**Playing catch up again on blog posts. Maybe I’ll get back to present day at some point.**
In March Miss Kamy turned 6! She’s gotten so big and is really maturing. She’s smart, has a fabulous memory, and loves playing with Caden. She’s also learning to be more encouraging and sweet to her brother! Caden has always had a selfless attitude about a lot of things, but Kamy is finally picking up on his queues. “I am going to do this for Caden because he does ___ for me.” Kamy has come a long way in this area!
We drove into DFW for Kamy’s birthday and had two great family get togethers. Kamy loves being the center of attention and had a lot of fun. For the past two years or so Kamy has said she wanted a “rainbow cake” for her birthday. Thanks to Pinterest, I actually managed to pull it off too!
Before her birthday, Kamy and Keller ran their first 5K! They trained all winter and had set a goal to run the entire distance. It was a beautiful day for running. They did awesome! They ran the course in 40:20, which was a personal best too, despite the two big hills on the course. It was such a great experience! Everyone was so encouraging and were *very* impressed that she was running the 5K. Plus they loved her outfit. =) There was only one other 5 year old who finished ahead of her, so that fired up her competitive spirit. Kamy also ran in the kids 1K to earn another finisher’s medal.
The Tyler library has a program called 1000 Books Before Kindergarten. The idea is that early exposure to books helps instill a love of reading and learning. We read all the time, but we started tracking the books we read so we could complete the program too. Our “house rules” meant that both kids had to be there to listen to the book — either have someone read it to them or have Kamy read it out loud to the both of them. I didn’t want Kamy getting far ahead of Caden on the tracker and it was a good incentive for her to read to Caden. They have been flying through the program. There are different rewards throughout the program, but the highlight is a paperback book of their choice at 500 and a large, hardback Disney storybook at 1000. Plus they get to put their name on the wall at each 100 mark. Again, Miss Competitive was all over it!
It has increased her confidence in her reading too. She started doing more “free time” reading where she’ll sit on the couch and quietly read a book to herself. I love seeing her read and definitely want to foster that! Speaking of reading, Kamy and Daddy finished reading “The Indian in the Cupboard.” They’re enjoying the one on one time before bed and Keller likes reading books with a longer and more complex story than picture books.
Min also brought out the quilt that Kamy pieced in January. Kamy was so excited to have it and loves all the ballerinas!
Easter fell on the final weekend of March. We went to the City of Tyler’s annual egg hunt at Lindsey Park. There were SO many people there, but they split the kids up by age group. “Egg hunt” is a mis-nomer though — volunteers basically dumped tons and tons of candy in the outfield of the baseball fields. When the organizers said go, it was like a swarm of locusts. It was insane! I suggested that the kids not stop at the first candy they saw but instead run to the far end of the outfield for easy pickings. They both FILLED their buckets to the brim! We also hid several rounds of eggs in our yard for the kids to find. It was fun, even if there wasn’t any more candy in the eggs.
Lastly, one evening the sunset was particularly beautiful, so I stepped outside to take some photos. The kids ran out with me and were playing in the grass. The lighting worked out just right that I got a great photo of each of the kids.
