael has it right now). She had been dancing a lot lately, wriggling her hips and arms back and forth. It's SOOO cute!

Well, I plan on visiting the thrift store tomorrow morning, to see if I can find winter jackets for the girls... can you believe with ALL the clothes that we have (boxes and boxes!) we don't have the right size jackets for any of them this winter! My main focus is finding one for Josephine... if need be, Maureen and Veronica can wear ones that are little to big...

I've enjoyed a more relaxed and QUIETER couple of days, but I miss the girls a lot (Michael too!) and can't wait to see them tomorrow!