Written September 4, 2013
The words I've been waiting to hear: "Mom, can I read another chapter?"
It's like music to my ears!!!! It's also another reminder for me that each child is different and develops in their own time. I have been so concerned about Aubrey's reading. She wasn't enjoying reading (which made no sense to me because I couldn't get enough books as a child) and it just didn't seem to be clicking in her head. To make matters worse, I did the one thing no mom is ever supposed to do...compare your child to another child! I have two friends whose daughters are the same age as Aubrey (within 6 weeks) and they were both reading chapter books in the first grade!!!! What? Aubrey wasn't doing this, so naturally, I must be teaching her wrong!!! Here comes my research for struggling readers (not that I would now, looking back, classify her as a struggling reader).
My plan of action was to go back to the easier books. I let her become proficient at reading those and then gradually introduce harder books to her. As I introduced harder books to her, I let her become proficient at those books before moving along. I also printed a little bingo reading program for her to follow to motivate her. It's discouraging to try and get a child to read when they just don't enjoy it. The bingo program worked better than I thought it would and before I knew it, she was asking me to read more so that she could get another bingo square.
Another thing with Aubrey is that if something is hard, she tends to just want to give up. By taking her back to the easier books, it gave her the confidence that she needed that she could read!
It's been about 3 months and I decided to give a chapter book a try. I have noticed that she's finishing the level 3 and 4 reader books more quickly each time. She's retaining the information that she's reading and she's really starting to actually enjoy reading. It's no longer a hassle to get her to sit still for 15-20 minutes to read.
Looking back, I think that Aubrey just wasn't at the development level in her reading that I thought she should be, but she was right where she should have been according to God's plan! I just have to keep reminding myself that every child is different and I have to adjust my expectations of them at times!
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Breakfast Discussions in the Britt Household
Written July 2013
Our breakfast discussions do not always include religion and politics together, but today it did!
It's amazing to me how discussions come up with children and then where they lead to! This morning started out as any other typical summer morning. As the girls were eating breakfast, I started preparing them about our school starting next week and all of us getting back into our school routine.
This talk prompted Anna to ask me "Is school going to start after this night-night time?" This is her way of asking, "tomorrow?" Aubrey quickly piped in and said that we had to go to Power Surge first at the church on Friday night. The girls have been attending "Power-up" clubs this week with a local church. This is their version of VBS. I like the idea of having a lot of small local house group meetings for children during the summer instead of one huge time-consuming VBS. But I agree with it to the extent that the purpose is to disciple and teach the word or God. Not to play fun games the whole time and then insert a small bible story that doesn't include the true gospel. Now, the girls are all hyped up about the finale night, which is more like a huge fair of jumpies, slides, fair-type games and food. I'm all for a good time, but let's call it what it is...a fair that is being held at a church.
The discussion went to me explaining to Aubrey my thoughts and feelings on this. When we go to church, it is with the desire to want to be with the body of Christ, to worship Him, to learn God's Word and be discipled. I'm quite sure that when the first churches were formed in the New Testament, it was not with the intent to provide fun and games for children.
It's important to us that our girls understand the true purpose of Church. It's all about JESUS! It's not about providing fun, games and entertainment for children.
So...that lead into a discussion of me asking Aubrey what she's learned this week at the Power-up clubs and specifically, had sin even been mentioned. She said that it had, but couldn't remember what was specifically said about sin.
Somehow the discussion shifted to her making a comment about believing in Jesus and going to heaven. I can't even remember specifically how she said it.
As her mom, it is my huge responsibility to teach her God's truth. It's my daily prayer that I teach my girls God's way in a truthful manner. I've learned in the last few years how it is so easy to apply your own applications to God's word and many times that is taking God's word completely out of context...which is then teaching them falsely.
So we open up the bible to Matthew 8:28 and the discussion moves to how even the demons believed in Jesus and His powers, but that doesn't mean that were saved and going to heaven. In fact, the demons were so aware of who Jesus was that they immediately called Him, Son of God! They were also aware of His powers to "torment them before their time." In other words, to torment them before He sent them to hell.
I also read to Aubrey, how the townspeople asked Jesus to leave their region. They believed who He was. They were fully aware of the demons in the two men before and they now saw that Jesus had the power to cast out those demons. They also saw that the souls of those two men cost them their herd of pigs; their livelihood. They put more value into their herd that they had just lost, than the souls of those two men and the sacrifice of following Jesus. They were content with their lives and didn't want Jesus to disrupt it.
