ABC's and One Crazy Monkey

Karsen has been hard at work on her phonics and alphabet sounds. We are constantly playing the game, "Name everything you see that starts with the letter __ (fill in the blank)." I hope it is working, sometimes we are not sure but she does seem to pick up bits and pieces here and there.

Austin had a big social studies project due this Friday, which thankfully we have already turned in. He had to make a diorama of a business in our community. He chose Pizza Hut, I don't have a picture of the finished product but here was the work in progress (without the tables, buffet, and Power Ranger diners). He was especially concerned that we get the vending machine with the small bouncy balls in a prominent position.
Both kids had their first soccer games of the year last night. They are at the same time on Tuesday evenings, so Josh and I, and Grandma and Papaw Hall and Grandma Purvis, split our time between the two fields. Austin is getting used to the BIG field that the 8-10 year olds play on, and is sufficiently worn out by the end of the game, especially when he plays midfielder. He did a great job, especially on defense, but was disappointed that he did not score. We told him the competition would be much tougher at this level, and team play is more important that individual play like in "real" soccer, but he still would like to score a lot like he did in previous seasons. Karsen did score her first goal of the year, and really controls the ball when she is on offense. Our favorite thing about watching her play is that she sometimes passes the ball to her teammates at inappropriate times, like when they are way downfield and she is next to the goal, or when they are almost sure to kick it out of bounds, but we are proud of her for being a team player and getting her littler friends involved in the game.
Finally, I think I have mentioned before that Karsen is really into Connect 4 (the game with the checkers where you try to get 4 in a row before your opponent does). However, she does not play the traditional way. She attempts to put the checkers into the game with her feet like a monkey. This drives Austin bananas, pardon the bad monkey pun!