Front Teeth

Winter is officially a first grader. Her front teeth have been loose for a while, she even had started eating in special ways to keep them in there.Last week her first front tooth finally made it out. Not without a little help though. Joe was getting impatient with the slow progress, and decided to give it a good yank. It started bleeding and poor Winter was freaking out. The freaking out soon turned in to excitement though, when she realized that she could gross her mom out with wiggling it back and forth 180 degrees.

I never thought I was sensitive to this kind of stuff, but that was just so gross! At one point she had her whole tooth turned around backward. After that it didn't take much to get it all the way out, but then it was still gross. You could totally see the root hanging out of the hole. Also, the hole is so HUGE! you could fit 2 or 3 teeth in that spot. Now, if she looses her other front tooth it would be even bigger. Let's just hope that doesn't happen before picture day this Friday.

According to Winter, her teacher laughed and rolled around on the floor when Winter showed her. I have to take this information with a grain of salt, since I really can't imagine her teacher rolling and laughing on the floor. Winter is also happy to inform you the tooth fairy found her tooth, and gave her a dollar for it!

Second day of School

I am not very good at this kind of thing. Growing up I don't think we ever took a picture on the first day of school. This seems to be more of an Ashurst tradition, which I really try to uphold. The problem is that I just simply forget to take the picture. So this year I cheated, and took a picture the second day of school. Almost good enough right?

Here are all the kids right before Winter and Sterling went to the bus at the end of the driveway. The picture is kind of bad, because I had it on the wrong setting, and didn't realize it until they were already gone.

It's fun for me to see Winter and Sterling walk down our long driveway together. They look so cute! Sometimes they fight, but usually they play with rocks and look at the cows until the bus arrives.

Since the bus doesn't always arrive at the same time, they often have to wait at least 5-10 minutes. The one day I don't send them out early, the bus is bound to get there early. So, I send them out, and they wait. For now that's not a big deal, because the weather is still nice, but as soon as it gets colder, or rainy, I'll have to start driving them to the end of the driveway and waiting there with them for the bus to come. I'm not complaining though, because it sure is nice to have someone that picks them up and drops them back off. It saves me a lot of time and gas. Plus the kids have a lot of fun on the bus. Any time I try to drive them home, because I happen to be at the school at the end of the day, they throw a fit.

B.A.T.

Ah, the days have come back. I had a few years break from it, but somehow it worked itself back into my life. What, you thought I was pregnant? Ha! No way! I am talking about homework.

Now that Winter is in 1st grade, she has homework. Well, I'm not sure I can really call it homework, but that's what her teacher Mrs Scoggins calls it anyways. Winter will have books sent home with her to read as homework. Then I am supposed to mark on the reading log whether the book was easy, moderate, or hard for her to read. Predictably, todays book was super easy. See, Winter is an awesome reader. She will even sit and read the Book of Mormon all by herself (although I doubt she understands much of what is going on). She pronounces words better than some ward members do in Sunday school.

The other homework she has is to practice reading and spelling words. They will have tests at the end of the week. Here are this week's words:
1. at
2. sat
3. bat
4. mat
5. cat

I think Winter knew how to spell that stuff about 8 months ago. I guess she didn't get an 'academic excellence award' for nothing last year.

This year I plan to be a lot more involved at the school. It was kind of hard last year, because I had 2 kids at home. This year, I plan to maybe trade babysitting with someone in the ward on a regular day (unless we get a foster kid, and then that wouldn't be possible).

I know that Winter is super smart, and I just need to make sure that she gets challenged. Maybe I can get her into some special classes, although that might not be until later grades?

Swimming

The whole family had a blast swimming today. I can tell that the kids are really getting used to the water. While a few weeks ago Sterling would just sit on the steps, he is now to the point that he jumps in the deep end. Ginger has figured out how to go down the slide by herself, and does this cute little prep before she runs and jumps into the water. I tried to capture some of this in this video. Winter is also getting better and better at swimming, and can now easily swim from one end of the pool to the other. Her and Joe like to race.

Clowns

This afternoon 2 clowns from the Ringling Bros circus came to the Leonard library. They did some fun tricks and made the kids laugh. I have never seen so many people at that library! Out of the 3 kids, I think Sterling liked the clowns the best. He was just grinning from ear to ear. After their little show, they announced the summer reading program. If the kids read 5 books this summer (should be easy) they get free tickets to the circus. Winter got so motivated and has been reading all night. Of course the down side to them getting free tickets is, that I still have to buy tickets for me and Joe. That's ok though. I think it will be great fun. I can't remember going to the circus as a kid (my mom tells me we actually went twice) so I'm kind of excited for myself too.

Seemstress

Today Winter operated on one of her stuffed animal. Her Grinch has 2 gashes on his arms, and she wanted me to fix them. Winter is old enough to use a needle, so I showed her how to do it. She was so excited when I told her that she could do it herself. Since real stitches are always done with black thread, that's what Winter used. She was the doctor for a while. She did a really good job at getting enough fabric, but not too much. Good job Winter!

