Reading!

Alayna's favorite things are her books. She looks at all the pictures over and over, she will only go to sleep listening to one of her stories on CD, she loves being read to, and she loves reading to others. One thing I didn't know, was that she could read them silently. We were cleaning the house today, and I got caught up with a magazine article. Alayna was supposed to be cleaning up her room, but she got distracted, too. I didn't hear anything out of her room for a little while, so when I went to see what she was up to, this is what I found. She was halfway through a Junie B Jones book, and she said she read the whole thing, she wasn't just looking at it. It looks like all this practice really is paying off. We had to clean up her room together later, but I was glad to see her doing something new.

The Blanket Tent

Alayna worked on this tent in stages for a couple days last week, then she spent the rest of the week sleeping in it. I had to take pictures of it because I just love taking pictures of her sleeping, and because it was such a creative construction. You can't see the internal structure here, but there were tunnels so she could get in, and get out the other side to get to her CD player. You can see how she built it by stinging blankets between the drawers of the desk and her bed, and then draping a top blanket over the stringers.

CHUCC Broadway Show

Our church's incredible choir put on a Broadway show with as many theatrics as possible. We got a bit of musical theater history, thanks to music director Rodney's excellent narration. Many of the choir members had featured parts, which allowed us to hear everyone in a different way. My parents did Do You Love Me? from Fiddler on the Roof. It was really fun to hear them singing in front of people, by themselves. They did great. Mom said she was nervous, but you couldn't tell. Alayna got to have a small role, too. She danced with her Papa to Greased Lightning from Grease. Alayna's friend Haydn also got to dance. They were so cute together. The little greaser and his little rocker girlfriend, dancing with their grandparents. Some of the pictures are screengrabs from the video, so you'll have to forgive me for the low quality.

Mother's Day Weekend

Okay, I'll admit it, most of the time I work, go home, eat dinner and read with Alayna, watch TV, work, go home, etc. But this weekend was too nice not to do something fun. It's been 70 both days, nice bright sunshine. The clouds are coming in a little, now, but it's nice to warm up after a cold, wet winter. To celebrate the sun, Alayna and I had a little picnic on the porch on Saturday. Alayna got a new swimsuit, and she had to try it on, and then she left it on. After lunch, Alayna played Barbies with Maggie keeping an eye on her.

Then it was off to our Saturday night dinner and Wii at my parents' house (till midnight). My dad kicked Alayna's butt in bowling before she went to bed. Then Jen discovered that you can bowl sitting down and over hand, you just can't score much over 100. Today, our neighborhood group hosted the coffee hour after church, so Alayna got to play on the playground for much longer than usual while I helped clean up.

The Holy Trinity Catholic church down the street from our church has a bunch of painted fish on the fence. As we drive by, Alayna will try to count all of them, but doen't usually get past 30. Today, we stopped so she could count them. Turns out, there are 269 fish! There are a few spaces, so there were probably more originally. Here is my favorite, and one of the ones Alayna said was her favorite:

































I think this fish might have been painted by a boy: note the lightning, and the trees on fire.















We stopped at Shari's for lunch on the way home, and I got a rose, just for being a Mom. That was fun. I guess I get payed for this gig, after all.