Sunday, March 30, 2014

Saturday Fun

Friday was a really long day for us.

Ally and I left for school at 730. I picked her and Erik up at 3pm and took them to swimming lessons. They swam for over an hour. Then Erik came over to our house after swimming to play for an hour until it was time to go to a family event at their school. We met Erik’s mom at school at 6pm. We had dinner at the pot luck at school, socialized, and had fun until 745 when we finally came home. Ally was exhausted, but went to sleep really well at 830. Which is great, since the night before she didn’t fall asleep until 10pm!

Needless to say we had one very tired girl on Saturday. After some her usual 2 Saturday morning TV shows and art we had breakfast and headed out to our town’s winter farmer’s market. We’ve heard really good things about it. It was pretty fun, a nice morning for a walk, and we stopped at the park on the way home.

IMG_6742IMG_6744IMG_6747IMG_6750

If there are monkey bars at a park Ally is happy. This one also had a tire swing!

IMG_6753IMG_6755 

Becky set up a PB & J tasting plate for us using honey peanut butter. One piece was PB & blackberry jam, One was just the PB and the third piece was PB and Ally’s typical strawberry jam. Turns out the black berry jam was a hit – and after eating all of the tasting pieces Ally had a sandwich with PB and blackberry jam. I gloated a bit since that jam was my idea.

IMG_2480

After lunch we sorted books and did laundry. These were daunting tasks. We emptied Ally’s bookcase and re-organized it and took about 30 books out of circulation to make room for new ones. Afterwards, Ally was so tired she decided she did not want to go to the movies – we had offered to take her to the new Muppet movie that is in the theaters. But she cried and said no – she was too tired to go and enjoy it. I suggested a movie at home, and so she watched Frozen for the 11th time. It is hard to argue with a girl who knows her limits. She is just so exhausted from the past two days she can’t really do much of anything. About 3 minutes after the movie was over and the tv turned off she was in tears again “because I don’t know what to do” after a couple attempts at coloring and a game I finally suggested a walk in the rain. She readily agreed and she and Becky are outside now.

I hope bedtime goes well. Its only 415 now and we need to make it until 7pm. For the record we did suggest a nap, but Ally does not like naps, and frankly they do make it harder for her to go to sleep. I have a feeling there will be more TV in our evening than we would like. Oh well.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Last Night of Daisy Girl Scouts

Ally and her friend Stella have been going to Daisy girl scouts on Monday nights for 3 years now. Typically you are only a Daisy for 2 years, but there was a mix up with registration and and whether or not girls could join in pre-kindergarten or Jr K as we call it. So they got 3 years. This term they had completed all of the Daisy badges so the volunteer did some Brownie work with them. They earned two badges, and now cannot wait to get Brownie vests and have it start again next year.

IMG_2471

Ally and Stella outside of the center they have been attending GS at.

IMG_2475IMG_2476

Afterwards we went out to dinner to celebrate. Violet had to get in on the picture too!

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

New Addition to the Crew

On Sunday afternoon Ally and I went to the mall. I had a few things to return, and way back in December I had promised to take Ally to Build a Bear in the Spring. (there were coupons in her Happy Meal all month). Please welcome Fluff:

IMG_6716IMG_6719

We waited a really long time for Ally’s turn to have Fluff stuffed.

IMG_6720IMG_6721

She held Fluff’s heart up to her ear so it would listen to her, rubbed her cheek for luck, I even gave the heart a kiss so it would know I’m the mommy. My favorite was that Ally had to jump a lot, because Fluff was a bunny and needed lots of hoppiness in its heart!

IMG_6723IMG_6725

Finally it was done, and Ally brushed Fluff’s soft fur, and we made the birth certificate.

IMG_6727IMG_6729

Then it was time to go home. Ally was so happy.

IMG_6730IMG_6733

Monday, March 24, 2014

Grandparent Visit

Last weekend Grandma Debbie and Poppy came to visit.

Grandma and Ally played a lot of American Girl doll pretend sleepover.

They did art together, which was coloring pictures of penguins.

IMG_6710IMG_6711

Ally was thrilled to watch Frozen for the 10th time with grandma and poppy.

IMG_2456IMG_2460

After the movie they went to the park. They attempted to play ping pong, but it was so windy the ball kept blowing away.

IMG_2464IMG_2467IMG_6712IMG_6713

At night before bed grandma read Ally a book.

IMG_6715

Picture before church on Sunday.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Antarctica!

On March 21 Ally’s first grade class had their Antarctica presentation. It was amazing.

IMG_6639IMG_6641IMG_6634IMG_6640

All week leading up to Friday posters were appearing with different animals and facts about Antarctica. One morning I made Ally pose under the Emperor Penguin chicks she made.

IMG_6666IMG_6664

Finally on Friday it was the day. The students had decided to wear white, black and grey clothes so they looked like penguins while they sang several songs about Antarctica.

IMG_6679IMG_6701

After the group presentation they students, all 49 of them broke up into “expert teams” where they showed off their paper mache creations and each student had a fact to tell us about their topic. One the left is Ally (in black) with Jaylinne and Oscar at the Emperor Penguin table. My favorite fact of the day was Oscars “an Emperor Penguin is as tall as me” how cool is that? Each student had written their facts on the back of their name tags. Ally’s is shown. Everyone was so proud of their work.

IMG_6684IMG_6704

Maya and Alice with their humpback whale. One the right is the ice fish, the krill and the sea spider.

IMG_6685IMG_6686

The great blue whale and the orca (killer) whale at the left. Flying high above in the classroom were the albatross and the skua birds.

IMG_6688IMG_6690

Several kinds of seals; elephant, leopard and Weddell seals on the left, and at right, Erik with his team’s ice breaker boat.

IMG_6702IMG_6703

One team did ice and the actual continent and at right is the colossal squid.

IMG_6693IMG_6756

After I made the rounds of  the room, I cam back to Ally’s table and was so pleased to see Ally chatting with her friends and answering questions. Another parent took the picture at right and used an app to generate the painting-like quality photo. I thought it was pretty neat.

IMG_6708

This is my favorite picture from the whole day. Ally with her fellow penguin experts, Jaylinne & Oscar.

Its hard to put into words how wonderful this event was. There were so many parents, and grandparents there to support the students and they had worked so hard and did an amazing job.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Mish Mash

 

IMG_6626

We had a conference with Ally’s teacher recently and one of the things we asked was how much reading Ally should do every night. She said for first graders she recommends 15 minutes every day. That is time Ally should read to one of us or to herself. In addition to the 15 minutes, any ready we do aloud to her is great.

We talked about this with Ally and agreed to set up a “cozy spot” now called her “reading nook” for her to read in.

IMG_6629IMG_6630

Ally usually scooters her way around town when we walk now, and one evening she looked so cute all bundled up in her owl hat, long coat and her pony tail swinging out the back I had to take a picture.

IMG_2445IMG_2446

At church recently Erik and Ally has started sitting together. One Sunday they sat all by themselves in the pew – with their own bulletin and hymnals.

It was adorable!

IMG_2447