Buddies

Siri just adores her little brother! She always walks up to him and says, "He's so cute!" She sits beside him and "reads" to him, and always needs to kiss and hug him at night. Emma, on the other hand, is kind of warming up to him...very slowly. She has always thought he smells funny. (All her senses are fairly heightened right now, and I attribute that to being four.) The reactions that the girls have had to their new brother have been exactly opposite as I expected. I was so worried about Siri feeling that her "baby" position had been hijacked, and I thought Emma would be the little helper. I was way off!

Family Visit

My whole family recently came to visit us all the way out here for 10 days. For the first 3 days Matt, myself and Ty flew to North Carolina for a young leaders retreat. It was awesome and really refreshing. While we were gone Terry and Stacy took a couple of days to themselves at a lodge in the mountains, and the grandparents had 3 energy-suckers to take care of :) They all had a great time! So, when we got home from the east coast we got right into the the visit! The 2 younger generations spent the first day in Seattle at story time on a 100 yr. old tug boat, Pikes Market, and the REI flagship store (Terry's second home), while the grandparents rested! On Friday we took all the kids to Emma's class trip to the pumpkin patch where my very unadjusted city girls freaked out multiple times at the mud. On Sunday we took a nice day trip up to Whidbey Island where my dad was stationed while in the navy, and on Tuesday we all went back in to Pikes Market and REI again...so Terry could get his fix. It was so great to have my family here. I miss them so much and wish I could live near them.

First Day of Preschool!

Monday, September 13, was Emma's first day of preschool! We have joined a co-op at the community center of the next town over, so roughly 2-3 times per month Matt or I will be assisting in the classroom. Emma will be at preschool for 2 1/2 hours per day for only 3 days a week, and the whole family was able to spend her first day with her. We got to see her in circle time, then doing projects at various stations, having snack, going on a walk to the playground, and story-time. Her teacher is Ms. Cindy, and she is so good with the kids. I know that this is a very common trait with preschool teachers :), but I think that I'm so fascinated by teachers of small children because I could never do their jobs! So, in short, it was a fun time at preschool today, except that I would never ever recommend bringing 2 younger siblings, one of which is 2 and the other got 2 month immunizations that morning! It was fun, but exasperating, and exciting, and sad (that Emma's growing up), and a very proud moment for us!

Project: Another Tree One

Last fall we made this project. It's another tree, and this time I folded a brown piece of paper in half the long way and cut out a tree with branches, free-hand. Then we glued it to construction paper. We glued fall leaves that had been pressed on to the tree. These I already had...if you open any of the huge books, including the dictionary and all the theology books, that we have on our shelf fall leaves will fall out. (I love fall and love collecting perfect leaves, but don't usually do anything with them except for hiding them and forgetting about them!) And lastly, we had a whole bunch of bird stickers...from Grandma, I think...that completed the project!

Project: Apple Trees

I've tried to do a few activities a week with the girls during the time that we have between lunch and naps. Sometimes I assist them with a project and sometimes they do one on their own such as play doh or coloring one of those huge coloring pages.
This one we did the other day. It was easy, with not much prep to do before hand. I found booklets of 600 stickers for $1 at JoAnn's, so I drew a tree with a brown marker and the girls colored it with crayons, then I had pre-cut green "leaves" out of green construction paper and scrap paper that they glued on (using their fingers in the glue), then we added some green glitter (also $1 at JoAnn's). After that they put apple, birds, and squirrel stickers on to make their apple trees!

Nauna and Zeyda's Visit

For the better part of 2 weeks, at the end of July and into August, Matt's parents came to the northwest for a conference and then to stay with us. We had a great time and we got to do some relaxing as well as sightseeing.

On the top of the Space Needle.

At the zoo.

At the mall...something I would never pay for :)

Museum of Flight. We also saw the Blue Angels here, and the pilots driving in cars!

Budding Gymnast

This summer Emma took swimming lessons again, and we tried something new: gymnastics class. She loved it! And she was really good at it! Emma also loves going to swimming lessons, but she's not a big fan of going underwater, and so she'll be repeating the Minnows 1 class. I think she just likes to be social :) Anyway, she really excelled at gymnastics and her coach, Coach Franny, suggested that she move to the older class for the last couple of classes since she did so well in her first experience. Its so cute to see her in her leotard hopping and swinging around. Next: preschool! Eeek!