As is most of the time typical with Aubrey (maybe it's with every 7 year old), Aubrey then says that she knows the cycle of money. The talk of the townspeople losing their livelihood or way of making money triggered this thought in her. Her thoughts of the cycle was Mr. Ashley pays Daddy → Daddy gives me the money → I take the money and buy groceries →the grocery store then takes the money and gives it to the military to feed the men and women who protect us. I love the fact that she's thinking it through, so I let the discussion keep progressing in this direction.
However, I explain the cycle of money this way: Daddy buys and sales houses for Mr. Ashley →the new homeowners pay Mr. Ashley for their new house → Mr. Ashley pays Daddy for the work he did in selling and building the house → daddy gives me the money to go buy groceries → the grocery store then uses the money to buy more meat for their store from a butcher → the butcher then goes and buys more pigs from a farmer → the farmer used the money to build a new house (with Mr. Ashley and Daddy, of course).
Aubrey's next logical question, "What about the military?" Oh boy. Let me explain taxes! You know that money that Daddy earned form selling and building that house, well, he doesn't really get all of it. By law, Mr. Ashley has to take some of the money that Daddy earned and give it to the government. The government then uses that money to pay for the military which protects out country. I explained how that's a good thing and our taxes should go towards the military, but they I took it a little further and told her how everyone pays taxes. This means that the government collects A LOT of money from the people of this country. It then takes the power of giving that money to whomever they please even when it's an organization or person that we may not want to get our money.
I may have gone off a little bit of a tangent at this point explaining to Aubrey how some people started realizing that they could just get money from the government to buy their cars, groceries and really anything they needed without having to work at all. This has made them lazy and now they are dependent on the government (and us) to continue providing everything for them while they don't really try that hard (if at all) to try and provide for themselves.
Aubrey's next logical question, "Can I turn on the TV now?" YES! But only for a couple more days and then we will be getting back into our school routine.
I feel like I just wrote a version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie!
Our breakfast discussions do not always include religion and politics together, but today it did!
It's amazing to me how discussions come up with children and then where they lead to! This morning started out as any other typical summer morning. As the girls were eating breakfast, I started preparing them about our school starting next week and all of us getting back into our school routine.
This talk prompted Anna to ask me "Is school going to start after this night-night time?" This is her way of asking, "tomorrow?" Aubrey quickly piped in and said that we had to go to Power Surge first at the church on Friday night. The girls have been attending "Power-up" clubs this week with a local church. This is their version of VBS. I like the idea of having a lot of small local house group meetings for children during the summer instead of one huge time-consuming VBS. But I agree with it to the extent that the purpose is to disciple and teach the word or God. Not to play fun games the whole time and then insert a small bible story that doesn't include the true gospel. Now, the girls are all hyped up about the finale night, which is more like a huge fair of jumpies, slides, fair-type games and food. I'm all for a good time, but let's call it what it is...a fair that is being held at a church.
The discussion went to me explaining to Aubrey my thoughts and feelings on this. When we go to church, it is with the desire to want to be with the body of Christ, to worship Him, to learn God's Word and be discipled. I'm quite sure that when the first churches were formed in the New Testament, it was not with the intent to provide fun and games for children.
It's important to us that our girls understand the true purpose of Church. It's all about JESUS! It's not about providing fun, games and entertainment for children.
So...that lead into a discussion of me asking Aubrey what she's learned this week at the Power-up clubs and specifically, had sin even been mentioned. She said that it had, but couldn't remember what was specifically said about sin.
Somehow the discussion shifted to her making a comment about believing in Jesus and going to heaven. I can't even remember specifically how she said it.
As her mom, it is my huge responsibility to teach her God's truth. It's my daily prayer that I teach my girls God's way in a truthful manner. I've learned in the last few years how it is so easy to apply your own applications to God's word and many times that is taking God's word completely out of context...which is then teaching them falsely.
So we open up the bible to Matthew 8:28 and the discussion moves to how even the demons believed in Jesus and His powers, but that doesn't mean that were saved and going to heaven. In fact, the demons were so aware of who Jesus was that they immediately called Him, Son of God! They were also aware of His powers to "torment them before their time." In other words, to torment them before He sent them to hell.
