First Day of School

Today was Jocelyn's first day of 4K!  She was so excited - absolutely no nervousness around here!  I was so glad - I wasn't quite sure how it'd go.  She didn't even want to brush her teeth this morning - "No, I don't want to brush my teeth!  I'm too excited to leave!"  She barely said goodbye when I dropped her off - had to call her back to give me a hug.  Phew!  That was probably best for both of us...it was a tear free morning! 

 

Eating breakfast with Daddy and watching a show

 

It was frozen outside, but she had a cute new outfit that she was saving for the first day, so she toughed it out for some cute outside pictures. 

 

I wanted to make a sign for the first day, and while perusing many Pinterest sites, I decided that I wanted to have her write her own sign so I could see how her handwriting changes from year to year.  I also didn't help her spell any of the words...I wanted to see that too.  But of course when you're doing projects with Jocelyn one is never enough!  So I had to do one, and she wanted to do a fancy one with decorative letters.  So, we have 3 signs!

 

 

And now the family pictures

 

And the backpack pictures

 She looks about 8 in this picture

 

And we're off!

 

And then Mommy headed to Target where I spent an hour and a half browsing!  (we did really need a lot of stuff too).  I've decided that 3 1/2 hours sounds like a lot more than it actually is.  I didn't get nearly as much done as I thought I would.  Oh well - it'll probably take a while to get used to that too. 

 

She had a great day - she liked art and writing the best, got to sit on the letter J at circle time, had blue jello and blueberries for snack, and made a new friend - she couldn't remember her name, but she has the same leggings as her, so they're sure to be fast friends.

 

I could tell she was pretty tired on the way home - she was up earlier than normal, and with all the excitement and activities they did I was sure she'd take a nap.  She didn't, but did rest in her room for a bit.  Then she was complaining of a headache, so I let her watch some TV.  I had to go to a meeting at work, and when I got home she had fallen asleep in the hammock with Calvin.  She was pretty clingy, and isn't feeling well - had a tiny fever, and didn't eat any supper.  She asked to go to bed at 5:45, and was out in about 2 minutes.  So, hopefully it was just all the wildness of today and she's back to normal tomorrow.  Although I have a bit of a sore throat, so we're probably getting back to school sickness!

Artwork & projects

Here's a sampling of her latest artwork

 

On the swings

 A picture for me she made at day care

 A turtle

 She took some art classes this summer thru Community Ed, and they were great.  Just an hour on Friday, and you could sign up for them individually, so I picked the ones she'd enjoy the most.

Baking clay

  A cat - there was an artist they learned about too (don't remember his name)

 We checked out a beginning reader book from the library - "I Go Up".  She made this book all on her own - didn't ask for any help.  I just helped her assemble it once she was done - she wanted to put the cover on like she was wrapping a present.

 

The F is for front

 So she copied the whole book and drew pictures that went along with each page.  I was so proud of her - what a precious girl.

 One Sunday Calvin and I both fell asleep on the couch, and Jocelyn of course didn't want to nap.  I was half awake listening to what she was doing.  She made this sign for the dogs.  "Ellie is the best" is what she wanted to write - I think she felt guilty and added Ginger too.  When I woke up and was cleaning up, I noticed that she had taped it to Ellie - her fur was stuck to the tape.  What a patient dog she is!

I love Pinterest.  I could literally spend hours wasting time on Pinterest.  But I really have found a lot of cute ideas there.  So, I've decided I'm going to actually try some of the projects.  What a novel idea!  This was our first one - a cute doll that Jocelyn made herself (mostly).  She drew the pattern, cut it out, helped pin it on the fabric, I cut the fabric, and with my help sewed the face on!  She was really good with the needle - I was impressed.  I don't have lacing cards, so I wasn't sure how she'd do, but she did really well.  After that she got a little bored, so I stitched around the doll with my machine, and put the hair in then as well.  But she came back to stuff her, and then I finished off the hand stitching of the stuffing hole.  Her best comment - "I didn't know people could make dolls!"  Guess we need to do more sewing projects!

