June 2017

My birthday!  We spent a little time wandering around at the Palm Desert branch of the Palm Springs Art Museum.  It's small, but was worth the stop.

Ms. Zeldin reading to the class on the last day of school.  Your head is partially blocked but it is the one with pigtails and red ribbons.

Happy Camper at the Westfield Mall.  It was insanely busy when we got there so it took you awhile to settle in and start playing, but you eventually had a little fun.

"In a life before I was born...."  You have invented previous lives in order to explain things that are not true or otherwise unable to be explained.

From the backseat:  "Oh good, we're going to Cheesecake Factory at last."  (We didn't go to Cheesecake Factory.)

Short haircut for summer!

Father's Day!

Gathering and cutting fabric has been a work in process for a couple of years already, but I finally started sewing the quilt I am making from all your baby clothes.  So far it's going well, but I remain cautiously optimistic.

You had a week off between the end of school and the start of summer camp and wanted to help me with my work so I gave you a huge stack of papers that needed shredded and you worked on them a little each day.  This led to some of funny quotes:

"It's kind of like an eating paper machine."

"Are you actually getting money or are you just getting papers?"

"Stample."  As in, "This one has a stample in it."  (staple)

Your first movie theater experience!  This was a really big deal.  I've been looking for a movie we could take you to for awhile, but we're still pretty choosy about what movies we watch and when I saw Cars 3 was coming out it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I will never grow tired of watching you sleep.

We had one week this month with temps that got up to 122 degrees, woah!  So in the spirit of thinking cool, I decided we would have a "snow day."  We made hot chocolate, watched snow on the TV, made snowmen (out of balloons), put on hats, scarves, and mittens, and went "ice skating" in our socks on the hard floors.  You apparently thought it was great because you've asked me almost every day since if we can do it again.

You still wear a diaper (pull-up) to bed and you still wake up wet pretty much every day.  I've never rushed you to sleep in underwear, I just figure when you are ready and can start waking up to go potty then it will happen on its own.  However, you recently decided that you want to sleep in undies.  I told you that when you start waking up to go potty at night then we'll be able to try that.

One night I put you to bed when you were apparently not sleepy yet.  You were in your bed playing and talking for a long, long time.  Hours later, when I was headed to bed, I walked in your room to check on you, fix blankets, etc. and found you naked from the waist down with your diaper torn off and hurled on the floor.  Thank goodness you hadn't peed yet.

Ants on a log!

Science!

We made your very own fairy wings/Elsa cape, depending on the day.

You sometimes give yourself a pep talk to prepare for brushing your teeth:

"Ready....1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (open mouth)"

You suddenly took an interest in my old Jazzercise costume that Grandma brought for you to play dress up and now you've wanted to wear it almost every day.

Meticulously placing each chocolate chip on top of our banana muffins.

New favorite pastime:  tree climbing.

Helping Daddy with my birthday cake:  angel food with nutella frosting.  So good!

It's been too hot to sleep in your tent in the yard so we usually let you choose where you want to sleep once each weekend.  Sometimes it's in your pink tent, or the couch, or even our bed.  Here you were getting your little area all set up for one of those nights.  Everything had to be just so.

Finishing the cake the next morning.

Last day of school!  I was so sad to leave Under the Oaks (no really, unbelievably sad) and had such a hard time finding a place that I felt comfortable sending you once we moved, but all the effort was worth it.  We really love Palm Valley and can't wait to see what next year will bring.

Last day of school zoo critters day.  You were so much braver than me.  You volunteered for everything.  Even the guy doing the show said more than once that you were really brave.

Beautiful bird.

Guinea pig.

Tortoise.

Bunny.

Tarantula.  Yuck!  It was on your head!

(Don't look Grandma Tami!)  Ball constrictor.  EEEWW!  I made sure you got a good bath that day.

This is the only one you had to think about.  You waited until most of the other kids had held it and you were almost the last one in line.  Still, braver than me.  No way I was going near it.

Iguana.

Ms. Zeldin asked you to be a banner carrier at the graduation ceremony.  I think you were a teeny bit nervous but you did great.

The two teachers on the left behind you were your teachers this year.  Ms. Zeldin in black and Ms. Hansen in the blue patterned dress.  Ms. Hansen is tops in your book.

And finally, after a long, long ceremony, you got to carry out the Pre-K banner.  You kids were real troopers.

Daddy's father's day gift.

Grill stuff!

We have a summer reading chart from the library to log your reading and earn prizes.  You informed Daddy after he initialed one of the spots that his handwriting is "dreadful."

The first week of summer camp you learned about different jobs that support our community.  One of those was mail carriers, so you each got to mail a letter to yourselves.  Here's yours: