Little Readers

I have already mentioned many times before my love of reading and the ever-elusive stack of books on my nightstand. Last week, I caught a few photos of my littles and their growing love of reading.

We picked up these phonics Curious George books when we were Boston a couple of years ago. I knew they would come in handy eventually!

She is doing a great job learning how to read these simple books, and they're perfect because they just focus on one vowel sound and one consonant sound in each book.

And then there's Cade...reading in his underwear...

he's quite the reader himself! He totally cracks me up when he "reads" his books. Sometimes he tells the parts he remembers, sometimes he looks at the pictures to tell a story, and sometimes he just makes the sounds.

All I can say is that I hope they continue to love reading throughout their lives as much as they do now!

From the Blogger

As you may have noticed if you've been reading this blog since the beginning, I really enjoy this outlet as a way to think through the new things that are in our lives. Of course, my main goal when I began was to find a way to communicate everything that was/is going on with our friends and family. Then I discovered how therapeutic it is to be able to write out my thoughts and feelings! And now I am truly addicted.

I don't know how many people read it on a regular basis, I don't have many official "followers", nor do I get many comments, but I continue to write for me. I don't really have time to track the stats, but in the last week I have had readers from the following countries: United States, South Korea, Malaysia, Argentina, Russia, United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Ukraine and the Philippines. That is crazy! Most of the time, the google search key words that lead to the blog are some combination of the words "Stanwood" and "Seoul". But today when I checked, one of the searches was for "how to get to kims club seoul". That reader probably won't be back because she didn't find what she was looking for, but I thought it was entertaining!

Hopefully you've noticed that one thing I'm working on is adding more pictures to the blog and improving the ones that are there. We bought a new camera right before we left, and I am slowly learning how to use it. I have spent a lot of time looking for information on the web about how to improve my photography skills, how to use Photoshop and Lightroom, and how to use my camera. In the process, I have discovered an entire world of blogging, photographing, cooking, and homeschooling moms around the world that I have a lot in common with. It is really very interesting. At this point, I don't have links to many of their blogs, but don't be surprised when they show up! I really don't have a lot of time to read them, but when I'm stressed with the kids, it's nice to be able to sit down and read that someone else is too!

I will mention that the only problem with the blog is that it is a one-way street. The only way I know whether or not anyone is looking at it is by tracking the stats or through the periodic emails we get from family. So, please, leave a comment or send an email so that we know you're still out there!

To my readers...

I am brand new to this whole blogging thing. It took me a couple of weeks to get the whole thing put together, and I keep learning new things and changing the layout and content a bit. While it didn’t take me long to get in a routine of writing (and I never struggle coming up with topics!), I’m not sure that I’ve developed my voice yet, either. I struggle with how formal or informal my writing should be. I go back and forth between using digits and writing out numbers, I drive myself crazy when I use words like “things” and “like”, and I use parentheses far more than any other normal person! But I really enjoy this outlet, and even though I’m a little embarrassed that I’m a “blogger” (especially when someone is reading my blog when I’m in the room…come on guys!), I’m glad that I have a way to express my thoughts, concerns, and triumphs to a group of readers that must be interested…or they wouldn’t be reading it, right?

It has been hard to get used to the lack of immediate feedback, though. I am not a long-time Facebook user, nor do I routinely post on FB, but when I do, I enjoy the immediate comments and “likes”. The interesting thing about this blog is that I do not get any feedback, so sometimes I feel like no one is reading what I’m writing (even though I know I have a few loyal readers!) and that allows me to be very candid and “put myself out there”. I did add the “reactions” feature, so that if you so choose, you can anonymously give me an idea that you’ve read a post and had a reaction to it. (They won’t let me choose more than four reaction types, though! Sorry!) I can also track the statistics on the site including how many views it gets each day, week, month, what keyword searches are used, and what countries my readers are in (the US of course, Argentina, Malaysia, South Korea, Germany and India in order of readership). I don’t know how you found it, or why you keep reading it, but I’m glad you do! Feel free to comment sometime and let me know what you’re thinking! It’s very liberating!