Theater Party

First - I want to say Ally is back at school today! She is doing much better, no fever and just a slight runny nose. Yesterday she even went to the park with Becky for a while! We are all so happy and are hopeful this will be the last of the sickness our house sees for a while.

Now back to the topic - it was almost two weeks ago, but Ally went to Thora's 4th birthday party and it was at a children's theater. Becky took her and said it was lots of fun for the kids. Ally was really into it and one mom told me the next day that she "had never really seen Ally so animated and playful" it was a mom we usually only see in large groups, and Ally is typically not at her best in large groups. But this was a party of about 6 kids and lots of fun.

Ally dressed as a princess.

That is Thora to Ally's right in the pink princess costume.

Taking direction on hand positioning from the director of the production.

Lots of friends on stage for the play. (Again, Thora in red to Ally's right then Olive in the purple and Zack is in the king hat and Aiden is wearing the crown in the far left of the picture. I don't know the girl to Ally's left.)

Here Ally is dressed as a Magician (in the lime green and blue costume) and Thora's mom Sarah is to Ally's left.

After the acting they kids had cake and ice cream.

This party capped off a week of birthdays - in 7 days Ally attended 3 birthday parties!

Sick Again

Well, Ally is unfortunately sick again. Yes again. Last year she was so healthy she did not miss a single day of school. This year we are on sick day 10 - I think, I seem to have lost count. It appears to be the same thing it was in January - a virus. I got the call from school on Friday at 1130 that Ally was not feeling well and had a fever of 100.7. Anything over 100 means no school. So I went and picked her up. Saturday even with Motrin her fever was at 101.5. Sunday she seemed to be better, but the fever was still 99.9 / 100.3, so no school on Monday for Ally, and Becky stayed home with her. We felt like all was well, no fever all morning on Monday, good spirits etc, but then after a 2 hour nap the fever was back up again over 101. That meant no school on Tuesday. During the night she spiked a 102 fever and we were up with her for about 3 hours trying to help her feel better and get back to sleep. Tuesday Lauren our babysitter stayed with Ally in the morning and I came home at 11AM to a very sick little girl. Fever was better, only about 99.5, but a runny nose, lots of sneezing and a cough. Oh and so very very tired. She had very little appetite, but I got her to eat some cereal and with lots of cuddling and snuggling (she feel asleep on my lap 3 times) she took a long nap. I got a lot of work done while she slept and then watched a movie. After a while even felt well enough to dance and play for about 20 minutes. Then it was leapster game time and finally dinner, bath and bed. She slept all thru the night last night and Becky is home with her today. I so hope she feels better. I think this is the hardest part of being a parent - when your child is sick and there is almost nothing you can do to make her feel better.

Even sick she still can smile for mommy's camera. Especially since she had just beat me at Memory - the very long Toy Story one.

Coloring with mama.

I am just so excited to see Ally drawing pictures, and its so neat to see how she creates things. As you can tell the orange figure is a Fairy and then butterfly above it she drew and colored in.

A flower in the dirt and a ladybug.

Here she is working on a large ladybug.

Saturday

Aunt Beth was visiting again this weekend. Saturday started off with baking - of course! Don't you make muffins with a pink party hat on?

We spent the day in Kittery ME at the outlets shopping and when we got home Beth offered to play a game with Ally, little did she know she would end up playing the game on herself!

And here is Becky and I in our "same same" new outfits. Same Same is a phrase they use at Ally's school all the time when there is a likeness or similarity in things. So we went shopping, both Becky and I bought new jeans, and basically unbeknownst to us extremely similar shirts. We split up a lot when shopping with Ally, so I had Ally in the stroller at one place while Becky and Beth would be in a different store, so we did not actually plan on getting such alike outfits, it just happened that way. I think its pretty funny, and I had Beth take a picture of us, since trust me, we will never wear the clothes at the same time again!

Pretty Princess

Last weekend Paul and Charlo came over for breakfast. We feel so lucky to have such good friends. Paul enjoyed playing with Ally on the Leapster.

After a few other games I suggested they play Pretty Pretty Princess.

Ally of course won (really she did - she almost always wins and no cheating or fudging is involved.)

The fearsome game playing foursome.

Banana Bread

Ally and I made banana bread and banana muffins the other day. It was more fun than usual for me, because Ally actually helped me make the batter. Usually she wants her own bowl to make her own "creation". But she was very into following the recipe and doing it together. I love how the first thing she does before cooking is wash her hands and ask me if I washed mine. Then she puts on her apron. Too cute.

Job Chart

Ally likes to draw on small pads of paper - she has for a year now - she'll write or draw with a pencil or pen (not usually a crayon or marker) for a long time. She is usually working on "a project". On the way home from gymnastics on Thursday last week she worked on this one:

She came running in the house to show me her "job chart" (they have a job chart at school). She said it wasn't finished and we figured out a safe spot to keep it so she could keep working on it when she wanted. I especially like how she almost wrote the whole word Name in the upper left corner of the chart (2nd block down) it has the letters NAM. So cool that she remembered 3 of the 4 letters from the chart at school.

Pictured above is the completed chart.

She came home from a birthday party on Sunday and proudly showed me it was finished. I am so glad I took a picture of it on Thursday and so then I took one on Sunday after she went to bed. I know its not exactly an artistic masterpiece, but the focus, continued attention and what I think of as a pretty complex chart makes it a masterpiece to me.

Fun at school

I parent helped in Ally's classroom today. I had a blast.

