Sammy the Fish

Sam has been a busy and impressive girl.  She continues to learn to read.  I signed her up for preK at the school we are districted for.  She already can do most everything on the needs to know by the end of Kindergarten list.  I hope she will not be too bored in school for the next few years.  

She had a small ballet recital at her school carnival.  

She also just finished her week of swimming lessons.  We are so proud of her.  The week started with tears and fear and ended with confidence and smiles.  She learned the basics of breathing and strokes.  Next year she will be able to learn the actual strokes.

She even chose to swim to her teacher in a few cases.  Such confidence to swim to the middle of the pool.  She did have a few issues with taking a real breath since she often did not need it.

Zoey stays a busy girl.  She spends a lot of her time pushing something around. 

                                           

She is also picking up words and signs so quickly.  She is even showing some imagination.  She learned the word hat and a few weeks ago she put a book on her head and said hat and smiled.

Zoey has had a bit of a rough time, but stays mostly smiles with some crankiness.  She has had a mild cold or harsh teething with snot.  When we were at a playdate recently, she sat down and tried to take off her shoes.  I asked her to leave them, but she kept at it.  I thought there might be mulch in them so I went to take them off. When I did, an ant bit me and it hurt!  I noticed spots showing up on Zoey.  The poor girl got probably 20 or so bites and never cried.  She still has pink bumps.  What a trooper!

A cute Sam and Nick moment.

 The girls are starting to actually play together more.  Sam is so good about sharing and helping Zoey.  She is such an amazing big sister.  We are all so lucky!

She loved this flower hairclip and wanted a picture.

 Right before Easter we had some bunny pictures taken.  Zoey was not too cooperative, wanting to grab the bunny and such, but Sam had a great time.

The USF-Poly split is official and so much is uncertain now.  We will be teaching this summer and fall.  We are also doing online courses for Marshall.  We are hoping for a sale of the Atlanta house soon.  Followed by good news from the new University.  But only time will tell.  We have gotten good news for papers lately, good reviews and 1 moving into official in press status.  So that was nice, but we are hoping for some stellar news.

Happy Easter!

Wow, life has been a blur lately.  Zoey is a busy, busy girl.  She is walking or running everywhere.  She is picking up about 1-2 words per day, including the frequently used "walk".  Some still need translation, but I have reprised the role of baby whisperer.  It is amazing to watch her bloom.  She is our climber, standing up in a chair in the blink of an eye.  Luckily one of her words is "sit" which she ironically says when standing when she should not, like in the bath tub or on a chair.  So she gives herself away.  She loves carrying around baby dolls ("baby") and water cups ("wawa").  She had another bout of teething, but stays so happy except when her temper shows.  Samantha has been learning more and more and can now read 3 books.  She knows a lot of sight words.  Her progression is amazing.  She is really thriving at the Swilley preschool :)

Sam is such a girly girl.  She loves dresses.

We went to a manatee center, but it was too warm to see any, so we hit the mall on the way home for a little shopping, some lunch, and a ride on the carousel.

Zoey thought it was fun, she even said "wheeee".

Their bond is so amazing.  What a precious gift, having a sister that loves you so much!  I hope they continue to get along.  Sam can make Zoey laugh like no one else and Sam loves playing with Zoey.  She is so good with her.  Although we are going to have to work to keep Zoey from becoming a brat since Sam tends to give in a little too easily.  Zoey is getting used to getting her way.

Zoey is into everything,so when I have to get something done it means pack and play for a short bit.  She gets so upset sometimes.  You can see her face is red and splotchy from crying, but she saw me with the camera and gave me a big grin.

She is always on the go and loves to have a bag, another of her words.  She tosses it over her shoulder and carries it, even if it is way too big that it makes her trip.  She is a determined girl.

Sometimes when you get her from a nap, she greets you in a different state.  She got her arm out.  The other day when I put her down in a dress, she removed her diaper and wet her entire crib.  My mom was watching her that day and found a big mess!

Spaghetti night.  She is still a great eater.  Although she has her favorites, she seems to eat most anything.

Her eyes are pretty much green now.  Check out the comparison.

Sam and Zoey had a nice Easter.  Zoey got her favorite things, a book, a doll and a car.  Sam got a nice assortment as well.

Sam loves to rhyme and sing.  She made up a great song, but when the camera came out, it was not quite as good.  Still entertaining though.

And here is an entertaining one of Zoey dancing.

We are so thankful that the semester is drawing to a close. Just a few more weeks.  Then we have 1 week off and back to summer classes.  In addition, the governor got the conforming bill about the USF split and a decision should be made soon.  It has been so long with the uncertainty, it will be nice to at least know which way it will happen.  There is some worry that if it does get vetoed, there would be no money for USF-Polytechnic since the budget says Florida Polytechnic University and the main senator pushing the split is the leaving head of the budget committee.  We are hoping it turns into a choice for Nick and a real job for me.  But only time will tell.

Birthday pictures!

I have been so busy lately with extra computer time that I have not even posted the professional pictures we had done of the girls.  So here they are.

Sam's were from a local reserve.  It had a neat bridge.

Such a girlie girl!

She loves her sister and her sister adores her!

Love her laugh!

Sassy!

Sweet

She had a great time throwing petals!

For Zoey, I knew she would not do well on the bridge, so we went back to the gardens.  I appliqued shirts for the girls.

 Poufy dress.

I love this one!

There was the cutest picture on pinterest with a 1 year old with a tutu.  The girl was lying on her belly and the tutu was behind her.  Zoey would just not have it.

She also would not leave the letters alone or hold them correctly.

