Spring Break

This week is Spring Break from Kylie's school. She is attending camp at MyGym from 8:30 - 12:30. Monday's theme was a glow-in-the-dark space adventure. For a craft, she painted a ufo made of black plates with glow-in-the-dark paint. Tuesday's theme was a wild west roundup and she made a cowgirl fringe vest out of a paper bag (with lots of glitter paint and sequins added).

Yesterday's theme was superheroes.


And Kylie made this cape.


I'm grateful that we found a camp with the same hours as her school.

Thanks to those of you who have commented and emailed asking about Karen's sister condition. Amy has less pain in her sacral region which enabled her to come off her pain meds. On last week's visit to the doctor, she was told that the tumors in her liver have grown. Her next procedure will be to have radiation beads put into her liver to treat those tumors. We aren't sure of the date but this procedure should occur in next 2 weeks. You can read more about it all here. Please keep Amy and her family as well as Karen in your thoughts and prayers.

Lastly, head on over to Sacha and Alayna's blog, Two Girls and One Boy, to congratulate them on the birth of their third child, beautiful baby Rosa Jane!

Blowing bubbles

Today I needed to pack away our winter coats and sweep out our garage. Instead I found myself sitting in the grass of our front yard with Kylie. She blew bubbles. She sang songs, and talked and talked. And I made myself stop the busy work and just hang out with her and the camera.

It was lovely. Have a great weekend everyone!

At the beach

Karen's sister Amy and her family spent yesterday afternoon with us. We romped around the beach and had some fun.

School work and weekend fun

We love Fridays because Kylie gets to bring her week's school work home. She proudly shows me everything she's done.


She did four inset booklets, two cutting exercises, nine poking exercises (3 cats, 2 fish, one shamrock, one leprechaun and two pots of gold), a gluing exercise with the Irish flag, and 6 coloring pages (3 leprechauns, 2 fish and 1 dog).

Her school had a pet appreciation day. Children with pets got to bring their animals to school and show them to their classmates. I put some pictures of Kylie's two cats, Phoebe and Chloe, together with a note that explained her cats were too shy to come to school. Her teacher told me that Kylie enjoyed showing the pictures to all her chums.

I'm not sure of the photographer of these photos. I found them on the school's Facebook page. The kiddo looks so tickled.




On Saturday Kylie and I, along with friends Sarah and Lily, attended the Spring Craft fair at our church. Much to Kylie's delight, they had two jump houses. Kylie had just come from running like crazy at gymnastics class to jumping around in these for almost an hour.







And what could be better to cool off two best friends than sugared ice?



I hope your weekend was as sweet and fun as ours.

{this moment} 02/18/11

{this moment} - a Friday ritual. Some photos capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

My special moment this week was watching Kylie learn to put her whole head in the water to grab pool weights.


Kylie took swim lessons for three months when she turned two years old (April to June 2009). We were living in Portland, OR at the time. Then we moved to Burke, VA and she took lessons again. (January to May 2010). She learned to stay under in a glide for around 8 seconds. But when she would glide, she would usually just hold her breath. She learned to blow bubbles and kick.

But when you asked her to blow bubbles, this is what she would do. She would blow them with her mouth and keep the rest of her head above water. To her thinking, going under the water and blowing bubbles were two different things.


On Wednesday's swim class, she learned to go under AND blow bubbles. She became enraptured for diving for these pool weights. She wanted to do it again and again. She got upset when her coach tried to move a weight closer to her. "I can do it myself!" Kylie would exclaim. I was so dang happy watching her dogged determination to master this skill and to get those pool weights.


And even happier to see her use that skill in the rest of her swim lesson.




Now she keeps asking me, "Can we go to the pool everyday? I want to do pool weights!"


This moment posts are inspired by SouleMama's Friday posts

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

What's happening

It's hard to believe it has been a week since I blogged. I looked at that this evening and thought, "Do I really have nothing to write about?" Hmmm.

And then I thought about having coffee with a friend in my living room. What would I want to share about our last few days?

And first off, I thought of how Kylie had an absolute meltdown when it was time to leave church last Sunday. I had to carry her screaming and squirming all the way to the car. I felt so very embarrassed. Even though I knew the parents I passed as I was carrying her could relate, I was still so shaken. It was the first time where the threat of a time-out didn't dint the little one freaking out. Of course, Kylie and I have both gotten past it. But it was a memorable event!