I also read to Aubrey, how the townspeople asked Jesus to leave their region. They believed who He was. They were fully aware of the demons in the two men before and they now saw that Jesus had the power to cast out those demons. They also saw that the souls of those two men cost them their herd of pigs; their livelihood. They put more value into their herd that they had just lost, than the souls of those two men and the sacrifice of following Jesus. They were content with their lives and didn't want Jesus to disrupt it.
As is most of the time typical with Aubrey (maybe it's with every 7 year old), Aubrey then says that she knows the cycle of money. The talk of the townspeople losing their livelihood or way of making money triggered this thought in her. Her thoughts of the cycle was Mr. Ashley pays Daddy → Daddy gives me the money → I take the money and buy groceries →the grocery store then takes the money and gives it to the military to feed the men and women who protect us. I love the fact that she's thinking it through, so I let the discussion keep progressing in this direction.
However, I explain the cycle of money this way: Daddy buys and sales houses for Mr. Ashley →the new homeowners pay Mr. Ashley for their new house → Mr. Ashley pays Daddy for the work he did in selling and building the house → daddy gives me the money to go buy groceries → the grocery store then uses the money to buy more meat for their store from a butcher → the butcher then goes and buys more pigs from a farmer → the farmer used the money to build a new house (with Mr. Ashley and Daddy, of course).
Aubrey's next logical question, "What about the military?" Oh boy. Let me explain taxes! You know that money that Daddy earned form selling and building that house, well, he doesn't really get all of it. By law, Mr. Ashley has to take some of the money that Daddy earned and give it to the government. The government then uses that money to pay for the military which protects out country. I explained how that's a good thing and our taxes should go towards the military, but they I took it a little further and told her how everyone pays taxes. This means that the government collects A LOT of money from the people of this country. It then takes the power of giving that money to whomever they please even when it's an organization or person that we may not want to get our money.
I may have gone off a little bit of a tangent at this point explaining to Aubrey how some people started realizing that they could just get money from the government to buy their cars, groceries and really anything they needed without having to work at all. This has made them lazy and now they are dependent on the government (and us) to continue providing everything for them while they don't really try that hard (if at all) to try and provide for themselves.
Aubrey's next logical question, "Can I turn on the TV now?" YES! But only for a couple more days and then we will be getting back into our school routine.
I feel like I just wrote a version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie!
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Happy 4th, 5th and 7th Birthday
Birthday season is fun each year, but it's also a lot of work! I recognize my limits, which Danny is glad to hear, so I don't plan on ever attempting to throw each of them an elaborate birthday party all the same year. While they are still young and share so many of the same friends,
it works out good to have one big party for all three!
Last year, we had Alexandra's party at the beach and it was a hit. Since we have most of the beach equipment and party supplies we need from last year, I thought It would be fun (and a little easier and less expensive to plan) to have their joint party this year at the beach.
It was, once again, a hit! The girls love being at the beach with all their friends and for the most part, the parents get to sit back and relax!
Monday, September 2, 2013
Happy Birthday, Aubrey!
I know I say it every year and I will probably say it at each new age, but I can't believe I have a 7 year old!!!! A balloon fairy started visiting Aubrey during the night on the eve of her birthday many years ago and she is still going strong! All of the girls love to wake up to see what shenanigans the fairy has done with balloons on their birthday.
The traditional birthday breakfast in our house started out as cupcakes! Who doesn't love cupcakes for breakfast??? However, since I once again attempted to make a birthday cake for the second month in a row, my baking limits have pretty much been reached. So, we went with birthday pancakes this year!
I asked Aubrey what kind of birthday cake she wanted this year and she said she wanted a Barbie cake like the one in the book at the Publix bakery. I didn't really want to pay $50 for the cake and since I was feeling a little confidence coming off of baking Anna's birthday cake in April, I decided I would just make her Barbie cake! Of course, I took to Pinterest. Can anything be done these days without consulting Pinterest first? I found several different versions and finally merged a couple of them to create my own. Aubrey loved it, so it was considered a success!
The traditional birthday breakfast in our house started out as cupcakes! Who doesn't love cupcakes for breakfast??? However, since I once again attempted to make a birthday cake for the second month in a row, my baking limits have pretty much been reached. So, we went with birthday pancakes this year!
Time for presents!
I asked Aubrey what kind of birthday cake she wanted this year and she said she wanted a Barbie cake like the one in the book at the Publix bakery. I didn't really want to pay $50 for the cake and since I was feeling a little confidence coming off of baking Anna's birthday cake in April, I decided I would just make her Barbie cake! Of course, I took to Pinterest. Can anything be done these days without consulting Pinterest first? I found several different versions and finally merged a couple of them to create my own. Aubrey loved it, so it was considered a success!
