Last and First

June 13th was her last day of Pre- K

She is still returning for camp 2 days a week for a month.

 This is the last day though with 

her whole class.  The last day with some buddies that she has

known since she was 1.

 I am not sad that we are beginning the school age adventure.

But I am sad about leaving her buddies.

Those little people that are as close to her as a sibling.

 This was her first day.  The shoes look the same.

They are not.  They were size 11s.

The new ones are size 12s.

Yep, big sis got tall this school year.

Okay big sis got in the average category for height.

She got in the above average category for being amazing.

The Mixed Up Chameleon

I have been trying at least 2 times a week to pick a book and do an activity tied to the book.  Celia read The Mixed Up Chameleon to me and I had previously read the story to Audrey.  While Celia was reading the story to me, Audrey was too busy with her morning Smorgasbord.

Lately she has slowed down and she does not eat it all.

There was a time in which everything would have been eaten.

She demands the variety in the morning.  

It is chex cereal (eaten dry), Rice crispies (with milk), yogurt with honey and craisins, 

and in the cup is her newest love, Green Machine smoothie.

The medicine syringe is for her reflux meds.

Anywhooo.....  On to Mr. Chameleon

 So we read him

Then I traced over him with thin paper, making sure to outline

each color section.

I then cut out the different colors from the template I just made.

We realized later that we forgot the tongue- no biggy.

Believe me I am sure this project is not unique, I know!

Audrey drew her legs on.  

For this activity, I was just into letting her do the 

gluing and the putting on herself. I thought she did great!!

 Celia made hers perfectly.

She made him asleep, with his legs curled under 

she said.

 Here is Celia's up close

 Here is Audrey's up close.   The legs were great.

Her name is at the top.  If you look closely she scribbled over the U.

Almost every time I can get her to do the U, not bad.

Miss. Ultra creative decided it was in general a mixed up chameleon day.

Typically she fights me on picking out her own clothes but she got all excited and appeared with this outfit and announced that she was in deed a Mixed Up Chameleon. There was a wardrobe change later and she returned in equally mixed up clothes.

She dressed her sister too.

It would have been a great outfit, had it not been 90 degrees...

Celia was a little put off when I told her that we would have to change the

pants when we went outside.  

Pretty Painting

Celia's school has a picnic every year and they always have a face painter present.  

I was not about to get Audrey's face painted as I could just picture the "Get it off, get off of my face" fit.

Oh I wish these girls lived closer to each other so they could play all year long!

She went to swim practice shortly after she got this.

What was left after the swim cap went on came off in the water.

Luckily she could have cared less as she had fun in the water!

I told Katie that I wore braces for like 5 years.

She asked me why I told her that.

Oh no reason, not thinking orthodontics are in your future at all....

She is cute (10 year old, is it pretty now, or can I still say cute??) enough it really would not matter though!

Longwood with Katie

We took my niece Katie with us to visit Longwood recently.  It was a rushed trip because we had to get back for Celia's swim team practice.

Hanging out in Celia's picture spot.  

She now hops in and says "Take the picture"

We were able to catch the Fountain show, which

we never seem to get to!

 The fountains come up to the music

 In the bee tree house

 I have no idea what got her so irritated, she was tired.

By the time we got home she was acting tired, acting like a 2 year old,  a raving lunatic

 Okay, Longwood is huge.  There are fountains, gardens, indoor and outdoor children's gardens,

tree houses, a waterfall, a bell tower, paths and paths to walk.  What attracted these three the most???

The cat.  Yep the cat.  We did learn that there are 13 cats that live at Longwood.

They have different territories and they are for rodent control.  That cat lives in a house that you can tour and from what I can see helps by being receiving treats and attention!!

Ligonier

We visited Pete's Sister, her husband, and my nephew Cole recently.  We head off to a local zoo with the kids right before we left to go home.  The zoo was very cool.

We also stayed in a hotel as a family of 4 together and we survived and it was not horrible.  What I actually was annoyed at the most happened in the morning.  I love continental breakfasts.  In general,  breakfast is my thing, I love it.  So I slept with Celia and typically the kid does not move, however she decided that she needed to be plastered smack up against me.  Celia sweats.  I mean I was soaked from her.  So I kept moving her to her own side, she decided to sleep with her feet on me at one point.  I am not sure what on earth happened.  I guess with moving her frequently she might have not gotten the best night's sleep, I am not sure.  But in the history of Celia and sleep what happened in the morning has never, ever happened.  She woke up, was up for a bit but did let us know she was very tired.  She was announcing it in a silly, almost playful manner so I thought she was joking.  I told her to come over and lie down and she did and then she was asleep.  I was nervous, never has Celia gone back to sleep.  I thought perhaps she was sick.  So I was not dressed or ready to go to breakfast but Pete was ready.  So he got to take Audrey down to breakfast.  I was left upstairs with Celia.  I was hungry.  So Pete returned after a LONG time (okay maybe not so long but I was hungry) and Celia and I headed down.  Celia who was now not asleep but should have been because she was grumpy and evidently not so hungry. Breakfast was now crowded and I was rushed, and it just was not the best.  I never stay in hotels and I love free continental breakfasts.  Next time, Pete gets to stay and I will go down with Audrey, the eating machine.

