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5 small changes

Here are five small changes I've observed in Kylie:

1. She's started drawing robots (pictured here), dragons, and big multi-colored daisies.


2. In the morning, she prefers brushing her teeth by herself in the bathroom with the door closed. When she's done, she blows a minty-clean breath on me. She's ok with me supervising her night-time teeth brushing. She's a good brusher.

3. She can button her shirt buttons herself.

4. She's started bringing me her plate from the dining area to the kitchen at the end of breakfast and dinner. She can clean the cat hair off our couches and chairs. She helps me feed the cats. She enjoys watering the small potted tree on our front sidewalk. She likes to drag our the recycling bins to the curb on trash day. And she loves helping me wash our car.

5. She can do a back float. And she can roll from swimming freestyle over to a back float.


I'm so proud of our little one!

Dinosaurs

Yesterday we saw the newly installed dinosaur exhibit at the zoo.


Kylie was so fun! She was waving and talking to all of the dinosaurs. The robots had lots of grunts, groans and yells and Kylie was convinced that the dinosaurs were talking to her. She kept a conversation going with all of them.




This dinosaur sprayed water on her. Of course she loved it!


There was only one time when she got startled. She was talking to this dinosaur when one around the corner roared really loud. She jumped a foot and made this face.


But then she made friends with the one that scared her. She's such a hoot!


The last time we saw the dinosaurs was in June 2008 at the Portland Zoo. Kylie was in her stroller eating cheerios from her snack cup. The dinosaurs didn't scare her then either. Wow! My baby girl has changed so much but she's still cute as a bug.


I hope all of you had a wonderful Easter weekend!

Easter Egg Hunt

Our friends Lily and Sarah invited us to an Easter breakfast and egg hunt this morning. The egg hunt was pretty much a botched fiasco leaving lots of kids crying that they didn't get any eggs (Kylie only got two). But Lily and Kylie enjoyed being dressed up together and seeing the Easter Bunny.

And I got these sweet photos of Kylie.

School easter egg hunt and more egg dyeing

On Monday at her school, Kylie got to dye some Easter eggs. And on Tuesday, she got to have an Easter Egg Hunt at her school playground. I downloaded these pictures from the school's Facebook page. Our munchkin is in the center front of the photo with a bright pink basket.


Here she is on the run for more eggs.


She came home with three dyed eggs and six plastic eggs. The plastic eggs held some toy dinosaurs, a few stickers and a purple flower ring.




Kylie wanted to dye some more eggs at home. So after consulting with my Mom on how to do it, Kylie and I dyed some.

We also painted dye on some which created some cool tie-dyed effects and put some glitter on others.

Despite our best efforts, Kylie and I both got food dye on our fingers.


But we made some really pretty eggs!

Kylie's birthday home celebration

Kylie has been talking about her birthday party since before Christmas. Although she created very detailed instructions for me and Karen, in essence all she has wanted was to invite her best friend Lily over to her house for a playdate and cake.

About a week ago, Kylie told me, "You know Mommy, I only turn four once. You should really have a lot of decorations, especially balloons."

Well my darling Kylie. I did my best to fill the house with balloons! Kylie and Lily started celebrating around 12:15 on Saturday.


The house was soon filled with the sounds of two girls blowing their loud party blowers as loud and often as they could!


After a lunch of Chik Fil A chicken and fruit salad, it was time for the cake.


Kylie was adamant about putting candles on herself.


Singing Happy Birthday to our beautiful four-year old daughter just made my heart ache with pride and happiness and a bit of nostalgia.




Afterwards, the girls ran around the backyard, running off the sugar high and playing with the bubble maker toy that Lily had given Kylie.


After a quick change of shirts (due to some messy eating of bright pink icing), we treated the girls to a trip to Build-a-Bear where Kylie made the sweet "Peace and Friendship" bear.


Kylie and Lily finished their playdate by playing at our neighborhood park. And after a bath, Kylie got to open her birthday presents.


She got lots of awesome gifts from Karen and I and the rest of her family. This unicorn blanket from my mom was a particular favorite.


Kylie felt so blessed with all her presents. We felt so blessed to have such a great daughter and a birthday that went off without a hitch. Kylie, Karen and I just beamed with happiness all day long.


One last thing: Kylie asked me, for her birthday, to paint her cats in rainbow colors and put costumes on them. Sorry sweet love. That was one birthday wish I didn't even attempt to do.

Kylie's birthday school celebration

Kylie had her birthday celebration at school on Friday. Both Karen and I attended.

Kylie got to make an "art queen hat" that morning at school. After their playground break, Kylie got to be in the center of the circle of children at circle time. She and her teacher lit a candle representing the sun. Then Kylie held a small globe and walked in a circle around the candle/sun showing that as the earth moved around the sun, so Kylie aged each year.



As she was doing so, her teacher asked Karen and I questions. For Kylie's birth circle, we got to share that Kylie was an afternoon baby born in Portland Oregon. For her second circle, representing her first year of life, we got to share that Kylie's first word was "Hi" and that she learned to walk holding onto her beloved pretend grocery cart. For her third circle, we shared that for her third birthday, we lived in Virginia and Kylie started attending swim lessons and art classes.

The children sang "Happy Birthday" to Kylie. Kylie got to blow out the candle. Then she got to pick three friends to sit at the birthday snack table with her. She picked her friends Clara, Katherine and McClain.

Karen and I had brought fruit wands for the children's snack.



Kylie ate every bite and enjoyed sitting at the table with her friends.

I brought four scrapbook pages, one for each of Kylie's years, and the children all looked at the pictures when they were finished with their snack.

It was a lovely, peaceful birthday celebration!

{this moment} 04/15/10

{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.







This moment posts are inspired by SouleMama's Friday posts

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Drawing her pain

The other day Kylie got a cut on her finger. It bled and freaked Kylie out. I can't remember her seeing her blood like that before so this was a first for her. She yelled, "Fruit juice is coming out of my finger!" She was quite upset and it took lots of hugs and rocking and a band-aid to calm her down.

The next day, she drew these two pictures. She handed them to me and said, "That's the hurt finger" pointing to the yellow and orange spikes around the one hand.





I've heard about psychotherapists using art to help a person process their emotions. I think it's pretty cool that Kylie made a drawing showing her pain. And the cut on her finger healed just fine.

Sea World Sunday pictures

On our second day of Sea World, we were a bit more low-key. Kylie pet the sting rays again, we passed by the manatee exhibit


And moved on the the Penguin exhibit (where Kylie told us she could see just fine, thank you. She did NOT want to be picked up).


We saw some very happy-looking, sun-bathing seals




Then we saw the "Clyde and Seamore" Seal show. Kylie looked bored throughout the show but the next day, she talked about it quite a bit. Then we saw this lovely swimmer who was pretending to be a clam diver. Kylie thought this lady was an awesome swimmer.


She blew Kylie lots of bubbly kisses.


Kylie gave one last hug to Shamu and then we headed back to our resort to play in the pool.


It was a lovely weekend vacation! Thanks for hanging with me while I shared our pictures.