Atley - 10/16/2020

Atley ate brown rice and two servings of raisins for breakfast.  For lunch she ate half of her meatloaf, bites of whole wheat dinner roll, ate riced cauliflower, and ate her mangoes.   

First picture:  I want to make a few comments about all the "free drawing" the three big girls have been doing.  I want to remind ALL of us (including myself) of a few of the benefits the girls are getting from doing this.  One thing that kind of amazes me is the fact that the more I offer it, the more they do!  I think yesterday Atley took home over 20 sheets of paper.  Sometimes we may think in terms of "wasted paper" (please recycle), but the process is what is important and they are learning SO much from this.  I believe it expands their minds and strengthens their cognitive development.  The creativity is pretty obvious, but there is also "problem solving" for example.  "How do I draw this to make it look the way I want to?"  They are learning a lot about spatial awareness in terms of "what goes where."  There is self expression in a non-verbal way.  In the picture below I asked Atley questions about her picture and then put the answers as she gave them to me beside the picture.  

Next picture:  Atley waving and she's obviously on the left.  Haha.  I love this picture of the kids waving bye to Momma Emily this morning.  Why? Because I love how Avilene is "pointing" at Miles so Emily will notice him; just in case you miss him!!  The kids do that frequently when parents arrive whether we're inside or outside.  They point at the child and say, "There he/she is!!"  (Just in case you're confused and try to take the wrong child!)

This last picture was amusing to me.  This is before breakfast and Atley wasn't real thrilled that Nora wanted the rowdy loud music first.  Atley said, "Nora can we NOT do something loud because it's morning!?!"  Haha.  (Lauralea is not a morning person either Atley.)  But as you can see from the picture Atley was a sweetie and joined her friend in some dancing without further complaints.  Thank you Atley.