So onto the zoo.  Here are some pictures.

Celia took this picture of me!  It isn't half bad and from that angle

my car looks really clean, not kid destroyed 

What you Talkin bout Willis?

and there is the

instant turn around to

the Oh My Gosh She Is the Cutest Think 

On Earth mood

Little

I was in Audrey's shoes at one point, the littlest one and it has it's perks but it also has it's cons.

She has a lot to say about being left out of big girl stuff

But at the same point she will point out that she is just "little" and that she is 2.  

Although for an hour on Saturday she told us she was 3.

If she is left out she sort of looks like the above picture

Sometimes the arms are crossed and the lip is out

Sometimes there are loud tears

Sometimes she simply walks away, shrugs her shoulders and finds something else to do.

They love each other so much.  When it is just the two of them they typically

play together.  On rare occasions the older one wants some time alone, usually to play legos.  She does not want baby sister's hands wrecking her legos.  Baby sister is sometimes okay with it and sometimes sobs.  Big sis has a right to some alone time.  But it is so hard for the little one to understand.

The little one also thinks she is often big.  That is a problem at times.  She is only big when it is convenient.  If she is tired of walking then she is little and needs uppy.  But she will sit beside Big Sis and pretend to read or write.  She is positive that she can do those things.  

This week is going to be a tough one for little sis.  Cousin Katie is here primarily to play with Big Sis and it is just the first afternoon/evening and already little sis has met me on the stairs with big crocodile tears because the Big Girls did not want her watching them when they changed.  Fair enough I suppose but I suspect that is not the first time.  Audrey showed them though by prancing around in all her "nakeyness" for a bit this evening.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my dear husband and to my Father-in-law!

Breakfast

We are early risers at this house.  Typically the girls are up by 6:00.  Celia has a clock in her room that turns green when she is allowed to get up.  She usually is watching the clock when it turns green and has been watching it for 30 minutes.  Audrey gets up between 5:45 and 6:15.  When we are lucky, she sometimes sleeps past 6:30.

Yesterday I kept them busy.  Last week I was sidelined from walking/running because I tore up my feet walking to our pool with flip flops.  I know not the smartest thing but I had very bad blister on the bottom of my foot that was the primary issue.  I was excited that it was healing and that it was not a rainy day as it seems to be doing a lot of that around here.  So we walked to our local library, it is I think around 3 miles from our house, may be more, not sure.  Pushing the two girls in my BOB duallie is quite a workout and getting to be more and more each month!!  The library by the way just celebrated it's 150th birthday.  It is the library that I went to as a kid and now the two girls get to enjoy it!  We picked up some books on hold and then browsed for some other good reads.  The girls spent some time on the computer and played with the little birthday pretend area.

We then piled back into the BOB, snacks to prevent sleepy heads and headed on our way home.  We were in a rush to get home early so that we could eat lunch early and get Audrey down for a nap.  The pool was open from 12 to 3 and we wanted to get in at least an hour.  We succeeded.  It is not always easy to get everything together for an early nap.  Celia crafted and I worked on laundry, cleaning, and school stuff while Audrey napped.  Before we knew it we were at the pool in the freezing cold water.  We had a good time and then headed back home to shower, craft some more, play, and make dinner.  It was a really good day.

I told Pete that I thought I had worn them out and that Audrey would sleep through the night.  Sure enough, both girls did not make a peep last night.  I had to wake them up this morning.  I can not remember the last time I had to wake both girls up!

So this is what our breakfast table looked like this morning.   The flowers in between Celia and Audrey are to prevent Celia from looking at Audrey because per Audrey's rules that is not ok in the morning (at this current time I think that she will allow someone to look at her between the hours of 1:30 am and 3:00 am).

By the way, it took a lot of convincing for me to be able to brush Audrey's hair.  "it ok Mommy, no brush".   She had the iPad in front of her while I brushed the crazy mess, I did not make a whole lot of headway!

Reptile Learning box

I decided that I wanted to try to make some themed learning boxes.  I am not sure if it was the biggest hit with Celia but I am going to try some other things.  I put some reptiles in a clear box and put some activities in it.  I introduced it to Celia and she lasted about 10 minutes.  Audrey liked playing with the Lizards and sliding them down some toilet paper tubes.

 Today I decided to add in a new dynamic, shaving cream.  Celia loves to play with the stuff.  I buried the lizards inside.  Celia liked playing with the shaving cream more then finding the lizards but she sort of got a kick out of hiding them.

 Audrey was not a fan of the shaving cream, my little tactilly defensive kiddo.  She did enjoy playing with the lizards in her beans.  So that is what she did.

 Here is the box.  I put toilet paper tubes, binoculars, the reptiles, a container to wash and dry them, a measuring game and a ruler, a spelling sheet, and math cards to use with the reptiles

Audrey did enjoy watching me wash off the shaving cream from the reptiles because they just appear, the shaving cream disappears so fast.