Graduation Girl

Despite my best efforts to keep it from happening, Amelia has finished her pre-school career.  Next year (actually, in two short months), it is the real deal.  Her pre-school graduation was a little emotional for me.  I really love her pre-school and can only hope that we have an equally wonderful experience in grade school.

Because I'm a bit neurotic, we got to graduation almost 45 minutes early.  I WAS NOT THE FIRST PARENT!  I was actually the 4th!  Luckily, we still got a front row spot right where Amelia was sitting.  Luckily, Henry was pretty entertained by sitting in Amelia's chair, getting up, and then sitting back in it again.

Here come the graduates!

She was ALL smiles!

There was lots of singing going on!

And sitting like a lady!

Amelia claimed she wants to be an actress when she grows up!  I can see that!

Amelia and  one of her teachers, Ms. Thompson.

Amelia and her buddy, Kendra.

I am not exaggerating, when I say that she took the time to individually talk to each of her classmates after graduation.  Most of the other kids had changed out of their cap and gown and enjoyed treats, but Amelia was too busy socializing.

Amelia with her main lady, Mrs. Higgins.  She has been with her for TWO years now.  I'd really like to make it three actually...

Amelia (finally out of her gown) and Shannon.

Amelia had quite the cheering section:  Grandma

GG

And mom, dad, and Henry!

So proud of my lady and excited to see what the future holds!

It's on to Kindergarten now, I guess!

Best. Big. Sister.

As if it wasn't enough for Amelia to voluntarily share her ice cream with Henry, she also called me a "hero" after I licked around her dripping cone for her. All in a day's work, I guess.

Drama Queen

The other day, Amelia and I were butting heads a bit.  You know, I made her clean her room (gasp!) and have quiet time for awhile (call DFS).  Everything that day was a VERY. BIG. DEAL. She was obviously exhausted, but refused to nap.  Instead, she decided to do a little drawing during her "quiet time". 

It seemingly starts out innocently enough, that's Tom and Jerry in the middle there in blue. But, after that it went down hilll a bit.  Do you see the blue hear with the "x" over it? I am not sure where the "dam" comes from.  My guess is that she was trying to write "mad" and got a little dyslexic.  (I hope that's it anyway!  To my knowledge, she doesn't know the word "damn").  Then comes Dad's name, followed by "mom" which has been crossed out.  Ouch.  And those blue oval-shaped objects on the left?  Those are tears.  And poor Amelia in red with her bow and cute flipped out hair is very, very sad.

It would seem that my little girl has a bit of flair for the dramatic already!  I explained to her that it is a great idea to write and draw pictures when she is feeling mad or sad, but that she should do it in her top secret diary so that no one sees it and gets their feelings hurt.

But just between you and me, I am actually a little glad I did see it....this time at least.

A Little Fishy

Amelia has been BEGGING to go fishing for years now.  I'm not exaggerating, years.  So, when we made up our "Summer Fun List" (coming in a future post), "go fishing" was number 3 on the list right after "celebrate Amelia's 5th birthday" and "go swimming".

On a routine trip to the local sporting goods store, Amelia somehow talked Jason into purchasing her a very pink fishing pole.  So, the next Saturday morning when Amelia was up before 6 AM (!), Jason decided to seize the moment and hit the lake.  They stopped first for donuts, and then worms. And by 6:45 they had her pole in the water.  She was lucky enough to catch TWO fish!  Very exciting for the little lady.  It would seem, though, when talking to her that her favorite part of the experience was all of the snacking she got to do....

And she was paying attention too!  When her most recent issue of Missouri Conservation's Xplor magazine came, she pointed out the two different types of fish that she caught.  Skeptical, I sent Jason a message asking to confirm what type of fish they caught that morning.  Turns out she was right on!

She is already asking when they can go again.  Fishing is really not my thing at all, so I am glad this is something she and Jason can do together.

