Noah, the incredible changing boy

Noah is turning into a big boy from a baby before my eyes. Or I'm just the late one on the planet to admit he's not my little baby anymore. He's doing and saying new things everyday. Like helping make the quesadillas, and saying the word "quesadilla."

If I'm making anything in the kitchen, from breakfast to dinner to anything inbetween, he pushes his little red chair over and says "help you" over and over until I give him something to do.

Here he is on his little red chair testing the quality of my cheese shredding. And check out the sprinkling action in the second picture, oh so fast for the camera to catch!

Conversations with Olivia

Today we were watching Fantasia and were discussing how Mickey was being lazy which began this conversation...

Olivia: Mommy, who is the laziest person in our family?

Me: You.

Olivia: No, mommy, I said the laziest person, not the craziest person.

Bwahahaha! At least she knows where she stands!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the daddies out there!

Travis was a bit lacking on the gifts this year, so I tried to make up for it with dessert. I made him homemade brownies, homemade hot fudge sauce, served with Breyers chocolate ice cream. The chocolate trifecta. Here's to you, Travis!

Closing Night

Olivia did GREAT during her two dance performances. She concentrated and watched her teacher's cues and did her movements as carefully as possible. All in front of a theatre full of people. I really couldn't expect much more from her!

Her friend even came to watch and brought her flowers. She was so excited to get them! And the dance company gave all the dancers medals with ballerinas on them. A VERY proud day for her, and made all the ado for mommy worth it.



And we found a great extra benefit to wearing a bun is that if you sleep in it and take it out the next day you will have curly hair. It worked out perfect to wear to church on sunday.

Shake what your mama gave ya

Tonight was the big dress rehersal for Olivia's two dance performances which follow the next two days. The cutest pictures I got of her was hanging from the metal railing at daddy's work when we went to drop off Noah.





I did document one dance move, Olivia told me this was an arabesque, and Wikipedia told me how to spell it.



If you're wondering yet why this blog wasn't titled "Shake what your mama didn't give you," then check out this next picture and guess which one of her parents sticks out her tongue when she concentrates.



But hey, I did do that spectacular bun all by myself!

What's that on your lip?

This is how I found Olivia watching TV today. Silly girl.



If you are wondering what is on her lip, Noah is modeling.



Trader Joes was out of frozen strawberries to make smoothies, so I bough a bag of the berry medley which contained strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries. If it does this to faces, imagine the carpet.

Graduation

Olivia received a certificate and a medal for completing preschool. Pretty fancy stuff. I'm pretty sad this phase is over though. I wonder if I'll be saying the same thing at her high school and college graduations?



Her with her sweet teachers. I hope she's as blessed with such great teachers the rest of her life.

Astro Dino

The latest product of Olivia's imagination. I asked what dino was doing. She said he's an astronaut. Pretty cool use of the plastic coffee caraffe from her play kitchen, huh? Then I wondered what the purple stick from her drum set was doing stuffed into the helmet. She said that was so he could get air. I was pretty impressed. I wonder where she learns this stuff?

I'm still a little unclear on the Barbie clothing though.

Craft de jour

We made catepillars out of an old egg carton today. I know, not earth-shattering, but I'm not usually motivated enough to do stuff like this, so when I do, I like to brag about it.

New Kindergarten News

When originally deciding on Olivia's school I had planned on her going half day, I thought she'd be able to handle the transition better that way. Turns out the district received enough funding to go to full days, but with an option of half day if you want. Sounds perfect, I can have her go either, only half day if that is better for her, or full day if she can handle it and I get some extra hours more than I had counted on.

The only downside was that I was planning on having to take her at 10:30am with the half day schedule, now I have to take her at 8:30am no matter what with the new schedule. This really should not be a problem since it's only a few miles away, but when you figure in getting ready and breakfast and planning enough time to not be late, we will be getting up considerably earlier than we are used to. But it probably will be good for us.

So my little baby girl could be in school for 30 hours a week next year. Quite the change than the 9 hours she is used to now. But she'll be nearly 6 years old and I think she'll be able to handle it, in fact, I think she will love it. I think Noah will miss her a lot though! Especially since I doubt he'll be napping much when she is in school like he does this year. And I've still yet to figure out what I'm going to do with him while I'm in her classroom once a week. It's kinda hard to plan when her school is never sure exactly what is the schedule!

I found all this out at the orientation last night, I just love this school. They talked about things to do over the summer to get them reading to learn to read and write next year and it was things like play with clay and do the monkey bars to strengthen their forearms. Very laid back! If only they were more laid back on when they start in the morning.

The end of an era

This week is the last week of Olivia's preschool. For the past two years she's gone to the most wonderful preschool I could imagine and I think I'm going to miss it more than her. Today I received her progress report for the end of the year. Here is the note her teacher attached to it.

What a wonderful student is Olivia! She has been a pleasure to have in class this year! Olivia is eager to learn, a caring and sensitive friend to all, helpful in everything and an incredibly happy child! She has grown in confidence and become more self-assured each day. Olivia is quiet and careful in her work, sensitive and kind in her relationships and always obedient and eager to please. I love how her sense of humor has developed this year and I think she is really going to enjoy school! I will miss Olivia! God bless her in all she does!

If I can barely hold back the tears reading that, what am I going to be like on her first day of kindergarten?

(Although I have to wonder what happens to her on the way home from school that makes her moody, insensitive, and sassy! Ok, she's still a great kid at home, but why does she sound so REALLY great at school?)