First Ice cream cone

Charis has had plenty of ice cream but today we realized that she has never had an ice cream cone. So to celebrate in one more way the first day of school, I took her to get an ice cream cone while we were shopping for school stuff. Turns out, she does not like the cone, but loved the ice cream. Yum, Yum!!! Next time we will have to try a waffle cone from Amy's ice cream.

First Day of School

Back to School!Charis was so excited. Both Kris and I took her to school and picked her up and took her out to lunch.She had a great first day and is so happy to be back at school.

Church party

Our church turned 10 years old this month, so we had a party! Lots of balloons, confetti and cake!Picture by Charis - and had to have on blog.
They also rented three bounce houses for the kids. We had fun celebrating and running around.

Zilker Garden Festival

Charis and I went to the Zilker Garden Festival in hopes of getting a cold hardy avocado tree. To our disappointment, they decided not to sell them this year. But we did get to see some great dragon dancing.They even let Charis try on the head. She loved it!

Charis is reading!

Charis read her first full book today!!! Charis and I went to the library, this morning before her vision therapy appointment instead of after. She picked out a few books and I picked up three, level one reading books. Since she has been so interested in reading and sounding out words, I thought these books would be a great next step. So while we were waiting for her appointment, I had her try to sound out some words and read a little. She tried to guess at a few words, sounded out most of them and struggled with two - there and Peanut. She did so great and read the whole book! I am so proud of her and she could not be happier about her newest accomplishment.

Red applesauce!

Every mom should try this out on their kids and maybe even ourselves. It was really simple: wash and peel a beet and cut up in small pieces. Put it in the pressure cooker with a little juice (almost anything works) and some water to barely cover the beets. Let the pressure rise and cook for 10 min. and let the pressure come down on it's own. Let it cool and mix with some (to taste, but less than 1/2) no sugar added applesauce in a food processor or blender. (You could add some cinnamon or whatever for more favor.)

Charis loved it!!!
And even asked to have it every morning with her oatmeal. I guess I am going to have to start growing beets.

Reading

Charis read her first sentence today!!! She has been practicing sounding out small words a lot recently and loves to write words. So today I made her a notebook with handwriting paper. The notebook has three sections: letters, simple words and simple sentences that she can read and then write. She loved it and turned right to the sentences and started to read it.
See the video of her first sentence:
http://picasaweb.google.com/se.gardens/Reading?authkey=Gv1sRgCKTYsJ3r27OnhQE#

March camping trip

Somehow I forgot to download pictures from our March camping trip and so I never got to blog about it, but I am not going to let that stop me now.

Kris had to work, so I decided to take Charis to her school camp out by myself. I was a little worried but it worked out great. Charis loves camping and with all of her school there it is even more fun! We set up our tent and played a little with Dylan (classmate).Then we walked around and said hi to everyone and played some more. We all shared a wonderful potluck dinner, sang songs and roasted marshmallows on the camp fire! Then the kids favorite part - fairy treasure hunt. It is really dark and all of the kids have some sort of lamp or flashlight and they go looking (down one specific trail) for fairy treasures. The teachers put out these colored glass stones as fairy treasures. Charis found lots and even helped some other kids find some. She loved it! The next morning, Charis and I went for a walk and found a few more to add to her collection. We also went down to the water, but no swimming today.When we got back, Charis played with more school friends and one of the dads. They all have fun, playing on the rope swing, playing monsters and tying up the dad.We had a great time! And can't wait to do it again in the fall with Kris.