Cindy returns!
Back to the El Capitan for the "digitally remastered" version of Cinderella :-)

Of course one of the reasons we haul our butts all the way to Hollywood for movies, there was a special event. This time it was a breakfast with Cindy. In preparation we rummaged through G's costume box to dig up her Cinderella dress and as luck would have it we came across a pair of brand new cindy shoes that used to be too big for her but now fit perfectly!!

And away we go....

I've seen the movie a few times but it must have been a long time ago because I didn't really remember most of it. Anyway, everyone knows the story so no reason to go into it. Suffice to say that G loved it!! Its really fun going to the movies with her. Seriously, half the fun is watching and listening to her watch the movie. She gasps and makes these huge faces of surprise when something unexpected happens. Adorable!!!

The table decoration was so cute! The glass slipper and my favorite part, Cindy's little mop.

Construction outside the building is ongoing so the Mickey statue is still in the hallway inside.

Chatting about girl stuff!

The official photo op

Not the greatest pic of me

Popcorn in hand and ready for the show!!

Theater night: without Mom :-(
My mom was in the hospital for 12 days. She's home now and doing pretty well but it was a little scary there for awhile. As the days wore on it became clear that, among other things of course, she was not going to be able to make our next scheduled show. Very depressing for both of us because we really look forward to this mother/daughter time together. I considered just skipping it but my mom encouraged me to not waste the tix and go. As it turned out, Bobby went with me and the show, Memphis, was very well done. The story was entertaining, the singing awesome and lots of funny parts. It was bittersweet fun though because without my mom it seemed very odd. The whole experience provided very uncomfortable insight into what life will be like someday when my mom is no longer around. Sigh.

We have another show coming up soon and she's already made it clear that she'll be going!!! Thank goodness for that!!

As an aside....how funny is it that Bobby and I hit the exact same pose for this photo? I guess that's what happens after you've been married 26 years :-)

Impromptu fun
In an effort to promote G's reading skills, we've been doing these flashcards: Fry's 1000 Instant Words. We work on 100 at a time and G earns a prize when she knows all in that group. Previous prizes have been a stuffed animal and a barbie. G is one of those kids who LOVES flashcards! I think I would have been that kid too actually. Anyway,  G and I had to run an errand in Orange County and G asked if we could do her "test" on her 4th set of 100 on the way. She wanted her prize!!! I said sure, G passed her test and as a prize I asked her if she'd like to go to a character meal at one of the disney hotels. Ummmm, that was a stupid question, of course she wanted to go!!!

I called from the car to make a reservation and 1 hr later, errand complete, we were doing a meet and greet with the mouse man himself. Super fun! This was the Surf's Up with Mickey at the Paradise Pier hotel. We actually did this one before and G had so much fun I figured we'd try it again. There's one more we haven't been to but I was hesitant to try an unknown for something that was supposed to be a reward. I wanted guaranteed fun! Turned out it was a great decision. G loved it! She danced and giggled and had an all together rip roaring good time. She ate a bit too :-)
We initially missed Minnie and had to wait forever for her to return
Dancing with Stitch give G great joy!

I accidentally called Pluto Goofy and he gave me as much of an offended look as he could while wearing a giant stuffed head :-)

They do this dancing thing every 20 mins or so where the kids can go up and play with the characters. G got really into it.

I guess a few years ago it used to be Surf's Up with Lilo and Stitch but then they changed it dropping Lilo and adding Mickey or something. I was super surprised to see that Lilo was there. G was excited because, as you know, she's a character hunter and we've never encountered Lilo. I asked the hostess on the way out when they brought Lilo back and she said that they didn't. She was there for the first time that day and they had no idea if she'd be back the following day or ever!! Good timing on our part I guess!

When we first walked in, Mickey had just gone on break so I got G something to eat. A few minutes later he'd returned and was standing up at the front area all by himself. I pointed him out to G and asked if she wanted to go see him. She told me no, she was busy eating right then and she'd go visit with him later. It cracked me up! She might be the first 4 yr old in history who turned down Mickey Mouse for watermelon and scrambled eggs. My girl does love her food :-)

With Stitch and her baby Stitch from the gift shop... another prize :-)

And finally, after she was done eating of course, with the Mouse himself!

I have no idea what the prize will be for the 5th set of 100 sight words but I think the bar has now been set rather high... oops. In our defense, this 5th set is pretty challenging so it will probably take a while to learn them all. Hmmm, we shall see ;-)

Magician's Assistant
Summer school finished up just a week or so ago. On the last day they had a magician come in and entertain the kids. As magicians go, I don't think he was very skilled but as an entertainer for the toddler set, WOW! G was laughing her little head off just about the whole time.

In the middle of the show he asked for volunteers and Georgie's hand flew up!! Usually G is so reserved and avoids being the center of attention in a group so this was pretty surprising to me. G sat anxiously and was thrilled when the magician pointed her out and said "you, purple girl". G looked down, realized that she was wearing PURPLE and up she shot. The trick was silly... something involving a red velvet bag. I don't know for sure. I was too busy focusing on my silly, laughing, smiling girl. I love watching her confidence grow :-)

Ringling Bros DRAGONS
We've taken G to the circus several times. Its always been enjoyable. The last time we went was really good. But this time was AWESOME!! We had the best seats we've ever had and they were CHEAP! I couldn't believe what a bargain it was. We got to do a one hour pre-show with the clowns and such and then the show was another two hours. Did I mention how great it was? By far the best circus I've ever seen. Yeah Ringling!

