Monday's Child

Samantha has really been doing a lot of mental growing lately. She has been working hard on her letter sounds and will, many times per day, say a word a few times in a row and then tell me what letter the word starts with. The last week or so, she has been working a lot on the letter "f." The problem is that there are words like phone in her vocabulary. So we introduced the concept of "ph" to her. And then she started thinking that words like fox and flower start with "ph" Ugh. English is just very difficult and confusing. And you better believe I tell her that when she says the wrong letter or letter combination simply because it sounds just like another. And I continue to tell her that she is doing a great job of listening to the sounds in words and figuring out letters.

She has also started walking into a room and telling the person there, "Mommy (or the name of whomever she is talking to) we need to talk." You can't help but smile when she does this. It is really very cute! So then we say "OK. What do we need to talk about?" and she will come up with all kinds of different things. This past weekend, she did this to Emma. And her answer to the question was "Flowers." Emma asked "What about flowers?" And Samantha started asking about how do flowers grow. Wow! That surprised me...that she really has the concept of flowers growing, down enough to ask questions about it. Before too much longer, she will probably be teaching me all kinds of things...well beyond the things like patience and laughter and joy that she already teaches me on a daily basis.

She has been working on a memory verse every week and so far knows (in the order she has learned them) John 3:16, 1 John 4:19, Isaiah 42:6, Deuteronomy 6:5, 1 Cor 13:6 and part of Prov 17:17. We start on a new verse each Monday, and the next Sunday, she tells her Bible class teacher what her verse is. She has also started praying before each meal. She has always reminded us to pray if we didn't think about it, but she always wanted me or Brent to pray while she bowed her head and then said amen. Now she actually wants to say the prayer each time. I think that she waited until she had something memorized to be comfortable saying it herself, because her prayer, every single time, is "Dear God, Thank you for this day. Thank you for all the food you give us. And thank you for Jesus. Amen." Then she gets a huge smile on her face...she is so proud of herself!

Samantha is also turning into quite the monkey herself since Jacob has been climbing so much. I saw her in my room the other day like this:
And yes, I actually told her that she is not allowed to climb up there, but since you're there, wait a minute and let me take a picture...then never climb in the window again. Of course, she has done it numerous times since then.

She also loves to get fancy every day. On this particular day, she put on every necklace and bracelet that she owns.

Then proceeded to play with her trains while she was still all fancied up. Yes, I am smiling at this adorable sight :)