Bird Bling

I really loved this idea that I came across awhile ago.  We have lots of fabric scraps, string, ribbons, etc. laying around the house that, quite honestly, drive me crazy.  We didn't have the same fancy wire as the Whimsy Love author, so we copied her pipe cleaner version.

I formed a cage, of sorts, using some sparkly pipe cleaners leftover from our Pot o' Gold craft. Amelia got to work stuffing it with odds and ends that we thought a mother bird may be able to use to build a nest for her babies.

 We decided the perfect spot to hang it was near our bird feeder itself.  Both the "cage" and the bird feeder hang from a tree that can be viewed perfectly through our kitchen window. Amelia checks it constantly and always reports to me what she observes.

Our cage of goodies has been up for about a month now and it appears the birds have been taking some items.  I've actually yet to see it with my own eyes, but there are definitely supplies missing and we've seen a few pieces scattered in our yard far away from the cage itself.  We will have to repeat this craft early next spring when the nest-building frenzy first starts!

Back!

On the day Jason was supposed to get home from his week long European tour, his plane got delayed by a couple of hours.  I was about 20 minutes away from a breakdown when he walked in bearing many chocolates for me!

And fun goodies for the kids too!  Henry got a VW Beetle model car and Amelia was delighted with her "diamond" Eiffel Tower necklace and hand mirror.

But better than the gifts, of course, was the return to a two parent household.  Thankfully, Jason is done with traveling for awhile!

A New Kind of Dress Up

It is not rare for Amelia to play dress up. In fact, she often spends entire days dressed as someone else.  What is rare, however, is for her not to be dressed as a princess or other Disney female character. 

She isn't quite princess free in this picture, but one can hope we may be making tiny baby steps in that direction!

Dinner Time

Being that I have about a million "messy eating" baby pictures of Amelia when she was little, I thought I better do a little catch up with poor baby #2.  Near the end of Jason's one week departure, I was feeling a bit lazy, so I heated up a bowl of Gerber spaghetti O's, gave it to Henry with a spoon, and let him go at it.  It was going to be a bath night regardless, so I just stood by, watched, and snapped a few pictures.

Up in the Sprinkler

While Jason was sending me pictures like this....

 I was sending him pictures like this....

It is amazing how much faster the days go by with a little time in the ol' sprinkler.

Mother's Day 2011

Mother's Day this year was a little different than I would have planned.  Jason left the day before for a week long trip to Brussels and Paris.  Fortunately, before departing, he and Amelia worked up a few surprises for her to execute on her own.

First, she surprised me with breakfast in bed!  Although I was a little nervous, she instructed me to stay in bed and "DO NOT COME DOWNSTAIRS"! I heard lots of banging, but in a few short minutes, she had carried up a rather heavy Pyrex tray with my breakfast!  Chocolate donuts, cereal (without milk) and cups for juice.  Then, she went back down to bring up the drinks so I could pour them.  It was a delicious breakfast and a great way to start my morning!

She also gave me a hand-painted tea cup from Paint the Moon.  I guess I didn't get a picture of it, but it is absolutely beautiful! I will have to add a picture of it next time I update.

On very short notice, my dad came across 4 tickets to the Cardinal's game on Mother's Day.  It was our luck that it was "Mini Pink Bat Day".  I'm sure you can imagine who was VERY excited about that.  Perhaps you can also imagine who's bat was taken away approximately 10 minutes after receiving it...

I had some pretty serious concerns about taking Henry-busy-body to a baseball game.  It was pretty hot that day and the game started right when he usually goes down for his afternoon nap.  Surprisingly, he hung in, though.  My dad vowed to wrestle with him during the game and it worked out well.  We left in the 6th inning which was quite a bit later than I thought we'd be staying!

Snacks and drinks got us though (and luckily some shade a little later on).

As you can see, Miss Amelia was pretty fancied up for the game.  Ruby reds and all.  I really do not know where she gets the desire to be so fancy all of the time.  It certainly is NOT from her mother!

It was a really fun day, even if it was without Jason. I am so happy I got to spend it with my mom, too!