Little Piano Man

Alex's rendition of "I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home."

He plays this several times a day. It's usually a little longer, but he was too excited about the camera to continue the performance.

A Big Zero

When Esther was a little older than four I started teaching her how to write her letters and sound out basic words. She's progressed nicely. William won't be four until tomorrow, and is much more interested in climbing, jumping, running, and imagining than "learning", so I haven't really tried to formally teach him anything. A year ago he showed me that he knows all his letters and what sounds they make. A few months ago he figured out how to sound out basic words (with a little help from a computer game). He's still not shown any interest in learning to write, but yesterday after Esther finished her spelling, Will wanted to play with the white board. He wrote a Z and said to himself, "Z...Z...ZERO!" And a minute later, without any help on my part, he came up with this:

I am amazed at how much his brain has absorbed without ever being "taught."

Merry Christmas!

There is a beautiful Christmas song that we, in the Grange household, have no idea how to sing. We know the general tune, and we grew up singing the first two lines as, "Oh Christmas Tree, oh Christmas Tree, How lovely are thy branches." But that's as far as we can go. Esther came to me today with her own version of the rest of the song, and it actually sounds pretty good. After looking up the "real" lyrics (yes, I know it's not in English, but I can't read German), we found out that her made up version isn't so far off. So her is Esther's debut of her semi-original song.