Our girl can S-P-E-L-L

This month was an exciting one!  On March 4th, Annaliese was part of her school spelling team for a parochial school spelling contest here in town.  Her school had a spelling bee about a month ago where she came in 4th place.  That qualified her to be on the school team. 

To get ready to be on the school team she was given 8 pages of words to study.  Easy right?  Each page had at least 300 words on it!  That's a lot of words to study.  We did our best to get study them all but in the end we only made it through the first 6 pages.  Oh well.

The way the contest works is that there are 4 quarters lasting 15 minutes each.  Each school has 4 team members.  Each team member goes up for a quarter and competes against the other schools.  For every word that is spelled correctly the school gets a point.  If a word is misspelled then they are not out, just no point that round.

Annaliese was in the 3rd quarter.  As luck would have it the words she was given to spell were all from page 7.  Sigh.  Of course.  Not page 6 or 5 or 4, 3, 2 or 1 but 7.  BUT she did great!  She kept her cool and held her own.  I know she was nervous but nobody would have ever been able to see it.  The words from page 7 were the hardest of the entire night.  Fortunately all the words for all the spellers in her round were equally difficult. She scored enough points her round to keep her school tied for first.  After the final quarter it was still tied and our 8th grade star speller had to do a spell-off with the other school. Who knew a spelling bee could be so exciting?!  In the end our team won.  What a fun night it was. I'm so glad that Annaliese had this experience to be on the spelling team.  It was hard work to get through even just 6 pages of words but I think if she qualifies in the future she'll be motivated to push through all 8.  I couldn't be more proud of my girl!  Great job Annaliese!

"Baby"

For Christmas one of the gifts that Annaliese gave to me was a booklet with writings from all her classmates.  Her class had gone on a writers workshop field trip.  Here is Annaliese's entry.  I think hers was the best. It is so interesting to me to get her perspective on the day she came to the hospital to meet her new sister.  And I have to say the details she remembers are right on. 

BABY by Annaliese

Annaliese, Avrie, Adeline...another baby was coming to our family.  Those names were hard to come up with.  One day, about a week ago, Dad, my sisters and I went to the hospital.  When I entered the hospital room where my mom was, the first thing I saw was an ivory curtain with leaf patterns on it.  Then I saw her. Just a burrito with a diaper, a onesie and a hat.  Her eyes were closed, but she had a peculiar nose.  I hugged my mom.  I stared a the TV screen with boring, soothing nature videos.  Music played quietly to soothe the patient.  "Look at the city!" said one of my 7-year-old twin sisters.  I stared at the lights illuminating the skyscrapers, the cars, the people.  A hazy purple sky spread over Chicago.  "I want to live in a skyscraper!"  I cried.  My baby sister winked at me as I held her.  Her nickname is Winkie.  Now she is home.  She is one-and-a-half weeks old.  Althea is truly the best.

Back to School!

It's back to school once again...my little baby is turning into a big girl right before my eyes and I'm freaking out a little. Look how big she looks! The haircut makes her look so much older...like 6 or something! NOOOOO! She's only 4 and the cutest age ever. Please don't grow anymore.

She did great on her first day back. She has her same teacher again this year. Many of the same kids are in her class again. She picked up right where she left off as if she hadn't been gone all summer. She goes three days a week this year, full day. I miss her.

Fire Station Field Trip

Last week Annaliese's preschool class took a walk to the local fire station. I got to go as a volunteer mom. Very fun to see these little ones light up when we arrived. The firefighters really liked them too I think.

This trip was especially good for Annaliese because lately she's been afraid of fires at night before she goes to sleep (nightmares I think). She had some anxiety at school when they had a fire drill so we've been talking to her regularly to help her understand that there is no fire and she needn't worry. The firefighters are there to help keep us safe.

She loved climbing up in the cab of the fire engine. She loved holding her teachers hand who had dressed up in the fire gear. She had a great time and I think she is over her fear of fire drills for now anyway.

First day of pre-school....

The first day of school was a happy day for Miss Annaliese! We carefully packed her lunch of Peanut Butter and Jelly and took the 1 1/2 block walk to her new school. She was calm but excited. When we arrived right on time there were kids and parents everywhere! Annaliese immediately sat down at a table with markers and began to draw. I knelt down beside her to tell her good bye and she basically said -"Bye, now get out of here." I lingered and stalled as long as possible then realized that it was ME that was having the jitters! My baby! I'm leaving my baby at school with a teacher we've only known a few weeks and with stranger kids and what if they are mean, and what if they don't see my baby as the special girl that I know she is. I walked away teary eyed. At the end of the day when I went to picke her up, her teacher told me she did great. Aparently she got sad at nap time but her teacher was able to calm her down without much effort. Sweet little thing. Love her! She is going to do great. Me, I'll get tough soon enough I hope.