Just a little hello..

I haven't written in awhile. I just thought I'd write today. My camera has been taking a little break. My favorite lens is totally broken (it just won't focus) and I hate dragging the huge zoom lens everywhere, plus it is raining every day these days!

Back in the swing of things, preschool and ballet have started up again. Valerie does so well with a little structure in her life and is learning a lot in preschool. We still work on academics at home for reinforcement, but it gives her a place to make super messy crafts, play with friends, have structured circle time activities, and do things like "Show and Tell!" We are currently working on learning to write her name as well as the letters and numbers. She can write Valerie, but sometimes mixes up a letter or two and tends to write huge, and not in a straight line. I can see a lot of progress already! She can identify every letter or number up to 20, however she can only write those with straight lines. (For example, the R in her name is difficult for her due to the curve!) She learned her colors long ago and we are now working on mixing with paints,etc. (what do you get when you mix red and blue). She loves that.

Eleanor is very sad to not be able to go to school with Valerie. Yesterday she took off her coat, marched in side and hung on to a table and would not let go. I literally had to drag her out of there kicking me and screaming. Poor baby. She has a long way to go til she turns 3!!! We "work" on preschool a little at home, mostly through play as I do and did with Valerie. While it is important to learn to sit still and focus, children do this much better if they are actually interested in what they're doing so you can make it fun!! We try to incorporate learning most of what we do. When we eat breakfast, we count our grapes. We talk about what color everything is, all the time. We play, "I Spy..." while driving in the car, or quiz Ellie on animal noises.

Eleanor can sing half of her ABC's, can sometimes count to 5, and knows some animal sounds. She knows the color yellow. She loves puzzles right now and her current obsessions are trains and Dora, and anything Valerie is doing at that moment. ;)

Our move is in progress, we should be packing out all of our furniture and shipping our van very soon. We will be flying out of here mid March and have so much to do before then. PCSing from overseas is certainly a mess that I don't really want to deal with again. All of us need to be seen by doctors, dentists, given health screenings. We have to ship our things so that they can travel for 60-90 days to our new home, meanwhile living with no car and no furniture. The dogs need to be given screenings and updated shots. We have to repaint the rooms we painted, fix the sink that cracked some how (porcelein, lovely!) and have housing inspections. When we get to Norfolk, we have to stay in a hotel overnight with the dogs, and then hopefully our Van will already be in VA so we can drive it back to Chicago with us. If not, we will have to switch airports and fly the dogs with us to Chicago, then get our Van later. The closest they will ship it to is St. Louis. Oh the joys of moving!!!

The baby is doing okay so far, I believe. I felt flutters this week (14 weeks) very rarely, but when i'm lying in bed before I go to sleep! My next appt isn't until the 22nd, so I don't have much to report.

Derrick is working extremely hard right now doing some sort of dive exercise for the month of January, and then will be gone a few weeks out of Feb. (perfect timing, right?) They are very under-manned here so unfortunately he will be pretty much working late until the day we move! Poor guy. He could probably use some prayers.

I'm going to bake some bread with the girls, enjoy your weekend!