Life This Week

We have been working so hard with Sam lately to develop his social and emotional skills.  He's so smart and requests to do schoolwork daily.  The picture below makes me so happy because he was happily constructing his own tower at the end of preschool when his buddies came over.  He really did not want to build with anyone else but finally relented.  He and his friend were able to build a really cool castle together and he was so proud of it!  It's always nice to see progress in an area where we have spent so much time and energy.

Roy and I have been really enjoying family history work lately.  It's fun to track down names, figure out bits and pieces of their stories either through written accounts and pictures or tracking their movements through Census Records, find siblings or parents or children who weren't connected before our digging around, and to understand that these are real people who had families and jobs and dreams and who are connected to me through marriage or genes.  Anyway, if you want to do your own family history work, we really like familysearch.org and puzzilla.org.  Both are free and have lots of records and names in the databases already.

Anyway, the reason I even mentioned family history is because we spent part of the day out in Warrenton, VA yesterday for Roy to do some family history work.  One of his relatives lived out in Facquier County, VA and married a lady from there sometime in the 1840s.  Roy could find the wife's name and her mother's maiden name, but not any other information.  So since that information isn't digitized and online, we went out to the library for Roy to do some digging in the Genealogy Center and the kids and I read books and explored Warrenton.  It was a fun adventure and cool to show the kids one of the small towns fairly close by.  Warrenton had tons of patches of flowers and pretty areas to walk so it was a fun morning!

I was so proud and even teared up when the following paper came home from school this week from Abby.  She was supposed to use the word "but" in at least one sentence (my over-achieving daughter took the whole time to write...I love her):

• I liyk my frens but I liyk my family morr.  I liyk you but I liyk you morr.  But why do I haf to do my homework?  But I can tak carre of Androw!  But my Dad is alrgkt to cats!

Interpretation: I like my friends but I like my family more.  I like you but I like you more.  But why do I have to do my homework?  But I can take care of Andrew!  But my dad is allergic to cats!

FYI, we plan to name the baby Andrew Joseph and I love to hear the kids talk to him, talk about him, and make plans for him.