 Another idea - making bird feeders with gelatin and birdseed.  It worked great - was relatively mess free, and easy enough for her to do a lot of with little help.

 Today was our last Monday before 4K starts.  I kept asking her what she wanted to do, but she couldn't come up with anything she really wanted to do, so we just had a fun project and hang out day.  While I was making breakfast she went outside and chalked.

 

Her mermaid

 House

 Heart with a "bone and arrow"

 Me and my precious girl

 We colored a pillowcase with fabric markers

 We went on a bike ride to the park and found lots of treasures along the way.  She really likes finding acorns, and the park we went to has a ton of oak trees.  I had read about this idea in a magazine, so we decided to give it a try.  We found lots of treasures, and made a book with them.  We used zipper plastic bags for pages to keep the treasures in and I made her write the words.  It's so neat to see her spelling and how she sounds out words.  She thought of the title for her book and was so proud of all the hard work she did! 

 A sampling of the book - each page started out 'We saw'.  We had 6 baggies of leaves...she decided she wanted to write 'We saw 13 leaves' and put all the baggies after that instead of writing 6 pages of 'We saw leaves'.  Pretty smart!

This was her last page, and her best idea.  I had found this stick and thought it was cool because it looked like a Y.  She thought it looked like a 4, and said for the last page she wanted to say that she was 4 when she wrote the book!  Her little mind is so amazing to me.  I know she's almost 5, but she still seems tiny to me, and way too young to be thinking like this.  Kids can do way more than we give them credit for!

 This was from Friday, and has nothing to do with artwork, but I love this picture!

So, that's all I'm going to say about her last Monday.  We had a blast and that's that.  I'll have a hard enough time at 4K orientation tomorrow night, no need to start crying about it now.  And, you're now all caught up on our summer!  Hard to believe it's here and gone, but we really did have fun, and are excited for the routine and fall season that back to school brings.

Mud

Saturday it was hot.  And I refused to turn the air back on.  I hate air conditioning (although I have loved it this summer) and am excited to sleep with the windows open again.  Kailee was working on homework and Calvin was working, so I decided Jocelyn and I needed a pool day. 

I feel like a lot of the time when I'm home with her I'm trying to get too many things done at once, and hardly ever just take an afternoon and really play.  We go places and do things, but it's not often we sit at home and play together. I think because 4K is right around the corner I'm realizing that my time with her is really drawing to an end...next year she'll be in school full time and we won't have our Mondays and Fridays to hang out.  So I'm making more of an effort to ditch the other stuff that I could be doing and just be with my girl.

So we both got our suits on and had a blast splashing in the pool - getting each other wet and throwing water for Ellie to jump at.  We giggled and giggled!  Then she got some water outside of the pool on our yard weed filled dust bowl.  "Look, mud!"  And at first I said no - ick - stay out of the mud.  Then I thought, who really cares?  Not like the yard is going to get ruined, and dirt washes off in the tub.  So, we brought the hose over and made a really big mud puddle.  She thought it was awesome; built things with it, squished it and we had fun tossing mud balls back and forth.  Yep, she was filthy, but a quick shower fixed that. 

State Fair

Ahh, the great Minnesota get together.  This year Katie, Ella & Ty were in town, so they came with us as well.  Katie had never been before, and asked what we liked about the fair.  Hmmm - good question!  Why do we go year after year?  Because we just love it, and it's tradition, and when else can you eat French fries and corn on the cob and cookies for breakfast?

We started out the day (after getting much needed coffee and scones) with the big slide.  It's been a Grandma and Jocelyn ride for the last 3 years.  This year Elliot was big enough to go too, and Ella gave it a try as well.

 Jocelyn was very excited that Elliot got to go with her on rides this year!  He got there before us, so he was scoping out the good rides.  The dinosaur one was the first one they tried, then it was on to the ferris wheel.

 After the ferris wheel, all 3 of them did the merry go round

 Ty slept thru the whole thing.  He did great - hardly heard a peep out of him the whole day!

 Ella and Elliot loved the fries!

 Didn't get many animal pictures...and I don't think I've ever gotten pictures of the kids petting ducks and turkeys before!