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Anna's Five Year Check-up!
She's a small five year-old, but as precious as she can be. Neither Danny nor I are tall, so we don't have great hopes for tall children (and I'm perfectly ok with that). This little Miss Priss is measuring at 40" tall and weighs 34 pounds. These numbers put her in the 10th percentile for height and weight! As the doctor said, we are just going to have a little petite princess! She also passed her vision and hearing test with no problems and is growing just fine! We are so thankful to God for our healthy, growing girls!
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Spring Break Fun at Blackbeard Island!
To end our week of Spring break fun, we spent the Weekend at Tom and YaYa's along with the whole Wailes family. We planned a Saturday boat ride over to Blackbeard Island. Blackbeard Island is only accessible by boat and is names Blackbeard after one of the most notorious pirates that captained the waters off the eastern seaboard in the late 1800s. We of course learned this later through a little research since we considered this a field trip for Aubrey's school year!
We packed some sandwiches, treats, and drinks and headed off around lunch time.
Just a few more cute pics that I took of my littlest babe!
What I didn't mention at the beginning of this post was that shortly after we got there, we realized the tide was going out. We didn't pull the boat all the way up and all got out of the boat and waded through the water to get on shore. However, the tide was going out quickly! Not great thinking on any of our parts! Before we knew it, the front part of the boat was coming out of the water. At that point, it was too late! The boat was obviously too heavy for us to push back (although some husbands...and a wife or two that will go unnamed tried to push it back into the water). We referred to our phones for a trusty tide report and discovered that the tide wouldn't come back in until early evening! We settled in for a longer than planned visit to Blackbeard Island! We rationed the drinks, chips and sandwiches. Thank goodness we packed more than enough to last us. Don't get me wrong. Every morsel had been eaten by the time we left the island, but it was plenty that we weren't starving and light snacked through the afternoon. Of course to document the fun adventure, we got a rare picture of everyone enjoying the boat...completely out of the boat! Who needs water for a good time?
We did manage to get the boat pushed back into the water around 7:00 or 7:30 that evening and then high-tailed it back to the house before it got too dark!
We will always have the family story of "remember that time when we went to Blackbeard Island and beached the boat!"
We packed some sandwiches, treats, and drinks and headed off around lunch time.
The captain and his first mate!
We made it!
The island was beautiful and mostly deserted except for one or two boats off the coast in the distance.
We found our own shipwrecked boat!
Needless to say, there was no treasure to be found!
We found a lot of awesome shells, coral and crabs.
We decided to take off on a little exploring adventure and we found all this beautiful drift wood.
By late afternoon, the dolphins were coming around and gave us a little show.
What I didn't mention at the beginning of this post was that shortly after we got there, we realized the tide was going out. We didn't pull the boat all the way up and all got out of the boat and waded through the water to get on shore. However, the tide was going out quickly! Not great thinking on any of our parts! Before we knew it, the front part of the boat was coming out of the water. At that point, it was too late! The boat was obviously too heavy for us to push back (although some husbands...and a wife or two that will go unnamed tried to push it back into the water). We referred to our phones for a trusty tide report and discovered that the tide wouldn't come back in until early evening! We settled in for a longer than planned visit to Blackbeard Island! We rationed the drinks, chips and sandwiches. Thank goodness we packed more than enough to last us. Don't get me wrong. Every morsel had been eaten by the time we left the island, but it was plenty that we weren't starving and light snacked through the afternoon. Of course to document the fun adventure, we got a rare picture of everyone enjoying the boat...completely out of the boat! Who needs water for a good time?
We will always have the family story of "remember that time when we went to Blackbeard Island and beached the boat!"
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Spring Break Fun at the Zoo!
Our trips to the zoo are normally on weekdays since it is much less crowded then and you can really get to spend some quality watching the animals. With this being said, it's not often that Dad get to go to the zoo with us. Danny took the day off on Friday (the last day of spring break with Lydia) and we decided to stop by the zoo to visit our favorite animals on the way to YaYa's house for the weekend.
We were excited that we got to see a lot of our family animals out and about!
This jaguar was obviously very tired!
She was was breathing, but the only movement to her was her chest rising and falling!
The girls decided they needed to be monkeys instead of just watching the monkeys!
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