Learning Numbers

Her little mind is working so very, very hard these days.  Lately she has been working on developing her understanding of numbers and time and how many (is it a little or a lot?).  She has come up with her own approach to learning these concepts and it has been fascinating to watch.  Any time a number is mentioned by us (you have 5 more minutes, please eat 3 carrots) she wants to see it on her fingers.  She will hold up the correct number of fingers and say, "like this?".  Or if she doesn't know she will say, "show me how much", and want me to help her count on her fingers.  She has worked very hard on being able to show all the numbers on her fingers - especially 3!

I am a very visual learner, I need to see something on paper to fully understand it.  Discussing something in the abstract does not work well for me and I am known for my "pictures" or boxes and arrows or t-accounts (accounting speak!) at work.  The learning approach she has developed makes complete sense to me.  Seeing it on her fingers helps her understand how many it is compared to all her fingers, gives her a visual of something that has been said.  It will be interesting to see if this is a preview of how she learns in the future.

Early Easter Celebration

We celebrated Easter a week early with the Knowles family so Grandma Jean would feel her best between treatments.  And as luck would have it, that meant the first real warm and sunny day of the year!  The kids spent the whole day outside - hunting for eggs, decorating cookies, riding bikes, playing sports and just generally enjoying the big back yard.  Grandma Jean came up with a great plan for the egg hunt, each kid looked for a certain color egg.  They had such a good time working together to find all of the colors!

Laurel and her green Easter basket.  She had the trickiest color to find as the green eggs blended perfectly with the grass and trees.

Clara and her purple basket.

All the kids before the big hunt.

Looking for eggs.

Laurel found a green one!

More searching.

Decorating cookies.

Bennett's work of art!

Helping Grandpa cut his birthday cake.

The only time I can seem to take decent pictures is when the weather is exactly as it was on Sunday, so I took quite a few.  Here are some of my favorites.

Sisters.

It is not often that we get a nice family picture.

Maya.

Laurel.

Cousins.

Easter Eggs

Some might call it a miracle... I actually had things together enough for us to dye eggs BEFORE easter.  I don't actually think this has happened yet (and Maya is what, almost 5?!), we usually end up relying on Grandma Jean and dye eggs on Easter day.  It could be the fact that the girls have been asking me when Easter is for weeks now.  They both fondly remember the Easter Egg hunts from last year.  They were asking so often that I finally sat down with them and made a chain countdown to Easter.

The color is all mixed and the eggs are ready - and now we wait for Daddy to come home. 

Waiting for Daddy is very boring!

Finally!  Laurel picked pink for her first egg.

Maya went with blue.

The final product.  Our little jungle of Easter Eggs!

Ahoy Matey!

This is what Laurel calls, "my pirate face".

Three!!!

Man, I love this kid.  I just can't believe she is already three years old.  She has really come out of her shell in the last year and I love that the rest of the world gets to see her fun, energetic and quirky personality just as much as we do at home.

(Notice the bandaid, I didn't realize it was there when taking her big three year old pictures.  It is such a common thing for Laurel to have a bump or bruise that it seems so very fitting.)

Some of my favorite Laurel traits:

- She ADORES her big sister.  They are such great buddies and play together all the time.  Maya is a bit on the bossy side and tends to dictate the play but Laurel plays right along with her.  They bonked each other in the hall this morning and Laurel got a little hurt and was crying.  Maya in turn shed a few tears because she felt bad that she had run into her.  Laurel was quick to say, "don't worry Maya, I am still your best friend". I can only hope they share this love for each other always.

- She is quite the chatterbox and is losing all of her cute toddler phrases.  The latest one to be dropped was my favorite, instead of saying "I not know" she has corrected herself to say "I don't know".  There are a few words I still can't quite understand, the other morning it took me a very long time to figure out that she wanted a breakfast burrito to eat (for some reason I couldn't quite figure out what "rito" meant).  And when she asked me when were going to "Ninnyland" it took some time to figure out that she meant Disneyland.  It is usually Maya who figures out what she is saying before I do.

- She has developed some pretty strong fears lately - the dark and bugs.  I haven't quite figured out how to handle them yet.  We have been trying to pick the perfect night light - too bright and it makes scary shadows, not bright enough and there is too much dark in the room.  The best trick at this point seems to get her completely exhausted by bed time so she doesn't lay there worrying about what is around her.  And if you hear a truly terrified scream/cry from her out of nowhere and can't figure out why, she has most likely seen a bug.  Probably a teeny tiny ant that only she has noticed.  I have no idea how we are going to handle this one as the outside activities become more frequent with the changing weather.

- She is full of adventure and was not very happy when she realized that only Maya was taking real ski lessons this year.  She would have to settle for mommy.  And there were quite a few fits about the fact that I did not take her on the chairlift.  She started swimming lessons yesterday and she could not have been prouder.  She jumped right in and would wave at us throughout the lesson to make sure we were watching!

Laurel's Birthday Party

We had another great party with the family and were lucky that the weather held out.  Bikes, chalk, running, birthday cake, party hats and a bouncy house.  What more could a three year old want?

This is a fairly common Laurel activity.  She runs and runs and runs.  This time she was running circles around the house.

Games in the bouncy house.

Ready for cake!

She knew just what to do.  And proudly listened as everyone sang Happy Birthday.

Vanilla ice cream cake for the child who hates chocolate!