A little bit of this and a little bit of that

Sarah doing the obstacle course at Extreme Air. She loved it and did it 4 or 5 times.

Brock and Sarah chatting at Grandma and Grandpa M's home on Mother's Day.

Matthew waving the construction flag at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Matthew tends to be an early riser. This means that he sometimes falls asleep early at night.

Matthew loves dressing like his daddy.

One of Megan and Matthew's many Duplo creations.

Megan and Olaf.

Preschool: Papa Piccolo

For our last book of the year, we read Papa Piccolo. It is about a male cat living in Venice who adopts two stray kittens. Megan and Matthew loved it! We learned about Italy and Venice, including watching some videos on Venice and how to steer gondolas. They acted out a lot of the words used in the book like feasting, begging, leaping and prancing. We painted watercolor pictures (the story has beautiful watercolor in it). We discussed fatherhood and adoption. Megan and Matthew also did a project on primary and secondary colors by placing drops of the primary colors on an art wheel and then mixing the colors. They loved that and did it over and over and over again!

Putting drops of colored water on the color wheel.

Finished product.

Close up.

Megan and Matthew continue making compound words all the time. Sometimes their formations are a bit interesting (dividing a phrase/word that isn't actually a compound word). But they definitely get the idea.
What does 'fire' plus 'truck' equal? 'firetruck!'
What does 'ham' plus 'burger' make? 'hamburger!'
What does 'ma' plus 'scetti' equal? 'mascetti!!' (actual example from right now with Megan speaking about spaghetti.)

Definitely a fun book to do and a fun year of preschool!

WARNING!

Do not come to our house if you value having all your teeth in your mouth! We seem to have some sort of weird disease going around which makes you lose teeth. It started in April when Sarah and then Megan each lost a tooth. In May, Megan and then Sarah lost a tooth. Sarah's even came out the night before her birthday, showing that this disease is truly not discerning in who it affects. The most disturbing part? The girls don't seem to mind losing their teeth and even seem to look forward to the small creature who trespasses into our home and exchanges their cast off teeth for money. Megan says that they should be called the "losed tooth sisters."

Megan showing her new smile.

With the pliers and tooth.

Happy Sarah!

Feed My Starving Children

This past week, we went to Feed My Starving Children. It was Megan and Matthew's first time going and they enjoyed it. Megan scooped lots of food into bags. Matthew started out doing that and then switched to helping U hold the bags while food was poured in. He told U that he (Matthew) had three jobs (opening bags, cleaning up food spilled on the table and weighing the bags) while U had just one (holding bags). Glad to know he sees that he is contributing! Sarah was a boxer, taking the sealed bags, stacking them and then putting them in boxes.

Styling our hairnets.

Sarah's glamour shot.

Something NOT to do

Sarah learned something that she'd like to share about what NOT to do. When you are mowing the lawn, you should NOT put the keys in the grass. Instead, consider putting them inside the house.

If you leave them in the grass, the following may happen:

Here's our attempt at piecing it back together.

We never have been able to find the house key that was on the keyring.

Sarah's 11th birthday!

Sarah had a birthday, shout hooray!

Sarah says she turned 11. That's b in hexadecimal and 1011 in binary. How did she get to be so old??? Since it was her birthday, we thought it proper to celebrate.

Sarah with her gifts. Megan and Matthew were really excited to get her that little birthday balloon.

With Megan and Matthew after opening their gift. Besides the balloon, they gave her hand sanitizer, gel pens, twizzlers and a glow stick.

Sarah with her gifts. She REALLY wanted an American Girl doll and so requested that we combine resources to get it for her. She was super excited to get Lea, the doll of the year. 

Lea got some extra clothes, including some that Grandma O made.

Hi Lea.

Sarah requested strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Make a wish.

Yum!

It has been fun to watch Sarah as she matures. It's nice to have conversations about serious subjects and to see her think deeply about matters of importance. And of course, she's lots of fun to be with.

She had a few fun school projects at the end of the year. One was creating a pop bottle character from a book she'd read. She chose to make Serafina from Serafina and the Black Cloak. It turned out well and I'd hoped to get a picture but Sarah disassembled her before I could snap one. For math, she got to furnish her dream home with dream furnishings. And she certainly had plenty of money--she needed to spend exactly $300,000 including tax. She enjoyed shopping for beds and tvs and all the other items necessary for a home. And her yard was awesome; you'd definitely want to come and play--she had a swingset, a playhouse, a trampoline, an outdoor furniture set and a swimming pool.

11 year old stats:
Weight: 82 pounds (50%)
Height: 57.5 inches (50+%)

Sarah's birthday party

Thursday, we went to Amazing Jakes with one of Sarah's friends to celebrate her birthday. Amazing Jakes is a fun center with an all-you-can-eat buffet consisting of pasta, pizza, soup and salad plus some dessert and a few rides, bowling, laser tag and video games. Everyone enjoyed playing laser tag together a few times. U won, of course, even the time his laser gun wasn't working for half of the game.

You may notice that we don't have as many pictures of Sarah and Shruthi as of Megan and Matthew. That's because you have to see them to be able to get a picture and Sarah and Shruthi were running virtually non-stop from one place to another. Glad they had fun together!

Sarah and her friend Shruthi.

Sarah and Shruthi spinning fast on the tea cups. 

These tea cups can spin both faster and slower than the ones at Disneyland. I chose to not spin at all.

Megan liked spinning fast.

Our neighbors were there too. Here Megan and Matthew are riding with Leah.

Sarah and Shruthi on the Frog Hopper. It may not go as high as Jumpin Jellyfish at Disneyland, but it does a better job bouncing you down.

Megan.

U and Matthew.

Megan, Me, Shruthi, Sarah, Leah and Matthew.

U and Megan on the Grand Prix.

Matthew and me. We were in the lead car and zoomed right out of there! It was super fun.

Megan on bumper cars.

More science fun

Megan and Matthew really enjoyed their science preschool class. Here are some more of the projects they did.

Here Megan is with the bird feeder that she made.

Giraffe Matthew and Cheetah (or Leopard-she can't decide which) Megan. They're holding the cows they made as well.

Roaring Megan.

With their ladybug jars.

They were special helpers a couple of times. Here they are with their special helper badges.

Showing off what they shared on their special helper day.

With their teacher, Ms. Penny. She was the head teacher for the science class and also helped with their ABC class.

This is the teacher from their first class (the ABC one), Ms. Dori. Megan loved bringing her gifts and pictures while she was in the science class.

Field Trip: Veterans Oasis Park

Megan, Matthew and I went on a field trip to Veterans Oasis Park. It was a nice day and we enjoyed wandering around the lake, spotting wildlife and exploring the Environmental Education Center. There's lots to look at in the Environmental Education Center; they enjoyed seeing the animals (like snakes, a tortoise and a scorpion), doing puzzles and reading books.

Cute kids!

Look at me!

Matthew and his stick.

Megan and Matthew drawing with sticks. We drew letters, shapes and numbers for each other.

A rabbit. We saw three of them. We also saw lizards, lots of birds including quail, geese and ducks and dragonflies.

Trying on antlers.

Matthew sitting on the tortoise.

Megan on the tortoise with her faithful companion beside her.