Life in our house lately

Here is the pile of books on my nightstand.  I'm partway through The Agony and the Ecstasy and really loving it.  I'm also loving Jane Eyre, but I put it on hold to try to get through The Agony and the Ecstasy before we leave for Italy.  I am trying to read a little bit of the Emily Dickinson when I just have a snippet of time, but I can't say I've gotten to it much lately--that must be why it has ended up at the bottom.  I'm in varying stages of reading all the rest.

William is learning to read and write.  This is one of my most favorite parts of parenting--teaching a child to read.  It is so great when it just clicks.  William and I have been sitting down with his magna doodle and I would write a word and then he would sound it out and read it.  After each one, when he got it, he would throw his hands up in the air and yell, "Yay!"  I love it.

Pretty soon he decided to write some words of his own.

Kate broke out with an unexplained case of hives--all over her whole body.  It took a couple days to go away.  We had a fun day together since she got to stay home from school.

 Ben and Rachel had an orchestra concert.  Thanks to Jared Jones for these great photos.

This is Rachel's orchestra.  She sits in the back row, third from the left in the photo below.  She is not in nearly as great of a spot for photography as Ben.

 William got an award at Preschool for Patience.  He looks so very serious in this picture.

I stayed up late helping Rachel with an essay one night.  She finally decided on this for her title:

I'm still waiting to hear what the teacher has to say about that.