Day of Firsts

Today was a day of firsts. I took my first trip to IKEA and I was amazed. Unfortunately the snowstorm that was supposed to hit New England tomorrow arrived early and we had to leave before fully exploring all the store had to offer. Hannah loved the awesome kid's play area and was doing cannon balls into the HUGE ball pit they have. She apparently even played with some kids that she met while she was in there. When we picked her up she said, "Daddy, there was a boy with an orange shirt in the play place and he was my friend and we played." Later at the restaurant (I can't believe they have a restaurant too!) she pointed him out to us while we were in line. Way to go Hannah! Preschool has been SOOOOOO good for her. I'm totally going back there again with her someday to explore the store some more since she was so willing to hang out in the kid's area.

When we got home there was quite a bit of snow on the ground (it took us 3 hours to drive 40 miles because of a huge traffic back up that we were never able to deduce what the root cause of was) so Kyle and Hannah bundled up to go outside to play (well Kyle was technically shoveling). Hannah caught sight of the neighbor girls who were outside playing in their yard and had to go over to see them. They invited us to go sledding in their backyard since they have a really steep hill. So, Hannah was able to sled for the first time. She loved it. She even went down on her own several times. I took pictures, but it was getting so dark (since it is dark around 4pm these days!) that the shutter speed had to be too slow to get enough light for me to be able to get any good shots handholding the camera. :( Too bad, I would have loved to have some shots of her first experience sledding. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised when I upload them.

Then, before bedtime Hannah was working on her Christmas thank you cards. I usually write out the phrases "Thank You" and "Love, Hannah" for her to copy in the appropriate places on the cards so that I don't have to spell each word aloud for every single card and she can just move at her own pace independently. Today when I went to set the phrase card out of her to copy she said, "No Mommy! I can do it on my own." I tried to get her to take the example card, but she was not having it. Eventually I consented and boy did she show me. She wrote from memory "Thank You" and "Love Hannah" legibly, spelled correctly, and in the right place on all 12 cards! I had no idea she knew how to spell "thank you." "Love," I could believe since it was one of the first words she learned to read as a sight word after her own name, but "thank you" just blew me away. I knew she could read those words, but it's a much bigger deal in my opinion to pull the spelling out of your head and put it down on paper. That's my girl! She's such a smarty.