States, Presidents, and a Texas Hoe Down

Mom and Dad are always impressed with my creativity, but I did something the other day that stood out even for them.

I've been spending a lot of time lately looking at maps and learning all of the states, countries, and capitals. So, Mom bought me a set of U.S. state cards.  Each card has a different state on it with information about that state like when it became a state, the state motto, the state flower, etc.

The other day Mom was working on something and I asked if I could use her computer to look up the geographic size of the states. After she said okay, I went into her office, went onto Wikipedia and found a list of state by size. I then sat down in the office and carefully laid out all of my state cards.  Next, I put them in order of their state size. Mom and Dad were pretty impressed with my creativity, resourcefulness and follow through.

This morning I surprised them again. We were reading a book about the Native American named Sitting Bull, which mentioned that his tribe lived in South Dakota before it was even a state. Dad asked me if I knew when South Dakota became a state, expecting me to maybe say the year. I surprised him and Mom by saying not only the year, but the exact day! Then Mom started asking me other random states' statehood date years and I knew them all.

Besides states, I'm also really into U.S. presidents right now. I have a book that lists all of the presidents, and

I like reading about what number president they were, when they served, and interesting facts about them. Dad and I also like to talk about which presidents were really good (George Washington and FDR) and which ones were really bad (James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Ulysses S. Grant).  Our favorite president to talk about is the one with the funniest name -- James K. Polk. Mom likes to ask me which president has the funniest hat -- Abraham Lincoln.

The other night I called Grandma just to tell her a bunch of facts about all of the presidents. I could tell how interested she was because she kept asking me questions about them that I could look up in my book.

We had a busy weekend while Dad and Hazel were out of town. After dropping them off early Saturday morning at the airport, we headed across town to one of Mom's favorite Austin haunts, Mozart's. We had huge, delicious breakfast delicacies, which we ate outside while watching the ducks and fish. Another family gave us some bread to feed them. We loved it!

While we were at Mozart's, something big happened -- I lost another tooth.  I forgot to put my tooth under my pillow, but somehow the tooth fairy knew to come anyway. She left me a note telling me that she didn't like having to look all around my room to find my tooth. She wasn't that mad though - she still left me a dollar!

After that, we headed to the shoe store to get new shoes, and the rest of the weekend was taken up by swimming lessons, Sunday school and yucky weather. 

Yesterday, we celebrated Texas with a Kindergarten Hoe Down at school. Mom, Hazel and Turner showed up to watch me and all the other kindergarteners dance to fun western tunes while dressed like cowboys. It was great -- we even galloped in on horses. Turner especially liked it when they played one of the songs he often hears at school, and at the end my teacher danced with him and Hazel, who is very excited that she is now signed up to start kindergarten in the fall. We all had a blast!