Fish in the water

Winter is like a fish in the water. Since the weather has gotten much nicer, we have been using the pool a lot. After naps, the kids love to go out and swim. After just 3 days this week, Winter can now swim all the way across the length of the pool by herself. She still insists that she needs to wear her goggles (with nose piece), but sometimes she forgets to put it on, and still does great.
It's interesting to see the difference between the kids. Winter loves to swim. Sterling is petrified of the water. Ginger takes after Winter and is already jumping in the deep end. Joe is really good about getting Sterling to explore though, and he got him to go in the middle of the pool with arm bands and a noodle. I'm hoping that by the end of the summer all 3 kids will swim as good as Winter does.

All American Girl

Winter is our All American Girl.

She has developed a cute Texas accent.
She loves riding the bus to school.
She is a great reader and writer.

Winter participated in T-ball this year

She has her daddy's beautiful brown eyes.
She loves to color, and is very talented
She is a daddies girl.
She wants to do gymnastics next year.
She loves to swim.
She is got an "academic excellence" award at kindergarten graduation
She picks up on languages really fast
She is a great speller.
She loves to read the scriptures.
Her favorite foods include pasta, candy, salad
She loves her kittens and dogs
We are scared for her to turn 16

Turtles

We have turtles in our lake. At first I didn't believe it. I mean, turtles live in zoos and pet shops, and Florida... not in OUR lake! Sterling found the first one last week. It was a pretty good sized box turtle. A few days later he found another one. Then a few days ago the kids found a good sized "red" turtle. They like to keep them in a box by the back door and think it's hilarious when its head shoots back in when someone walks up.

Jumping fun

Grandma and grandpa Ashurst came to visit. Grandma had some fun with the kids on the trampoline.

Graduation

Winter's last day of Kindergarten is tomorrow. I can't believe how much she has learned this year. She learned most of her letters in preschool, but couldn't read at all. Now she is getting faster all the time, and often doesn't have to sound out the words at all.
Kindergarten has a bunch of tests. Spelling, math, problem solving etc. Anytime Winter does a test, she does really great. She sure is a smart girl! Whenever she had a spelling test coming up, I would practice the words from the test, and keep practicing other words that are closely related to those. Then I would go harder, and harder, until I was just amazed at how many she can spell out. Maybe she should participate in a spelling bee. :)

Pronunciation

Winter started hear journey into speech with dual fluidity (speaking both english and dutch.) Jessica was determined that Winter would be able to speak to her great-grandparents. It worked, as Jessica spoke Dutch to Winter and Joe spoke english. All seemed fine until Winter started going over to friends houses to be babysat. She would ask politely for "mucka" and nobody would understand what she saying. She would talk about the "fokachas" and the response was the same. She would get frustrated and Jessica decided to let go of dutch (for a while.)
It appears that one of the consequences of Winter's early language proficiency was that she had a real ear for pronunciation and rapidly learned to pronounce things with remarkable clarity. She never had problems with her "R"s or "Y"s. Sterling and Ginger (on the other hand) who have never learned any dutch to speak of, show signs of being a bit slow to learn to pronounce things properly. Did the Dutch lessons early on help? Who knows.
One other little tidbit is that Sterlings tongue was "tied" and we actually took him in for surgery as a youngster to have it loosened. It is conceivable that that may have affected him as well, but Ginger seems to be following closely in Sterlings footsteps.

Fundraiser

Winter's school had a fund raiser last month. We sold outrageously expensive cookie dough to our family and friends. Winter's motivation were the prizes she would get when she got a certain amount of sales. She reached her goal of 25 orders, which qualified her for the "build-a-bear" workshop. Thanks for all of your support!
Today was the day she got to pick the animal she wanted to stuff and dress. Her pick: an alligator in a ballerina dress. Quite an inventive combination!

My House

At home I play on my swing set, and my brother and sister play with me. When I play with my baby sister Ginger and my brother Sterling they are sort of nice.
I like my house because it makes it so I don't get rained on. Every morning I eat breakfast, and I go to school. I love mom's lunch. I love mom's dinner. I eat my favorite food that my mom cooks.
I love my family. I do Family Home Evening on Mondays. I watch movies sometimes, when mom is working on her computer.
We have fun together at our new house, and we are trying to make it good. (renovations) We invite people to our house sometimes. I like to play with my mom and dad. My mom teaches me how to be nice.
We have fun at this house playing with the goats and kittens. I hope my little tiny kittens will grow; some day they will be like their mother. We really like our animals a lot. Our dogs sometimes jump on us, then I smack them in the face.

A day at school

My favorite thing at school today was playing outside. I played with Heidi. We played hide and go seek. -Winter can read this as I type it. She has learned to read very well in her Kindergarten class.
My teacher's name is Ms Scott. "She bees nice to me every day". We have to do tests, and I don't like to do them. -but she is very good at them
I had fun talking to my friends on the bus. "I have to sit on the bus for 12 hours I think, I'm not sure" - her bus ride is quite long: 45 minutes
My friend Angelic and I played together outside at school, during recess. I also went to the gym. We played basketball. I won the first and third game, but lost the second one.
I saw a guinea pig in the nurse's office. It was in a little cage, running in his little wheel. Then I played with my bestest friends, Steven Key, Angel Luerda, Jacob Snotter, Heide Vibbort, and that's it.

The beginning of a Journal

My objective for this blog is to keep a sort of journal for my kids.
I found out today that a blog can be printed into a book, and decided that it would be cool to make books for my kids, so they can remember things that they won't otherwise. I will try to write a bit about each kid individually, as well as combination posts.