Davis

Well, it took me over a week to finally posting a Davis update to accompany the ones I did for his brothers so that is reflective of the busy pace we have been keeping around here. Something to do just about everyday which isn't the usual pace I prefer. The biggest addition to the schedule is those daily swim lessons, but both the big boys love to go and are doing amazing so it is worth it.

Davis has been doing preschool work at home. This has been an unexpected joy for me to watch him learn new things and watch his mind grow and develop. I don't know yet what school holds for us next year, but I know that if this changes, I will really miss getting to be a big part of his learning process. After meeting with Anne Stirber (family/ex-teacher) early in the fall, I decided that the focus of what we would work on at home would be the phonemic awareness stuff. It was so cool to watch Davis grow from not know/separating sounds to really understanding and enjoying learning that. One of his favorite games, whether "in school" or not is to take turns separating words by their sounds and having the other person guess the word. Well, I couldn't exactly see progress in him making the visual connection to the sounds. All of a sudden, last week when we were working with sounds and letters on his magnet board, it just started to click for him. He start making those connections between hearing sounds and seeing them in the letters on the board and just started reading the short words and even building words himself by sounding them out. It was really, really cool to me!! Isn't God just an amazing Creator - I see Him all the time as I watch Davis' mind grow and develop.

Let's see . . . anything else new for Davis? He almost always has a pocket full of collected rocks . . . nope, not new :) My Gram did just tell me yesterday that my mom always had a pockets full of rocks she had picked up . . . . hmmmm, genetic? He has learned to ride his bike without training wheels - this happened about a month ago - can't remember if I had mentioned it before but I am an awesome mom and haven't taken a picture yet. By "learned" to ride his bike, I really mean he just got on and did it - truly amazing - that athleticism/balance/skill is NOT from his mother. He has also done really, really well at swim lessons. He has always had strong skills from early ISR lessons, but this year he really learned freestyle well and I can tell he is going to have a great time in the water this summer. Beach/pool here we come!!!!

I also continue to see God's grace in teaching Davis His Word. Davis really likes to read his Bible and has asks regularly to read, reread the story of the Passover through the Resurrection in our Jesus, Bible Story Book. We talked and read a lot about it at Easter time and he learned a lot about it in BSF. When we read at home, he like to tell me thing he remembers about the story from BSF that aren't in the Story Book Bible we read at home. He also asks great questions like, "When Jesus died on the cross, could His heart still pray to God? How was God in heaven and dying on the cross at the same time?". Sometimes he asks things that I can't fully wrap my mind around either. I'm thankful he has a desire to read and learn. I pray that God would be merciful in allowing that to grow into a saving faith in Davis.