It looks like Hannah's on the road to trying out for American Idol season 25! because her newest favorite thing to do is sing songs, sing lots and lots of songs. All of a sudden it is like she has had an explosion in her memory and she now knows the words to more songs than I can list here. Sometimes she just sits around and sings all by herself spontaneously and sometimes she wants us to sing and she will sing along. At other times we can be singing to her and all of a sudden stop in the middle of a line and she will finish the lyrics for us! It's like she's a contestant on Don't Forget the Lyrics! Today I caught her twice singing to herself. Once she was singing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes while looking at the correct page in one of her books that has the lyrics to the song on it and the other time she was singing Peas Porridge Hot Peas Porridge Cold. We are going to try really hard to get a video of her singing because it is just amazing to me all the lyrics and melodies her little brain can hold already. She even recognizes some of her favorite songs by the instrumental music only and can pipe in with key lyrics at the right time such as the "Toot, toot!" in She'll be Coming Round the Mountain.
As far as other updates, she has lots and lots of new words even since the last time I posted. It
seems she learns dozens more each day and then immediately works them into her repertoire. Her newest words are sticker, yucky, ghost, "how are you doing?" Penny, bib, leaf, Ernie, outside, loud, peek-a-boo, alright, ok, trash, push, hungry, noddle,Jason, and drink. More and more often she is stringing 2 and 3 words together to express her thoughts such as "More bread please" "Yes please" and "Ella barking." She's using her color words more and more and recently picked out an orange leaf at gymnastics and said "orange" and then later that same day looked at a piece of peach that was on her plate and said, "orange" and then picked up her purple sippy cup and said "purple." A few days ago I caught her "reading" the grocery ads. She was pointing to the pictures of all of the different foods and naming each one, "milk, bread, juice, apple, banana, meat."
At the moment the letter M has her fascinated. She's been turning to the M page in her alphabet book and saying M over and over again and pointing to the letter M on her mat and saying "Mmmm" Mommy. Every day it's the same thing. She wants me to list all the words that start with M and tell her the sound that M makes so that she can repeat after me. Besides her alphabet she's been counting a lot on her own. She lined up 5 rocks in a row the other day and then pointed to them each one by one as she counted 1, 3, 5, 8, 10. Right now she loves to do the sequence of 1-3-5 for some reason. Each time after she says 5 she cheers!
Our trees have finally started dropping their leaves and Hannah has really been enjoying playing in the piles of leaves I've raked up. The other day she "helped" me rake up the leaves and then gleefully spread the pile back out! She loves to cover herself up in them and to hear them crunch under her feet or in her hands.
Hannah really likes her gymnastics class and has learned many new skills. She's practicing somersaults, log rolls, hanging from the bar, bouncing on the trampoline, jumping, walking on the balance beam, and even handstands! She loves to play on all the equipment and even lets her teacher, Miss Heather, help her do some of the moves.
Now that it's cold outside and we've been running the heat we've noticed that Hannah's room stays pretty cool at night. Since she's too big for sleep sacks this winter we finally got up the courage to let her sleep under a blanket. It was a tense couple of nights for me, but I think I've finally got used to the idea of it. She certainly seems warmer to the touch when I go in and check on her.
One funny little thing that Hannah says that only Kyle and I get is when she wants something
she says "tight." This stems back from when she was much younger and wanted to hold or touch something that we didn't want her to touch. To distract her from the unacceptable item we would give her something else and ask her to hold it tight for us and not let it drop. This kept her busy and away from whatever we didn't want her to touch and made her feel special that she was helping us. Now "tight" has become the universal "I want it" word! It makes me smile every time she does it.
We've been working hard to instill good values in Hannah and to teach her about God and Jesus. We read her bible to her and we say prayers together every night and try hard to remember to pray with her at her meals although I'm not always great about that because meals seem so rushed when she wants food NOW. We also pray for people who need our prayers. One day when Evelyn was sick Hannah kept asking about her and I kept telling her that we couldn't go see Evelyn because she was sick. I said Hannah, do you want to pray for Evelyn to ask Jesus to make her better and she said "Yes," and immediately folded her hands and said, "Eva, Amen" It brought tears to my eyes. I was so proud of my little girl for showing compassion and concern for her friend. Several times that week she
spontaneously prayed for Evelyn and even now she still sometimes just stops what she is doing, gets quiet and folds her hands and then says "Amen." I have no idea what she's praying about, but I'm glad that she's at least learning that prayer isn't just a at meal and bedtime thing, that we can and should talk to God all throughout the day.
