day 2

Z's first birthday today! I can't believe that a whole year has passed already, what a blessing he has been to all of us.
Today R did spelling and what a difference a year makes. Last year he felt like a failure at spelling, he had a super-hard time with it. This has never made much sense to me because he adores reading. Over the past year he has continually challenged himself with more and more difficult reading material. And I think that may have affected his spelling abilities. We did a pretest for his lesson and he only had 2 wrong out of 20. I can tell you that he felt terrific, like he could just maybe be a good speller if not a great one!
Both boys did their Writing Strands and science, we finished Daniel 7 and the littles had their first swimming lessons. J was completely in his element, and both kids loved their lessons and felt very competent.
After lunch we went for a nature walk. I use the term 'nature' very loosely, there is a man-made lake nearby surrounded by trees and home to many waterfowl, muskrat and birds. B needed to collect pond water for a biology experiment and the kids love to watch the animals and explore. Turned out that the city had sprayed herbicide?!? in the area the day before, so we didn't do leaf rubbings or sit on the grass and sketch like we would have liked to. (Am I the only one who thinks it is inane to spray herbicide by a wetland? Or really anywhere in the city?)
We ended our day with breakfast supper, carrot muffins for birthday cake and lots of Z cuddles. At both 9:09 am and 9:09 pm on 09/09/09 I was nursing and cuddling my newly 1 year old baby Z, what a perfect way to bookend his special day.