Neglect



I must say that I have been neglecting my blog.  It needs to stop! :) Lately, I have been so busy with working that I haven't really had anything exciting to post about.  Mom left us and went back to Florida, the snow arrived yesterday, and we have just been hanging out around the house this weekend with Gracie.  College football has been over now for a month almost, which is very difficult on Sam, he lives for football! Luckily for him, NASCAR will be starting up here shortly, so he can let those guys driving in circles occupy some of his time.  

Friday night we went to a read-a-thon with Gracie at her school.  The kids got to wear PJ's and listen to stories, while the parents got to listen about the importance of reading with and to your child.  They (they - it is funny I think, because whoever they may be are always saying something) said that by the time your child reaches school age, you should have read to them about 1700 hours.  WOW, let me say that I do not believe most kids get this amount of reading time.

I remember growing up, my parents always read to us.  When I was younger mom always read to me, but when I got a bit older (I even think I could read by this time) Dad use to read to me (maybe I was being lazy and it was easier for him to read and me to listen).  I would fall asleep and he would stop reading, which in turn would wake me up, and I would then proceed to tell him I had been awake the entire time, and I had NO IDEA why he was stopping (I was dead asleep 9 time out of 10)!

I love to read, and I think that it is so beneficial for people to develop their language/reading skills. I had read the entire Thoroughbred series of about 150 books, by fourth grade.  I think if you find something you really enjoy, reading is a great pastime.  It  relaxes the body, and allows your mind to wander into a creative realm, that modern technology doesn't.   With all the modern inventions, we become lazy and complacent with our ability to read and write without the help of spelling and grammar check.  We can type a string of letters into google and it knows what we are talking about, even if it was nowhere near the actual word you meant.  I think we need to realize how important it is to develop good language skills (how many errors I have in this short blog post!?).  Anyways... I am going to get off that topic...

So, today, we decided to play a little in the snow, and luckily I had my camera in tow and snapped a couple that are decent!! Gracie is so darn cute, she makes it easy!