This Blog Post is Called, The Beach

 The Beach

As our celebration for Chris finishing his first quarter of PA school, we wanted to find something fun around our new home. I searched around and found a beach only half an hour from our house and we took our adventure on Monday afternoon. All day we were telling Claire about the beach and playing episodes of her favorite TV shows that have the beach in it to get her really excited. When we got there, the walk down to the beach area was far but we had so much fun and found a previously built castle to build more on. Claire learned how to decorate with sea shells and Shay helped daddy dig in the sand to make some castle towers. We got to play in the water and walk out easily (except Shay who was pretty unstable and had to hold hands) to some rocks that little fish were swimming around that Claire had fun pointing out. Another fun thing was seeing a flock of geese coming and going a few times while we were there and Claire wanted to follow them around calling them ducks.

Claire

We have noticed that if Shay does something unique and we play with her, Claire has to come copy her and get the attention, like covering her face and playing pick-a-boo. She still has all her own crazy ideas like balancing the iPad she is watching between me and the couch so she can lay down and watch it. She also likes playing in my teaching material and sorting the colors as we are learning the alphabet.  We've been having learning time a lot lately and she can count to 10 all by herself even though on camera she got confused with 7. She can recognize some of the letters specifically a, b, c, m, s, t and x but likes to copy me to say the full alphabet and dance when I sing the song. I'm trying to find more things to add into my teaching time with her like drawing lines and shapes since she knows a lot of the shapes already. I knew I would never be a teacher for younger ages, but I'm enjoying teaching Claire because she is so cute and gets excited. 

Shay

Daddy taught her an old church trick today with our farm animal finger toys of suctioning them onto her face when we were in our zoom church testimony meeting. She saw Claire had some on her and wanted some too because monkey see monkey do apparently. She has learned the art of using the toy shopping cart as a stool to turn on all the light switches around the living room now. Some of them don't noticeably turn on anything (plugs and the fireplace) so she gets a little confused and then disappointed that nothing happened. There are some days that she is very clingy and cuddly when I come back from my biking or working out so I take those changes to love on her extra. Last but not least, Shay is now a wolf and likes to start a howl when we watch her favorite show that has a wolf in it.

Now the video needs a little explanation because you probably don't understand why she would be reading the trash can or why it is a good thing. About a week ago, I had written the alphabet on our fence with chalk and was teaching Claire and that turned into reading the numbers and letters on the trash can because Claire knows its a word so Shay is reading them on her own.

Halloween

I was going to wait until October but I keep seeing so many houses with Halloween decorations around when I'm out that I got jealous and pulled our tote out this week. Claire was excited about the pumpkins I was putting around and a little dancing Frankenstein was played 50 times in a row. Last I brought out the costumes and Claire played the lion while Shay played as Pikachu for a full hour and then a little bit every day after. I got Shay to sort of say "Pikachu" and Claire is great and roaring and scratching with her fluffy paws, and she even calls Shay "my pikachu" when I was trying to get them to bed. I was being extra the other day and cut her carrots into stars and pumpkins since she seemed to be obsessed with all the pumpkin decorations I brought out. She ate all the pumpkins first, hence the picture with only stars on her plate.