snakes

The belt on the air conditioning is loose or old. The car makes a very loud screeching sound whenever it is turned on if the AC is also on. It only lasts a few seconds. I always think it's cute because whenever it happens the kids think that there are snakes in the car.

Backwash

Yummy

sweet potatoes

As long as we can remember, Enoch has always eaten all the skin off his sweet potatoes. He's the only one who has ever done it. Yesterday, I asked him if he liked eating the skin. He emphatically said no. We all laughed. I told him he didn't have to eat it, that we never eat it and peel it off. He looked very surprised. I wonder where he got the idea he had to eat it the skin

reading in bed

We've played a nice trick on the kids. We've convinced them that reading to each other in bed before bedtime is the funnest thing ever. Sometimes they use flashlights, which really does seem fun. But usually it's just with the lights on and the door closed and they read books together before I turn the lights off. It doesn't happen every day, but when it does it's a treat. I can even bribe them with it.

Don't get me wrong, we do read to you kids at night and you've always had a nice bedtime routine. But it just amazes me that now I can send you to be extra early to read books, and you're all excited for it :-)

poopy smell

while enoch was pooping he said, "爸爸，如果你用鼻子呼吸你会闻到大便的味道"

Waffles

Sharon made waffles with Enoch and michael today. At dinner, when talking about the favorite parts of our day today, Enoch said it was making waffles. I think that melted Sharon's heart. Good thing because I think it's always frustrating doing that kind of thing with the boys.... But its all worth it when they say things like that!

Reading

Enoch is quite the reader. Grandma and other aunts and uncles were very impressed with his reading skills in Arizona. He doesn't just memorize words but he's sounds them out and reads them. He constantly reads words near perfectly that he has never seen before.

Here are some of the words that he bad today that shocked me -- thorax, belly, abdomen. It was really fun to hear him read the word abdomen. Of course it is a word that he doesn't know, but he actually pronounced it correctly on his 1st try.

He is one smart kid.

About 6 months ago or maybe longer, I used to sit down with Enoch a lot and help him read. We spent a lot of time reading elephants cannot dance. I made him sound out every word. I told him not to cheat whenever it became obvious that he was repeating correctly or incorrectly memorized words. He got extremely frustrated. After 20 or 30 minutes he always got really tired. I could tell that meant he was thinking hard and his brain was hard at work. I haven't done much with him for the past 6 months, but he seems to have really taken all the lessons I gave him and learned a lot all by himself.


On a somewhat related note, he has also kinda been a spaz with jumping Jacks. I have had a hard time teaching him to do them correctly. His arms and legs just never seem to move in sync. Today before bed he was very fidgety and I wanted him to get rid of his energy. I sent some more time trying to teach him how to do jumping Jacks. 15 minutes later I was very gratified to see him do 10 jumping jacks in a row correctly. Not bad!