I would share how Kylie has been singing a new song she learned at school to the tune of "Frere Jacques". She sings:
Buenos dias. Buenos dias
Como estas? Como estas?
Muy bien, gracias. Muy bien gracias.
Y usted. Y usted.
(My apologies for not putting the correct marks and punctuation. I can't figure out how to do that on my computer).
Anyway, it's a lovely little song and she sings it so well. It makes me glad that her bilingual Montessori teacher from Bogota, Columbia is incorporating some Spanish into Kylie's education.

I would talk about how I take such simple delight in listening to Kylie explore new words. Today she said "collection" over and over. She rolled that word around in her mouth and practiced using it in different sentences. "I have a collection of seashells. Mommy has a collection of books." and so forth. I just beam at Kylie and think to myself. "I made her! That's so trippy!"

I would share how I found Jillian Michael's podcast through iTunes and what a pleasure it's been to listen to her on my iPhone. Karen and I are devoted Biggest Loser fans and will miss Jillian next year. I also found a worthwhile triathlon podcast.

I would talk briefly about training for the triathlon. I would share a few successes. And how I'm not progressing as fast as I first thought I would. I'm inching along rather than leaping forward. When I think about the gap between where I am and where I want to be, I get overwhelmed. So I divert my thoughts to working hard each workout and tell my monkey-brain to shut up and leave me alone.

I would tell you that I've scanned a bunch of Kylie's school work and artwork and plan to share it with you very soon. And that I took some pictures of Kylie swimming and will share those soon too.

I would show you this picture and talk about how the white towel thrown on the rocking chair bounced the light into Kylie's face in an interesting way. And how I was tickled I got off one unaffected shot...


before Kylie broke into the fake smile (which I think looks a little maniacal).


But mostly, I would want to listen to you and to give you my full attention. I wish you could each share a cup of coffee with me in my living room. But the blog communication will have to suffice for now. Cheers dear readers! Thanks for stopping by.

Books

She can create some getups can't she?

Below are three library books I thought I would share with you.

This first one is a joke book. Kylie loves jokes right now and my brain has a hard time remembering them or making them up. So when Kylie has asked for a joke I've said, "Go get your joke book and we will find one together". This one is very fun and full of preschooler humor.

The Hilarious Adventures of Mish and Mash: The Story of How Two Monsters-and YOU-Make the Perfect Joke Book! (Chickadee Books)

When I first read this next one I thought, "That's a pretty gay book" (in the best sense). But what I really meant was that this was a delightful book about a naked mole rat who wants to wear clothes. And even though his friends demand that he take them off and be just like them, he wears them anyway. My rebel heart sang when I read it. It has great illustrations and the right amount of words to pictures/pages ratio that works for Kylie right now. Plus it had the word "proclamation" which was a new word for Kylie's vocabulary. Check it out! I think you'll like it!

Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed

This last one made Kylie laugh out loud in one of those can't-catch-her-breath-laughing-so-hard giggles. She loved to hear me do the different animals' voices as I said "Bee bee" over and over. It wasn't quite as funny for her after that first time reading it but she still really liked it.

The Baby Beebee Bird

Any recent library books that you would like to share?

Right now

Right Now I am

...surprised at how tall Kylie looks to me. She is still shorter than her classmates but has definitely had a growth spurt. She suddenly can reach so much more in the house. She's wearing 4T clothes now.


...excited that Kylie has started swimming lessons again. Here she is warming up in the car after her first lesson.


...touched at how she covers her sweet head with the sheet as she sleeps.


...recovering from the shrinky dink incident. Kylie colored a mermaid shrinky dink for the first time. Even though I explained how it was going to shrink into a little charm in the toaster oven, Kylie screamed horribly when she saw the finished mermaid. You would have thought I was cooking kittens from the way she freaked out. No more shrinky dinks for now.

...tickled at how Kylie used the word "available" over and over throughout the day. My favorite phrase was: "The cats' ears are available for their hearing."

...looking for a piano teacher for Kylie.

...bemused that a large pile of dirt can be vastly entertaining for over an hour. She got quite a workout.






...appreciating pictures of pure kiddo delight.


...loving and missing Karen. She's so awesome; my best friend. I sleep horribly when she's gone.

...not missing cable tv. We turned in our cable boxes. We are using Apple TV for the few programs that Karen and I watch and DVD's for Kylie.

...giving up Diet Coke for Lent.

...knitting nothing. I have half of a ruched pillow knitted. I have to wind two more skeins to knit the other half. The yarn I'm using has some silk in it and it knots horribly. It has not been fun to knit at all. So I've procrastinated on this project and haven't started another because the silk yarn was so expensive and I don't have any extra yarn at the moment. I miss knitting at night.

...scrapping a few pictures when I can make the time.




...appreciating you dear readers. Thanks for stopping by!