vacation

Last week, we spent much of our week in Michigan and the rest of it in Toronto. We had such a great week visiting family and finalizing the process for our next adoption. On Friday, the CNE was set to start so we decided to end our week there and what a great end to the week that was! E had a great time at the Ex and we had a fantastic time as well. Toronto was fabulous as usual and capped off with the happy news of our new adoption process having a facilitator. It was a good week.

Today, E and I took pictures around the house for the new adoption process. Peru requires that photos be no older than 4 months upon submission of the dossier. Next week, I have the medical appointment and the week after I have my psych assessment. Both of these are also really time sensitive. The medical can be no older than 3 months so I scheduled these last deliberately.

This morning, E got her "back to school" haircut and the hair salon was giving out calculators on carabiner attachments so she can loop it to anything including herself as my little experimenter discovered. :) She also picked up a pencil case that features one of her favourite characters right now, Ariel.

Last week, she picked out her school shoes which feature another favourite character: Tinkerbell. My daughter is a slave to what is being marketed at her. I am trying hard not to mind. I picked up the rest of her school supplies at Target and also got some great stuff for her wall from the Dollar Tree. My dad talked me out of the table of elements, but he was on board with getting her maps of the northern and southern western continents as well as posters for long and short vowel sounds. E already has addition and multiplication posters in her playroom which have helped tremendously with her math skills so I am hopeful that her reading and sense of geography will also be enhanced with more visual cues.

Her reading is coming along really well and she can read to herself smoothly when they are words she already knows, but this is because most of her reading is owed to her memorization of words. E has mastered the dolsch list of words and has added several hundred other words. She can read to herself which totally blows me away. Last week, we were at a Borders outlet store and E took a book off the shelf, sat down and started reading it out loud to herself.

When we are out and she notices signs, she reads them out loud too. She is only 5! I am so proud of my little bookworm and absolutely love that she loves books. It won't be long before her and I have our own little reading club. :)

Next week, she starts school. She will be starting french immersion. For the last few weeks, we have been playing the cd's "Magic French for Kids" and "Fun French for Kids" to help her pick up some extra vocabulary. She is excited and I am so excited for her. She has already met her French teacher and is anxious to get back to class to see all her friends too.

So we have the rest of the week to chill a bit, get her some new clothes and catch up with friends. I can't believe the summer is coming to an end...sigh...