The pre show included a circus costume area for dressing up. There was this big bouncer thing too that G ended up not having time to check out. She was a bit bummed but I told her we could do it next time.

I'm pretty sure we saw this clown last time too!

I've mentioned before that G has become a lot more confident. I was happy to see that when they had a dance along time with the clowns she decided to join in.

This clown was really tall so part of his schtick was to measure the kids. G thought this was hysterical.

Free clown noses are so much fun. G has a little tiny nose so it took many attempts to get it to stay long enough to snap her pic. Then she was done :-)

More dancing with random clowns

Almost ready for the "greatest show on earth"!

BRAG ALERT!!!!
Warning: read no further unless you're interested in my completely shameless bragging about my daughter...

I'm thrilled to say that Georgie is now, in my opinion, a real reader!! Yes, at just a few days over 4-1/2 yrs old she is now comfortably reading beginning chapter books!! Don't get the wrong impression, Georgiana, while bright, is not a super baby genius or anything. Her reading ability has not been accomplished without a lot of consistent effort on both our parts. Nevertheless, she is a READER!
By the time G was 3 to 3-1/2 she knew all her letters (capital and lowercase) and sounds. She was starting to understand the concept that linking sounds together made words and that when you put words together they make sentences and tell a story. She also had a good attention span. It was obvious that she was ready to move forward so, about a year ago, I started looking for some decent materials to teach her to read. What I found was that most of the beginner reading books (BOB, etc) were imo too difficult and moved too quickly. After spending a long time online reading amazon reviews, scouring a couple of homeschooling forums and giving it lots of thought, I finally chose The Reading Lesson: Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Easy Lessons.

About November of last year we opened The Reading Lesson book and began. When we started we spent about 5 mins a day working on her reading book. She liked it and would often bring it to me in the morning so we could do a little extra. As her endurance increased we moved up to spending about 10-15 mins a day working through the lessons. The 20 lessons are not intended to be completed in 20 days :-) Instead each lesson presents one or more phonics concepts. Sometimes it would take 7-10 days to finish a lesson, sometimes we'd move through it in 5 or 6. It just depended on how busy we were and how quickly G absorbed the phonics lessons presented. We had some setbacks most notably when we went on vacation in Feb. We were gone almost 3 weeks and although we brought the book with us, we only did it a couple of times. It did cause some backslide but we didn't stress about it, we'd just move forward.

Georgie finished the lesson book in about May or so which was pretty much in line with the 6 mos I anticipated would be required. After that we moved on to Step Readers. Step 1's were already too easy but we spent a month or so on Step 2's and quickly moved to Step 3's. About a month ago G realized that she could read. This was kind of a big moment for her and I think she had a decent understanding of the magnitude of the milestone. She began reading everything, everywhere and she liked it A LOT!

Next step was to move on to chapter books. This presented another challenge. Most of the beginning chapter books (they're apparantly called "transitional" books in the education world) are directed toward the 5-6 yr old crowd. G's mature enough for 4-1/2 but she's not a kindy or 1st grader and doesn't have the same experience. I needed to find something at the right level of difficulty that would appeal to her interests. Again, I scoured the internet forums, read amazon reviews and then, as I commonly do, posted a question on Rumor Queen to ask people's opinions. There's a wealth of knowledge there (lots of teachers and homeschooling parents) and most of them directed me to the Rainbow Magic fairy books.

This book series couldn't be more perfect for Georgie. The vocabulary is decent and the stories are light hearted ones about happy little girls who encounter fairies and other fanciful creatures. Almost everyone in the stories are good and nice. There are some bad guys ie goblins but they're not scary just silly. G was excited about reading them!

The first chapter took us about 3 mornings to work through (about 30 mins total). There was so much new about them: the font was smaller than she was used to, many more contractions, longer sentences, and even the concept of having to turn the page to complete a sentence. G acclimated quickly though and by the third or fourth chapter she could read one a day (about 10-12 mins). Best of all is that she enjoyed the story!

Monday, July 23, 2012 --G finished her first chapter book, Katie the Kitten Fairy,  and boy was she proud of herself! I'm proud of her too :-)

Cow Appreciation Day
Its become an annual event! G loves characters and that silly cow is absolutely no exception. We were able to recycle the cow print dress from the last two years. It just keeps getting shorter and shorter. Maybe next year it will just be a top :-)

Dance Photos
The official ones! So cute :-)

Downtown Riverside photo shoot
Another one of my Groupons led me to a new photographer. These things are kind of crapshoot. They're very inexpensive but you don't really know what you're going to get! We arranged to meet the photog near the Mission Inn in downtown Riverside for 45 mins or so. The girl was young and very sweet. G, as always, LOVED having her picture taken. A few weeks later I received the CD in the mail.

Cute huh?
 
Near the end of the shoot the photograper suggested/insisted that we take a couple of pix together. I wasn't prepared to have my picture taken and was looking a little grubby. Oddly enough, I like this one of the three of us :-)