Community Garden Update

I started a new blog for our Community Garden experience. It is called Pip and Squeak's Garden Adventure. I decided to start a new blog because I wanted to journal details about our garden and knew that not everyone who reads my blog would want to read about the garden. I will periodically post pictures and updates here but if you are interested in the garden, make sure you start following the new blog.

Our garden, ready to be planted.

Planting

Planting Katherine's spot

Watering

School

The last day of school. Mommy was sad because I have a whole 3 weeks without school before it starts up for the summer. I know, I am spoiled. Most of my friends' schools don't meet in the summer and ours does. Katherine has no concept of time and has not realized that she has gone a whole week without school. Last year I totally forgot to take a picture for her first day of school. This year I remembered.


But then I forgot about the last day of school so I had to re-enact it later. It is amazing how much Katherine has physically changed over the last 9 months.

She has grown in many other ways as well. She has learned so much. We were at a new school this year and it was technically called "Mother's Day Out" not preschool so I was not sure what to expect. She learned a ton. Every week they focused on a different letter. She knows all of her letters and most of their sounds. She can now count up to twenty - eleven. She does not formally understand math but she has developed a great number sense and knows number terms of hundreds, thousands and millions. She has a great one to one correspondence when counting and can count on her fingers. She can recognize,without counting, groups of up to five objects. Katherine knows the days of the week, the months of the year, the seasons and the pledge of allegiance. She has improved her fine motor skill, learning to cut, glue and color in the lines. She has also started to draw pictures that are something other than just scribbles. She has great manners and is able to sit in a classroom setting.

She has also learned some negative things. Any time your kids are away from you, you lose a little control over what they are learning. She now says things like "that's not fair" and she sings "nanny nanny boo boo, you can't catch me". I asked her where she learned these things and she named a child in her class. I know that all kids learn things but sometimes it sounds so mean.

After February, she was the only girl in her class. The other two girls had to leave to go to full time day care. Katherine said she did not care as Cole and Landon were her best friends. But, boys are different. I am sure you did not need me to tell you that. Whereas Katherine loves to play princess, dolls and kitchen, the boys like to play super hero, bad men, monsters and war. Katherine actually told Nana, "Boys don't like to play princess, they like to play . . . dead." Yes, my sweet daughter can do a wonderful imitation of someone who is dying from a mortal wound.
Boys also have a lot of potty talk. We have had to teach Katherine that potty talk is only appropriate when you are actually going to the potty. One of the teachers even told me that she is constantly on the boys for their potty talk. The biggest shocker of what she learned at school from a classmate was that girls sometimes marry girls - what! I was not planning to teach the concept of marriage that our family and the Bible believe rather than what the world allows at such a young age. We had a very interesting conversation in the car where she argued with me that girls sometimes marry girls. When I asked where she got that idea, again she named a classmate.
Next year we have decided to move Katherine to a new school. It has been the hardest decision. We have loved her school and have no complaints about it. In fact, she will be there this summer and Caroline will attend there in the fall. But, we really want her to be with girls and there are no girls registered for her class in the fall. I think at age 3 the differences in girls and boys and their interests really start to develop. She loves her school so I feared what she would think about switching schools but she is excited to be in a class that is half girls. I think it will be really good for her.
I can't wait to see what she learns and how she changes next year.

These photos at the pool were the last day of school celebration.

Family park day

Saturday we met Sam's family (minus the brother and SIL who live in Hawaii) at a park for a belated birthday celebration for Grammy and Grandad. It was a beautiful, though hot day. The kids played on the playground, rode bikes, played ladder ball and soccer. We ate lunch and had lots of good talking. Shannon, Carissa and I even took the babies on a walk along the trails. It was a fun day.

Grammy and Grandad with 7 grand kids

Katherine enjoying the picnic chairs

Caroline was a hand full, crawling on the ground and attempting to put everything in her mouth.

Hannah

Zachary

Grammy and Caroline

Katherine with her new flower clip in her hair.

Brothers

Zoo Day

Friday we met our friends, Jina, Kaila and Elise at the. Jina and Grant are in our community group so Katherine gets to play with Elise both at Sunday morning church and during community group. She calls Elise her best friend but they rarely see one another outside of church. Kaila is 2 years older so of course Katherine loves her too. This was a fun day.

At the zoo most pictures are of the kids looking at the animals, not the camera.

Mommy is so strong!

We went in the new butterfly exhibit. One landed on Jina.

Sweet Caroline was pretty content to hang out in her stroller.

At the zoo you have to spend some time in the water play area. There were a lot of field trips and a lot of big kids so that was not fun but our girls did great.

Wildflowers

I tried one last time to get pictures of Caroline in wildflowers finally she was not asleep. Unfortunately she had a blowout and was no longer wearing the cute outfit that matched the flowers. She is also tough to photograph, especially considering what a happy baby she it. She does not want to smile at all for the camera.

Caroline's week

Caroline has been having a hard time with naps lately. Part of it is my fault and the fact that we have been very busy. I think the other culprit may have been teeth. She has had 3 new ones in the past 24 hours, one on the bottom and two on the top. There are a few more that seem to be ready to erupt at any time. Poor girl.

Friday in desperation I let her fall asleep in my arms. Knowing she would wake up when I put her in her crib I gently laid down with her on our bed and then I got up. The problem was that now I was stuck in our room as she can crawl off the bed. My room benefited by getting cleaned up a bit.

I did not realize that Caroline was teething because she is such a happy baby. She may have not taken good naps over the weekend but she really was not fussy. Here she is all smiles in her high chair when Katherine is tickling her.

She is such a good eater but also a very messy eater. Lately she tries to grab the spoon which of course gets on her hands. Then she rubs her face and her head resulting in baby food all over and in her hair.

Too precious!

Here are the videos from Katherine's ballet. I kept having technical difficulties posting these. They were posting the wrong video.

These are actually the dress rehearsal because the file size on the camera I was using is much smaller than the one we used on the night of the performance. And well, she actually danced at the dress rehearsal whereas she pretty much just stood there for the performance.

In the recital #1 clip they are all doing the same thing until Katherine decided to break out into her own twirling moves. Then she does her "rock and roll" moves with a bit more gusto than the other girls.

In the recital #2 clip she does a great job of pointing her toes and tapping her feet. Then she decides to come see me but quickly changes her mind and goes back to her place. Then I thought she was going to do a somersault after her "out and in" move. I love how Camille on the left is dancing beautifully, Katherine is doing an upside down move and Sophia is sucking her thumb (she had just woken up from a nap). Then when they chase to the side they are all looking to find the "x" they are supposed to stand on.

This is the 3rd clip and she does beautiful twirls and beautiful curtsy



I thought that the whole thing was absolutely precious. I can't think of anything cuter than a bunch of 3 year olds doing ballet.

First ballet Recital

Tonight was the big night, Katherine's first ballet recital. Being a rec center ballet class it was more low key than how I remember recitals. For one thing, the classes were almost all preschool. You can imagine the talent on stage! They were all so cute.

Katherine's dance started with each girl flying on stage by themselves.

Katherine pretty much just stood there. She did a little pointing and a little clapping but not a whole lot else. She did however smile very pretty and she did not do anything silly or embarrassing.

The little girls in her class are just precious. Some of us got together today for a play date and it was so much fun. I think that taking ballet and doing the recital was great fun.

Afterwards they all got a trophy. My first thought that it was a piece of clutter for her room. I am sure it will be one of her many treasures.

After the show Daddy gave her some flowers. She posed like she was Miss America.

It was a fun night and I am sure we will do ballet again next year.