Abigail Raja McCulloch

We have been waiting for what seems like FOREVER for this sweet precious baby to come into our family.  My cousin Chris and his wife Sara welcomed baby Abigail Raja McCulloch into the world on September 25, 2011.  She weighed 6 lbs. 12 oz. and was 18 in long.  I am so impressed with how my cousin labored!  She did it all without any drugs! (A better woman than I!).  Here are a few pictures from the hospital...

Auntie Bobbie (Me) with Abigail

Yawning...isn't that the best!

Her close up

Auntie Apryl (my mom) with Abby

Addie holding two day old Abby

To see Addie holding her cousin for the first time CLICK HERE!

We had our first day of Mommy and Me preschool! It was a bit hectic, not gonna lie, but we had a good time! Brynn came with us and was a trooper. She had to skip her nap for the event and for the most part didn't put up too much of a fight. It didn't help that BOTH girls woke up with runny noses today too. UGH! I was really impressed at how Addie (and her best bud Ava) did in class. She was able to do all the activities and recognized the letter they were working on, which was A, because we've been going over A at home. Her teacher, Miss Martha, is super nice. It's a bit crowded, and there were a few big time "criers", but Addie didn't seem to notice. She was too involved in all that "school" has to offer.

She traced an apple, we cut it out, and then painted it red.

Here she is cutting.  She was doing really well at trying to cut between the lines.  She had never really spent time cutting before today and picked it up like a champ.  In fact, it was her favorite station!

Here we're working on the letter A.  We traced it, and colored pictures and then cut them out and glued them.  I was teaching her my little saying I tell my students when working with glue..."A dot is A LOT"...otherwise they'll squeeze the whole bottle!

Here she's working with stringing buttons onto a shoe lace.  She's a master at this, thanks to Nana, who has beads for her to work with at her house.

This is circle time.  Here they sing and listen to a Read Aloud story.  Again, she was great!  She kept her legs Criss Cross Applesauce and paid attention!  To her left is her good friend Ava.  We're so excited to be in class with her!

Here Addie is working on her fine motor skills by putting keys onto a key ring.  She was also counting all her keys, so it was a good center for her.

All in all, it was a great day. Now this mommy is just hoping that after all that hard work at school...Addie will actually take a NAP! Here's hoping!

Baking with Nana

My mom has always been a baker.  She's a mighty fine one at that!  Growing up she would let me help bake the pies with her and now she's letting Addie do it.  Here is Addie putting the milk wash on the top layer of the crust.

Then the tradition when I was a kid was that my mom always had extra pie crust.  So she would bake it with cinnamon and sugar and it was my treat when we were done baking.  I LOVED THIS!  Now Addie got to do this with my mom...

 After helping with the pie, it was time to roll out the extra dough

 Next you butter it....

 Then comes the left over juices from your apples, cinnamon, and sugar...

 Then she "sprinkled" (more like poured) cinnamon and sugar...

 Roll it....

 Poke it....

 Then Bake it!  Now there should be a cool picture of the finished product, but I had to go nurse Brynn, and my mom and Addie jumped into it before I was done.

 Here she is with her delicous treat!  It was sooooo good!!!

School For Addison

So now that I'm teaching Kindergarten, Justin and I talked about it and we thought it'd be a good idea to bring some of what I do in my classroom home for Addie to start working on. Since she's not in Preschool, we thought this would be a good way to start teaching her some basic skills. She's doing well! Here is what she did with me a few days ago....

Sorry for the side pic....

Not bad for my three year old. Mommy did help a little but I'm impressed!