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.
Ally was thrilled to watch Frozen for the 10th time with grandma and poppy.
After the movie they went to the park. They attempted to play ping pong, but it was so windy the ball kept blowing away.
At night before bed grandma read Ally a book.
Picture before church on Sunday.
On March 21 Ally’s first grade class had their Antarctica presentation. It was amazing.
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.
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.
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.
Maya and Alice with their humpback whale. One the right is the ice fish, the krill and the sea spider.
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.
Several kinds of seals; elephant, leopard and Weddell seals on the left, and at right, Erik with his team’s ice breaker boat.
One team did ice and the actual continent and at right is the colossal squid.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
These two are still thick as thieves when we have a play date.
We had to compare feet – one are petite and one are normal size for 7 years old!
Ally’s last ice skating lesson of the year is a Family skate – they open up the rentals and anyone can skate for free. I don’t ice skate, at all, ever. But Becky is a really good sport so she got out on the ice with Ally.
Getting Ally all suited up is always work. Snow pants, 2 pairs of socks, skates and her helmet.
Becky is such a good sport.
Ally always likes to get to the rink early so she can watch the youth hockey team practice.
They did great – and had a fun time.
Gabi hosted this month and we continue to be amazed at how the girls are friends and can independantly play and be with each other. Its great because just as our daughters have become friends so have we as moms. We’ve been thru a lot together the past 6 years and are looking forward to many more years to come.
Cheryl always wants to replicate the iconic 2009 stair picture. We tried, even though Alice was missing.
March 2014:
From left to right Ally, Rosa, Roxie & Gabi (Alice was missing)
Flashback to December 2009
From left to right: Rosa, Ally, Alice & Gabi (Roxie was missing)
My how they have grown up. Afterwards (and even days later) Ally would tell me something one of her friends said. We talked on the way home about being from Guatemala, and like I usually do I said she could ask me anything. I asked her a couple questions, and we talked about how she can also talk with the other Guat Girls.
