Extra...Extra...Samantha reads first word!!!

I am having a proud parent moment. Samantha and Sabrina were coloring with me tonight. Sabrina asked, "Mommy, does Sabrina start with an E?" I told her that Sabrina started with an "S". We spent the next five minutes thinking of all of the "S" words that we could come up with. Then Samantha picked up this book. She said, "Look, Mommy. It's a B....and an O....and another O. I couldn't believe it. She recognized all of the letters in the word BOO! Then she put it all together. B...O...O...is BOO!!! This was a brand new book that I just bought for them on Sunday. No one had ever read it to them. I had just given it to her. My three year old daughter just read her first word. I was jumping up and down with excitement. I'm sure she's seen the word in other books and knows from the context of the picture and the story, that the ghost would say Boo. But how cool is this?? So what's next??? Trust me, we are going to get ourselves some flash cards with letters and simple words. We have one set already, but we rarely ever use them. I'm sure we've lost most of them by now. We always point out letters and numbers and ask the girls what the letter or number is. They can almost always determine if it is a letter or a number. They know B...O...S....R....E.......4...8....1....7....3 (they sometimes confuse the 3 and the 8). Samantha loves the number 4. She points them out all of the time. I was playing video poker the other night and she blew me away. She looked at my hand and said, "Look Mommy. That's a 4 and that's a KING." I think everyone knows how much Samantha loves Batman right now. She started asking me where the Batman guy was. I had no idea what she meant. Then a few hands later, the JOKER came out. She started yelling. Look Mommy....it's the JOKER...you WIN. My Papa Don plays cards every single day without fail and my children are learning their letters and numbers by playing with him. They also have many toys that help with number and letter recognition. Jennifer and Neil bought them a Leap Frog for the fridge when they were a year old. They have used it for almost two years now. They'll play with it while I'm cooking dinner...or washing dishes. So, my kids are not litte Einsteins, but they are really shocking me on a daily basis with how much they know. They are learning through play. I have wondered as they have grown if I should have them in preschool, but I think they are doing just fine. They get to spend all day every day in their own home. If they are sick, they curl up on their couch or their bed. When they play, they play in their room or their yard. And most importantly, they spend the day with the two people I would most love to spend my days with....my grandparents. It's a gift for my children to know their great grandparents so well.