Last night was Curriculum night, so after a brief presentation on Reggio education strategies and ideas the parents put together a "Community of Buildings" for the students. I created this garage with 3 other moms. My job was ripping tape. Seriously for 1 hour I ripped tape for other people to apply and construct. I had a lot of fun and really felt like I made a big contribution to the project! It is all held together with tape.

Then this morning the kids (except Ally who had no interest in it) all played with our creations.

Ally was interested in the sculpture table. So happy at school, isn't she? Here is the sculpture she created. Ally has been quite interested in fulcrum technology lately and is thrilled that the res pom pom flies off the structure when she presses on the opposite side. It is attached with a green string, and so it never actually gets loose from the creation.

When Becky or I are the Parent Helper, Ally's job for the day is "Parent Helper Helper" and she helps me clean the tables before snack and then set out the plates and cups and snack we brought to share.

After snack we went outside. Ally is very into worms this week. She spent the entire time outside digging for and then playing with worms.

Here she is with 5 boys at the raised garden bed digging for worms. We got out there and she immediately went over, and got a shovel then asked for a basket to put them in and proceeded to dig for worms.

I asked her to show me one of them. Later she picked it up with her bare hands. I love how she is looking at the worm and not me. (you know I asked her to look at the camera.)

Smiling for the camera with her worm.

She even drew a worm with sidewalk chalk. I thought it was a riot - she puts the bowl of worms down, picks up a piece of chalk and draws a line with a dot. I thought she was going to write something. Then she looks up at me and says "worm".

After digging and finding some (at least 8 -I lost count after that) she and one of her classmates proceeded to take care of them. At the end of outside time Ally dumped them back in the raised bed, and I know she'll dig for them another day.

I think its so great she is into dirt and worms and bugs (she has always loved snails). It's great to see such an interest in science at such a young age. It was also nice to see her playing with different friends. Her two close buddies at school don't like worms at all, but she is confident enough to do what she wants, even when they tried to get her to stop with the worms and come play with them. One of them said "worms are gross...I don't like worms" and Ally said "I do". Made my mommy heart swell with pride to see and hear her doing what she wanted.

So Excited!

We found out yesterday that Ally will be attending the Spanish-English dual language / immersion school next year! Students are taught 50% in English and 50% in Spanish. Ally will start in Jr Kindergarten (pre-k) and as of right now will remain at this school thru 8th grade. Our district is making some school re-organizations so the middle school years may be changed at some point in the future. In 2011 the school is about 6/10 of a mile from our house and then in 2012 it is scheduled to move to a building much closer, about 1/4 mile away and only about 100 yards from my office! Super convenient, super close, and we're are so excited that Ally will have this wonderful opportunity to become fluent in Spanish at such a young age.

Thanks to Jill one of Ally's current teachers for this spectacular picture of Ally. We think it so captures Ally's joy and excitement. It was taken at school and has nothing to do with kindergarten, but her expression illustrates how happy Becky and I are with the school assignment. Phew, now we can sit back and enjoy the rest of our final year at preschool.

New Game

On a recent weekend morning Ally was engaged for quite some time playing a new game with me. On the floor open is her treasure box - she made it with Grandma Debbie a year ago and she keep a variety of "treasures" in it. We were trying to bounce a bouncy ball into the opened box.

It really is amazing sometimes what entertains children. I think we have over 40 games and puzzles in our house and yet for 30 minutes Ally is thrilled playing an age old game like throwing something into a container.

Such a happy girl.

Getting together with friends

Last weekend we hosted our Guatemalan Girls Group and I remembered to take a couple pictures.

Gabi, Alice, Rosa & Ally - we missed Roxie who was home sick.

I finally got a good picture of the girls with their moms!

Grandma Debbie's Visit

We are very lucky that Grandma Debbie came to visit this weekend. Of course she brought fun gifts for Ally.

A Pinkalicious Sticker Book

A new Dr Suess Book about an Elephant who sits on an egg

And these really cool spy glasses from Poppy. GREAT GIFT Poppy - Ally loved them, she played with them all weekend. And we laugher at how big her eyes would get in the glasses.

This picture was taken "just for Poppy" to show him the glasses

It was a fun filled weekend, lots of games (I think we might have broken a new board game record, suffice it to say Debbie is a good sport with games), coloring, a visit to the Aquarium, swim lessons and a birthday party today. Here are Debbie and Ally exploring the touch pool at the Aquarium.

The best picture of grandma and granddaughter.

New rain gear

The snow is finally gone. It rained on Friday and Ally wore her new rain boots and was thrilled to get use her very own umbrella for the first time ever!

Just a smidge

It was 62 degrees here on Sunday!!! Lots of snow melted and I took Ally and Alice to the park. Can you tell how happy Ally was to be on the swings and not in her snowsuit?

There was an ice slick beneath the swings so getting on and off was a bit tricky. But no one fell, including me and we all had a blast.

Ally on the monkey bars.

I helped Alice sit on top of the monkey bars.

The girls worked on getting leaves out of the puddle to "make the water clean" they said they were "too busy working" to look at the camera.

It started to rain on the walk home and Ally showed Alice how to catch rain drops on your tongue. I laughed so hard watching them and taking this picture. It was a riot!

The title of this post "just a smidge" comes from a new phrase Ally said yesterday. We were in the car and she commented "look I see a smidge of snow there..." "Did you see mama, there is just a smidge of snow over there..." Becky and I are cracking up and wonder who says smidge, we don't think its us.