As far as other updates, she has lots and lots of new words even since the last time I posted. It
seems she learns dozens more each day and then immediately works them into her repertoire. Her newest words are sticker, yucky, ghost, "how are you doing?" Penny, bib, leaf, Ernie, outside, loud, peek-a-boo, alright, ok, trash, push, hungry, noddle,Jason, and drink. More and more often she is stringing 2 and 3 words together to express her thoughts such as "More bread please" "Yes please" and "Ella barking." She's using her color words more and more and recently picked out an orange leaf at gymnastics and said "orange" and then later that same day looked at a piece of peach that was on her plate and said, "orange" and then picked up her purple sippy cup and said "purple." A few days ago I caught her "reading" the grocery ads. She was pointing to the pictures of all of the different foods and naming each one, "milk, bread, juice, apple, banana, meat."At the moment the letter M has her fascinated. She's been turning to the M page in her alphabet book and saying M over and over again and pointing to the letter M on her mat and saying "Mmmm" Mommy. Every day it's the same thing. She wants me to list all the words that start with M and tell her the sound that M makes so that she can repeat after me. Besides her alphabet she's been counting a lot on her own. She lined up 5 rocks in a row the other day and then pointed to them each one by one as she counted 1, 3, 5, 8, 10. Right now she loves to do the sequence of 1-3-5 for some reason. Each time after she says 5 she cheers!
Our trees have finally started dropping their leaves and Hannah has really been enjoying playing in the piles of leaves I've raked up. The other day she "helped" me rake up the leaves and then gleefully spread the pile back out! She loves to cover herself up in them and to hear them crunch under her feet or in her hands.Hannah really likes her gymnastics class and has learned many new skills. She's practicing somersaults, log rolls, hanging from the bar, bouncing on the trampoline, jumping, walking on the balance beam, and even handstands! She loves to play on all the equipment and even lets her teacher, Miss Heather, help her do some of the moves.
Now that it's cold outside and we've been running the heat we've noticed that Hannah's room stays pretty cool at night. Since she's too big for sleep sacks this winter we finally got up the courage to let her sleep under a blanket. It was a tense couple of nights for me, but I think I've finally got used to the idea of it. She certainly seems warmer to the touch when I go in and check on her.
One funny little thing that Hannah says that only Kyle and I get is when she wants something
she says "tight." This stems back from when she was much younger and wanted to hold or touch something that we didn't want her to touch. To distract her from the unacceptable item we would give her something else and ask her to hold it tight for us and not let it drop. This kept her busy and away from whatever we didn't want her to touch and made her feel special that she was helping us. Now "tight" has become the universal "I want it" word! It makes me smile every time she does it.We've been working hard to instill good values in Hannah and to teach her about God and Jesus. We read her bible to her and we say prayers together every night and try hard to remember to pray with her at her meals although I'm not always great about that because meals seem so rushed when she wants food NOW. We also pray for people who need our prayers. One day when Evelyn was sick Hannah kept asking about her and I kept telling her that we couldn't go see Evelyn because she was sick. I said Hannah, do you want to pray for Evelyn to ask Jesus to make her better and she said "Yes," and immediately folded her hands and said, "Eva, Amen" It brought tears to my eyes. I was so proud of my little girl for showing compassion and concern for her friend. Several times that week she
spontaneously prayed for Evelyn and even now she still sometimes just stops what she is doing, gets quiet and folds her hands and then says "Amen." I have no idea what she's praying about, but I'm glad that she's at least learning that prayer isn't just a at meal and bedtime thing, that we can and should talk to God all throughout the day.Here are some videos of Hannah I finally got uploaded. To see the video just click on the link.
Here is Hannah hiding in the entertainment center. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7326924813375097159&hl=en
This is when Hannah first learned how to say the word "more" and not just do the sign. She is asking for "more please" grapes. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5890165437492565494&hl=en
This video is of Hannah when she first started building with her blocks. She makes much more elaborate creations now, but I haven't got her on video lately. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8545966111514059932&hl=en
This is Hannah playing her harmonica and rocking in her chair. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7813654455516653897&hl=en
This is from our PA trip. Hannah was reading her books in the car. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-268523738943685250&hl=en
This is Hannah kicking her ball around the house. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8077318705643978355&hl=en
In this video Hannah is using a spoon to feed herself some of Daddy's homemade chilli. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8533642810609986800&hl=en
2 comments:
Hannah sounds like one smart little girl!! Isn't it just so cute when they start singing?? I still haven't been able to catch Benjamin doing that on video yet. Oh...when Benjamin first started counting he did the "1...3...5..9" thing too...what's that about?
~Cindy Huff
IAC Alum
These photos of Hannah are so adorable! I'd buy her for $2.00!
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