mantha's reading progress

Samantha has impressed me with her tenacious attitude towards her reading lessons.  I was prepared to only do them on the days she brought it up and was determined not to push her.  

Actually, she's been the one pushing me.  Almost every day she'll remind me: Mommy, don't forget to do reading lesson with me!  Because of this, we've been going at a little bit faster pace than I had planned on. 

Last week, Samantha made it to her second reading milestone and got a prize.  (Her first one was several weeks ago and I forgot to post about it - oops!  She got a puzzle, if anyone is keeping track...)

Because my room is usually the quietest place in our home at any given time, that's the spot where reading lessons take place.  She was excited about getting her prize...

...even though she didn't know what it was.  As soon as reading lesson was over, I bundled the girls up and we went to go get her prize.  They talked about what it could be all the way out to the bus stop (which actually isn't very far).  Emma looks like a little eskimo and is bundled so tightly, I'm not sure how much she actually contributed to the conversation, but anyway...it was cold, so who can blame her?
We were waiting for bus 79 to come and take us down the street.  Waiting in the cold turns five minutes into an eternity!  First bus was the BRT2...not us.
To their disappointment, they learned that we were not taking the double-decker 117 to our destination:
Finally, our bus 79 came and as usual, the girls bounded to the top row:
Once we were all seated, I asked Samantha what she thought her prize was.  She thought about it for a moment:
and declared that she thought she was getting a kitty.  My kids were seriously born into the wrong family.  We will not ever own another pet.  And that's the truth. 

We were headed to RT-Mart, the little grocery store complex down the street from me.  It's not nearly as big as a USA Walmart, but I'm always amazed at how much I can get there - and the fact that its so close to me makes me want to buy stock in it or something.  Some weeks I go there every day.  Not intentionally, of course.   

And having a McDonald's close by never hurt anyone.
Anyway, there's a little accessory store there that sells cute little girly things that my cute little girly-girls really like.  My plan was to give Samantha 20 local dollars and let her buy some new headbands.  Yep - they still love headbands, but unfortunately they get left on the floor waaaay too often and end up meeting an untimely demise.  
I thought - and I guess I should do a better job of price checking? - a headband would cost about 8-10 local dollars...about $1.50 a headband.  I thought she could get two or three for her 20 local dollar prize money.  Uh, yeah.  They were like, 3 local dollars.  Samantha got a whopping good deal and carefully selected six headbands.  
The nice lady at the counter even wrapped it all up for her.  Three days later, our headband count is at 3.   Two were stepped on (told you...) and one is MIA.  Good thing she got six. 
This reading gig really seems to pay off.  I think I'm ready to start doing reading lessons for me.  I can think of lots of little prizes I'd like!