State Fair Of Texas 2014

(written by Avery, who is the #1 fan of the State Fair of Texas)

Every year I look forward to going
to the State Fair of Texas because I have so much fun doing all of the different things there.  When we got to the State Fair of Texas this year, the first thing we did was look at tractors.  Then we went over to a barn.  At the barn we looked at Gypsy horses.  Gypsy horses are big.  After that we saw a dog show called "Splash!"  "Splash!" made me laugh.  I thought the dogs in it were really cool.

Then we went to a petting zoo.  (My favorite were the baby goats.)  Next we went to a show called "World on a String".  It was a puppet show.  Then I bought my own marionette.

The next day my m om, my dad, and my sisters went home.  I stayed an extra day.  And then I went on a 6 hour trip home! (Four hours to Lockhart and 2 hours to Houston!)

I can't wait until next year!

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Mario Bonding

Towards the end of the day recently, Jordan came into our room with great purpose and told me, "Well, it finally happened.  All of my years of practice as a child, and all of the parenting we've done up until this moment... it all came full circle today when I dropped the girls off at school.  When she was getting out of the car, Avery asked me, 'Daddy, when I get home today, will you help me beat level 2 in Super Mario B
rothers?'"

They spent the afternoon playing Super Mario, making lists of characters, and even creating a cartoon about Mario and Luigi.

We're all so thankful for the years of practice Jordan put in so that he and Avery could bond over turtles, koopa troopas, and Bones.  Like father, like daughter!

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Important Things from Last Week

Each girl had an important week, for their own reasons.  Avery keeps a list of "Words of the Week".  Here they are, to explain our week:

Avery, Catalina, Playdate, Early Dismissal: On Friday, we had early dismissal... and you guessed, it, a playdate with Catalina.

Kate, Cast, Cast-Free: Kate's big week to get her cast off finally came!  She celebrated by picking her own outfit (long sleeves!) and swimming.  We also celebrated her birthday a bit early with Nana, DD, Amelia, Amanda and Kyle at The American Girl Cafe.  What a special day it was!

Reese: This week Reese had her turn being the leader in her classroom.  There is a very special "Leader" cape that the leader gets to wear and she did a super job being the super leader.  It was such an exciting privilege that she couldn't take her nap... she had to stay awake so she could tell me all about it the second I walked in the door to get her!

Author Visit, Library, Books, October, Creativity, Reading and Math: Exciting things from day-to-day school life.  An author came to visit and inspired Avery, the girls learned about the character trait Creativity for the month of October, and day to day school work, especially in math and reading, kept the girls busy.

Improved: I had a parent teacher conference with Avery's teachers this week and they were super complimentary.  I came home and told Avery all about it and apparently the word that stood out most to her was 'improved'.  Way to go, Avery!

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