Saturday with Aunt Beth

We’ve been pretty lucky to see Aunt Beth so much the past month. Ally always cries at night after Beth leaves, because she misses her. But the time she is here is always fun.

We made Valentine T-shirts. We did this a few years ago and Ally asked to do them again this year. You use heart doily as a stencil and fabric paint it.

The finished results!

It snowed that morning and so right before Beth had to leave they went outside to play in it. Of course Mama and Ally got into a snowball fight.

Aunt Beth made a small snowman. Then we watched it melt in the following week.

Mini Olympics

 

First flash back photos from the past Mini Olympics at her gym.

2011 – after 8 months of gymnastics

2012

2013

Then this year – Ally is part of the advanced class of girls – the Stars – she is a Shooting Star this year.  In January they do a showcase for the parents to demonstrate the skills they have been working on. Then in June is the more formal routine as part of the Show.

Warm ups – Ally can pretty much do 2 kinds of splits now.

A back walk over on the cheese mat – then walking on the beam and going into a handstand dismount (below). They finished with a round-off to a back handspring. The coach spotted them on the back handspring, but Ally almost has it down! She is working so hard this year.

The girls showing off their ribbons. We’ve pleased lately that even though Ally is the youngest in her class, she seems to be talking and enjoying herself socially a bit more as well, and its great for her ego that she is not the smallest one.

 

We out to dinner at our favorite diner to celebrate with “breakfast for dinner” after the show.

Baking Bread

On Ally’s 2nd snow day of the year she and Becky made bread. I went to work.

They mixed up the dough and added the yeast. Becky wanted to make bread with Ally because of Amelia Bedelia – in one of her books Amelia has no idea what “let the dough rise” means.

Ally got really into kneading the bread.

 

And after getting dressed and letting it rise was quite excited about seeing what it looked like.

Can you tell Ally was nervous to “punch it down”

But she did it.

And the loaf came out beautiful. Ally really enjoyed eating it with jam on it.

2 Birthday Parties in 1 Day

So last Saturday Ally was invited to her friend Olive’s 7th  birthday party. We have been at Olive’s parties every year for the past 5 years! On the same day at the same time Becky and I were invited to our friend Hanh (Liem’s, mom) 40th birthday party. What is a family to do?

We hired our amazing babysitter Sarah for the day to take Ally to the party, have dinner with her and put her to bed so us moms could go “indoor skydiving” to celebrate Hanh with our friends.

The party was packed with neighborhood friends and the whole first grade (all 49 students and their siblings were invited). Ally started off having fun coloring on the mural by herself, and then friends, like Alice came to join her.

Olive’s parties are always animal oriented – last year was horseback riding at a stable, and the years before that at her dad’s place of work in the event space with an animal show. This was another animal show.

 

That is Sarah on the right chatting with Olive’s mom and Aunt. Then the birthday girl taking her first swing at the piñata!

 

Here are Becky and I in our jumpsuits and helmets waiting to go skydiving.

The group of “preschool moms” Deb (Erik’s mom) Becky, Shannon (Stella’s mom), me, Hanh (in the red helmet) and Sarah (Jack T’s mom in the bottom row). It was celebrating many years of friendship – as well as Hanh’s 4oth.

The indoor skydiving was a bit of a misnomer – it was a vertical wind tunnel that keeps you afloat in the air. It was very cool, but I don’t think I need to do it again. We were hoping to have action shots, but the facility takes all those pictures and their photo site has been down.

All in all it was a fabulous time had by everyone – Ally, and her moms.

School is Fun

Ally is having a great year in first grade. Her teachers have both commented on how much she is participating in class lately. She is happy to go to school every day and this week was disappointed to have a snow day, since it was scheduled to be pajama day at school.

Art projects – Ally’s is the one on the bottom right with lots of yellow and the single multi-colored heart.  As part of homework this week Ally had to answer some questions about the “lovey/special thing” she was bringing in for pajama day and draw a picture of it. Ally chose Snowi (that is how she chose to spell her flashlight penguin who she named Snow-ee) we talked about all the different ways to make the long e sound at the end of a word. of course that meant acknowledging how confusing it is in English and I think its so practical of Ally to spell Snowi with an i because in Spanish the I makes an ee sound. I thought she did a great job on her picture of Snowi.

She also answered all of her questions about him all by herself, and then when I checked it the spelling was atrocious. She was really a good sport about re-writing all 5 sentences to correct the spelling. We talked about how now in first grade its important to get the words spelled correctly.

 

Today was the rescheduled Pajama Day. It was pretty fun for Ally to get up, take a shower, dry her hair and get dressed in clean pajamas to go to school. Her teacher is really playing it up – slippers were encouraged for the classroom and they are having hot chocolate with snack this afternoon.

I can’t wait to hear all about it.