Soccer

Meggie had her first soccer "game" this weekend. It's basically a practice in jerseys followed by a scrimmage against another team. It was hilarious as the kids cried when the other team scored and were all very polite about sharing and not wanting to steal the ball from the other kids.

She actually did really well and seemed to generally get it. I was impressed. Sure there was a little crying but overall she was digging it.

Reading club

Andy is in reading club at the request of his teacher. Apparently there are two kinds of reading club here. One is an enrichment, "You're doing great, let's do more reading! Crime and Punishment anyone?" kind of club. The second is more, "Your reading could be better. Let's meet after school once a week."

I was surprised to get the call from his teacher as I didn't realize it was a problem -- it's not like there are grades that matter in first grade per se. But after talking with her, she explained that he just didn't really like reading so he wasn't progressing so she wanted to get him over the hump, so to speak. And it's true, he just didn't like to read so it was always pulling teeth to get him engaged.

After talking to lots of other parents with his age, I realized that it's a really common thing and that there seem to be kids on all levels of the spectrum. I also realized that him and me fighting over getting him to read wasn't great so I hired a tutor to work with him once a week.

I must say, that's been the biggest difference. Reading club has been off and off due to the health of his teacher, but meeting with the tutor, he's managed to go from hating to read to wanting to read quietly in his room at night. It's been the most amazing shift to go from hating it to loving it. It also helps that we found some books he likes. Someone recommended The Spiderwick Chronicles which are great. We've also been reading some of the Magic Tree House series (there are only about 163 of those so we've got a lot to read). It has just been totally cool to see the transformation from non-reader to loving to read.

Here are a couple of the Egan family holiday pictures. I thought I was getting the whole CD from mom, but I managed to only get two pictures. At least they're good ones.

Birthday girl

For Meg's 4th birthday, she requested a fancy dinner at...Subway. It was adorable. The boys working there were surprised to see a family walking in laden with presents but when I explained it, they were really sweet to her. I will enjoy this. Soon enough, she will be like her big sister who quickly figured out that lobster, shrimp and sushi taste good.

Her big present from us was a new bike. She's already making strides on it and has the bruises and scrapes on her hands to prove it. She desperately wants to keep up with big brother and it's not there yet.

She was lucky enough to also get a Barbie from Fafa, a cool hopscotch game from Jennifer, a stuffed Minnie Mouse and DVD from Mark, leotards from Grandmother, $5 from Tia (all the cash in the world when you're 4) and pom-poms from Bitsie. It was a great birthday.

We had her party at the gymnastics center yesterday. I think it went pretty well and was inexpensive all things considered.

Photo shoot

 As part of the Bennett Family Christmas Extravaganza 2011, we hired a photographer to come take photos of everyone. Sadly the day picked was just dark and gray and the pictures of our family subset were terrible. We called the guy to come back and he knocked it out of the park this time. Check these out! We missed the window for Christmas cards so we're doing Valentine's Day cards instead. Personally, I love getting cards at other times of year so I'm glad to return the favor (and finally get out our cards.)