Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Mother's Day Tea

One of the highlights at preschool every year is the Mother's Day tea. We get to wear these awesome hats and have excellent snacks together.





We also had the annual "Guess Whose Mom This is." There was no question with Molly. The initial giveaway was the purple eyes and...accessories? But her answers were also a dead giveaway. It's hard to read, but it says:
My mom is 20 years old.
My mom is the prettiest when she goes to church with me
My mom likes to make cookies.
My mom always says I love you.
My mom is funny when she plays with me.

The Cactus

We have now had our first official run-in with a cactus. I guess that's inevitable when you live in Arizona. Molly had been playing in my parent's backyard for about 3 minutes when a heard horrible screaming. I went outside to rescue her from the hill and she was yelling "Mom!! Is it a hedgehog??!!" At first glance, she thought a hedgehog was stuck in her hand. After we cleared up that misunderstanding, we tried to get her calmed down so we could get to work getting it out. She had kicked it then tried to pull it out of her foot, so she had cactus in her foot and both hands. The whole ordeal took about an hour and a half, and culminated with Chris physically holding her down so I could pull the needles down. I had been holding her at first but she got too strong for me so Chris had to do it. If she knew any obscenities, there would have been streams of them coming out her mouth directed at Chris and I. As it was, she would mostly yell "Don't touch me! Don't come anywhere near me with that!!" etc., etc. Poor Claire was terrified at first so ran in the house. But after about 30 minutes, she pressed her nose up against the glass door and watched. After a minute she said through the door, "Good thing I didn't get any cactus stuck in me." What a nightmare!


Sunday, June 26, 2011

Swimming Lessons

This year we decided to try a new teacher for the girl's swimming lessons. We loved her! This is Claire's third year of swimming lessons, but she still struggled for the first couple of weeks. One day when Chris took her to lessons he sent me this picture, and it was the first time she had voluntarily gone under water. After that, she was a new woman and she hasn't looked back. I don't know what made it click, but I'm really glad because we have a lot more fun swimming now! Molly has been in a strokes class this year and loves it. I think she can do the butterfly better than I can! We took a shot at swim team with Molly this year but only lasted two days. She was feeling pretty nervous going into it, then when we got there it was chaotic and the water was ice cold. We had been swimming in cold pools before, but I think the combination of the stress and the cold water was enough to freak her out. She swam for about 15 minutes, but as soon as she caight my eye she ran over to me crying. We just watched for the rest of the lesson, then Chris tried to take her the next day and she threw a fit and said she wasn't getting anywhere near the water. That's when we called it quits!

Claire's Preschool Graduation

Some friends and I did a rotating preschool this year, and we decided to put on a little graduation for them. One of the moms made gowns out of black plastic tablecloths, and one of our last preschool days the kids made their caps out of an upside down plastic bowl, cardstock, and yarn for the tassle. They are such a great group of kids and I had so much fun teaching them!




Molly's Preschool Graduation

Molly is an official Little Light Preschool Alumni! They had quite a ceremony to commemorate the occasion.


The day of graduation they had a big water party.


Penny waiting patiently for the graduation to start.


All the graduates filing in. I thought they should have been playing Pomp and Circumstance; I guess I'll have to make that happen for Claire's graduation in two years!


They had a special Father's Day presentation since they miss it during the school year. All the dads had come in during one of the last weeks of school to build a birdhouse with their kids and they made a photo book of the occasion.


They gave out candy awards to each kid. Molly got the Lifesaver award for being such a big to help to anyone who needed it.


Their "graduation caps" were balloon hats. I think these pictures are funny because in the first one Molly looks worried that she's not going to get the hat she wants. When she ends up with the pink-and-purple unicorn she couldn't be any happier!



Lucky for Claire I did just barely enough helping out at the preschool to earn myself a special hat as well.

At the end of the graduation the kids did their Goodbye Song that they do at the end of every preschool day. That was the most emotional part of the graduation for me!


Molly with Grace and Ide, her two best preschool friends.


Molly's teacher, Ms. Nancy.


Ah, Gunner. I have to say I'm not sad to see these two part ways. I'm not ready for boys to be chasing after her yet!


Butterfly Release

In the spring we did a butterfly unit with Claire's preschool. After a week or so it was time to release them, so we had a couple of preschool kids come over for the party.




One of the butterflies flying away in the upper middle part of the picture.


There was one that got a slow start and let all the kids hold him before taking off.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Easter

This year for Easter I decided I was tired of filling baskets with little cheap toys that made their way in to the trash can by the next week, so each kid got one good toy in their basket. Probably not as fun for them, but it makes my life easier. And since the Easter bunny still makes everyone nervous, we still left the baskets outside on the front porch to be filled.


Easter morning is starting to look a little too close to Christmas morning for my taste. The kids were up at the crack of dawn to find their baskets. And the night before Molly asked if we should leave the Easter Bunny a plate of snacks like we do Santa, but I had to draw the line.




Chris was working so we went to my parent's ward for church and our annual Easter photo shoot. Claire was unfortunately pretty cranky so there's not too many shots of her.







The Sailboat Ride

My dad bought a sailboat a few months ago and we thought it would be really fun to take the girls sailing. It was actually a nightmare! It was a particularly windy day, so the boat was pretty wild, but I think even if there hadn't been any wind they still would have flipped out. Almost from the moment they stepped foot on the boat they were both screaming to get out. I made them take a lap around the lake then they couldn't get back to the dock fast enough. The complaints were that the boat was "too tippy" and they wanted a boat that had "taller sides." I keep hoping that this experience will encourage my dad to get another ski boat, but so far it hasn't worked.




It's hard to tell but in this picture they just barely stepped on the boat and are screaming at me to get back out.

Grandma Susu's Violin