But who can get too upset when she smiles like this.  This expression is her default.  I do not know if there is a baby out there easier to get to laugh.

 Showing off her squatting.  There was a hovering one, but this expression was much better.

 She was too interested in the fish to look back at us to get an over the shoulder shot.  And it was not for a lack of us calling and clapping and such.

Check out that Buddha belly!

Here are a couple other catch up pictures from my phone.

Mom, Sam, Zoey and I went to the downtown market and a charity chalk event.  We bought tickets to vote for ones done by artists and also bought a space for Sam to decorate.  So much fun!

Shopping at Lowe's.  The girls are in the St. Patty's day shirts I appliqued.  They were so time consuming, but they looked so cute.  They were shamrocks made out of 4 hearts.

And now for the latest installment of Samisms or kids say the darndest things.  Some nice fodder for embarrassing her later on.  Nick was playing with Sam recently and she handed him the doll sleeping bag below (a leftover from my childhood, gotta love the 70's) and told him to put on his love glove.

And another interesting one.  She and my mom were talking about a stuffed unicorn at my mom's house and Sam said he was a boy because of the thing hanging down.  My mom knew he was not anatomically correct and on questioning it came out Sam was referring to a goatee on the unicorn.  You have got to love the innocence of a 4 year old.

 Zoey is a full time walker now, but shoes still throw her a bit.  She is also picking up words faster.  I read recently that the so called vocab burst is mostly a rumor, that most kids have a gradual increase, and that is the case with Zoey.  Her vocabulary is astounding for a 13 month old.  Not all of her words are completely understandable, or at least not without context, but she can get across a lot.  She even says a version of thank you.  Sam is learning more and more words and can read a couple of full books.  What a super star!

Things have been busy but mostly good.  There have been some showings of our house, so we are hoping for some real interest soon, fingers crossed.  There is still craziness with the USF-Polytechnic split and we will be glad when we know where all that will fall.  We had a nice spring break, but it was mostly filled with cleaning and such.  We both know we will be teaching this summer, so that is better than at one point.  I have 2 classes and Nick has 1 and research.  My parents also got a new car so that we can all go places together.  They have a brand new Mazda 5, a van/suv crossover.  It is on a car frame so it is small but it seats 6.  Now to figure out where to put the 2 carseats.

Adventures in bipedalism

Zoey has reached the threshold to be a true walker.  She prefers it most of the time.  She still gets distracted easily and slips on things.  And carrying things can be her downfall.  But her ability to pop back up is amazing and sometimes she pulls off a great recovery.

Spring Break!

My 300th post, wow!  Or as Zoey says, "Vow!"

We started Spring Break early with our trip to Epcot.  We also hit the Tampa Zoo yesterday with another USF Poly prof and his family.  It was tons of fun.

Sam got to ride a camel.

We rode the coaster, too.  What a cool picture!

The orangs were close eating carrots.

Zoey loved the penguin.

We plan to fill the rest of Spring Break with a lot of cleaning.  Today I tackled our bathroom.  Thanks to pinterest, I got the idea to use vinegar and dawn to cut through the soap scum.  It is sparkling!  There will be some fun as well.  Our relator was having an open house at our Atlanta house today.  There have been a few showings, but no strong interest.  The USF split has been approved, so Florida Polytechnic University (FPU) will be created.  There will be a teach out, 5 years to get the current students graduated.  We are not sure what exactly will happen, we hope for options.  It has been so stressful, especially with the Atlanta house hitting the market.  Samantha also did not get into the charter school.  She ended up 40th on the waiting list after the lottery.  The lady said sometimes they have gone to 60, but we are trying to have a back up plan.  We may go with the school we are districted for, which is a great school, but the jr high is so awful.  So she would have to move again.  We will try the charter again next year since they have more slots for kindergarten and add a magnet school that starts at kindergarten.

Sam continues to amaze us.  My mom works with her a lot in addition to all we do.  She does not, unfortunately, learn much at school.  But she is learning sight words and can read The Eye Book.  We are searching for a school that will do her advancement justice.  So many PreK programs start with letter recognition and get to sight words by the end of the year.  Not acceptable when you know them at the beginning.

Zoey learns new words all the time.  She has over 20 for sure, some are hard because she does not say them perfectly.  She is in that gray area between crawler and walker.  She is starting to prefer to walk, she just is in that falls a lot, acts like she is drunk, cannot avoid obstacles stage.  Many might officially classify her as a walker, we are just waiting for a more definitive 50%+ spent walking.  Long distances are still crawl and of course after a plop down.

Epcot in bloom

We decided to get a jump on Spring Break and go to Epcot Wednesday before the Spring Breakers.  We let Sam skip school.  It as the third of our passes that we needed to use before they expired.  We had a nice day.  Epcot is a little less crazy and it was the start of a garden event, so flowers and topiaries were everywhere.  It also has a small aquarium and 2 kid museum type places in it.

Right at the entrance.

We hit the character area. Zoey was unsure at first and even started to cry at Pluto.  But by Donald she was into it and made her "Wow" face.  She even says wow, but it comes out vow.

Nana, Sam and Bambi.

We saw baby ducks.  So cute!

Duck is also one of Zoey's words now, although it sounds like duh and is similar to dog (dah).

A silly shot yelling "Butterfly!"

In one of the areas they had a fire safety section.  Samantha remembered from when they came to her school and was selected to demonstrate stop, drop, cover your face and roll.  She did great.

More cool topiaries.

There were so many, so just a few more.

I asked her to turn around :)

Nick was here too :)

Making a wish at the fountain.

Perhaps a future summer job?  A born princess.

Panda topiary!

It is hard to see, but Nick helped Sam make a character of her for this video game.