Happy November!!

Ahhh...the smell of leaves burning, the sound of wind whistling and dark skies. My favorite. Snuggled up in warm blankets with a cup of joe or hot chocolate....mmmmmm. All we need now is the rain pelting against the house and some ice storms. Well, maybe not the ice storms.

So many of you have asked about my moon pic. First, you must know that taking a picture of the full moon is very difficult...and requires a lot of luck. You have that shiny white globe on black. With something that you obviously can't use a flash on. Not easy. But I had a bit of luck. Here are the technical details:
Olympus E500 (digital SLR)
Tripod
F5.6, ISO 100, 150mm zoom lens
Stored at HQ setting (3264 X 2448, 1/8 compression)
And lots of luck. ;) Hubby is so impressed with that shot that I might be able to get some much nicer zooms in the future. Double YAY! :)

Halloween pictures are coming soon.

I'm sure you're wondering why I've been a little MIA the last couple weeks. I've been *extremely* busy. First there was a last minute consignment sale that I spent quite a bit of time on. I had to put the clothes on hangers a certain way and print up tags and attach them a certain way and drop off and pick up and it was pretty crazy. Then came the first big MOPS craft. We did three different jar mixes. I thought the moms would appreciate ideas for the upcoming gift-giving season. They did. But it was a LOT of work on my part. Mainly because recipes call for volume but most every ingredient I purchased listed weight. It was NOT fun, to say the least, figuring out how much I needed of everything...times 60 women. But I survived and had enough ingredients. And, I've been getting orders for more through word-of-mouth. So I've turned it into a mini fundraiser for our group but I have jars and ingredients all over the house. And I have to decorate them up cute if I'm selling them so it's been time consuming (not to mention the added shopping of even more frustrating ingredients! Why can't we just move to the metric system and be done with it?? Did you know America is one of ONLY THREE nations to not use metrics? I swear, I'm gonna start buying non-American cookbooks and use my handy dandy electronic scale that Hubby so nicely got me last Christmas). Where was I? Oh yes...fundraiser.

After that small crisis (that I'm still working on, btw), Halloween had the gall to sneak up and say, "Boo". So I cut a few corners on the family tradition of making all the costumes but they all had fun anyway. And their costumes were cute. Yes, I said the pictures are coming SOON.

Combine all that with Hubby out-of-state for training for a week and another short trip, I've had my hands quite full.

However, that doesn't mean we're not learning around here. Grammy, the ever-teacher, has been concerned about Rose's reading ability lately. Rose is 4.5yrs and Grammy has taught pre-K for 20+ years so she feels she's an expert on where Rose should be. What I've been telling her is that she *might* be a little behind in reading (but I really don't think so) but she's further ahead in spelling and writing. I've touched on this before but I'll mention it again.

I'm not exactly sure how Matthew learned to read. I think he would memorize the story I read him before naptime and read it back to himself after I left. I think somehow, in understanding those 'sight words', he figured out phonics as well. But he has never liked to write much. He can write and he knows how to but doesn't do it very often. Rose, on the other hand, started writing long before she could read. She would copy words or ask us how to spell words so she could write them down. She has pages and pages full of words she's written. Through writing, she has become interested in reading. She knows the sounds each letter makes and when she comes to a word, she sounds out each letter and then puts them together, Sesame Street style. But I've suspected she knows more than she wants to let on for a while now. She will come to a word whose phonics don't sound right but she will say the word correctly. For example, she will come across the word, same. She will sound out, "sss ahhh mmmm eeee" and then say, "same". But if she followed the phonetics she has just sounded out, it would come out more like /sah-me/. So I suspect she's a much better reader than someone who needs to sound each letter out each time.

Last night, the kids wanted to go up to a Trunk-or-treat. I have two booster seats in the back and Grammy was trying to fit in between them. It's a tight squeeze and as Rose watched Grammy wrestle with the seatbelt, she said, "Grammy, I think maybe you are a little too b-i-g." Grammy was quite shocked that Rose had spelled it out correctly. So a while later, I hear Grammy testing Rose..."Rose, what does l-i-t-t-l-e spell?" Rose puts on a big 'i'm thinking hard about this' face and says, "Small, I think". Grammy starts to say, "No, sound it out". "Grammy," I interjected, "I think you're being played". She wasn't quite convinced. To put it to the test, I just pulled her over here while typing. I minimized my window so she couldn't see the word spelled out.

"Rose, what does l-i-t-t-l-e spell?" I asked.
"Sssssloved"
"Roooose, what does it spell?"
"Okay...you help me sound it out."
"No, I think you can do it by yourself," I said.
She sounds out (from memory) "/luh - i - t - t - luh/...little!"
Yep Grammy, I think you've been played. ;)

And a funny to send you on your merry day...
Leaving one house last night, Matthew starts tiptoeing very carefully down the sidewalk. "Watch out, there's dog scat here". While other 7 year olds are out there giggling about the word, poop, mine is using the correct terminology. Apparently my kid watches too much Discovery Channel. ;)