All Finished

Catherine and Will finished up their preschool year last week. They both had a great year and really enjoyed their teachers and classmates. I'm always encouraged to see the fun things they're learning and making.

Catherine's class had a special Mother's Day morning for the moms a few weeks ago. Catherine made me this picture at her seat.

And they sang some really cute songs about the mommy's. Her teacher had also asked them a series of questions about their moms. One question was "What's your favorite food your mom cooks?" Catherine's answer "Any kind of meat. I like meat." She also said I was as pretty as a flower, if I were an animal I would be a fluffy white dog, and that my favorite tv show is Curious George.

To finish up her choir class at church, they sang in the evening worship service on Mother's Day. She has loved, loved, loved choir and was very excited to sing. (This isn't the greatest picture, but it was kind of a crazy experience because there was no nursery and Anna was crawling and screaming and Will wanted to stand on the pew and Jay was out of town. But Catherine is in the middle with the red headband.)

On the final day of preschool we had a picnic with the families and teachers. Here's Catherine and her friend Anna Louise with Ms. Julie (left) and Ms. Janice (right). They are super-star preschool teachers!

And here's Will with Ms. Shaney (left) and Ms. Heather (right). They have unbelievable patience and energy to be excited about a classroom full of 2 and 3 yr olds each day! Will really grew socially a lot in their class this year and was excited every week to go see "his boys" and play.

Now we're excited for summer and already planning lots of fun activities!

Catherine's Art Show

Catherine took an art class this semester at the CAT studio and loved it! No surprise there :) She was so excited every week to go and learn new techniques and be creative. Although she did say her favorite part of art class each week was when she had "free art" and could draw whatever she wanted to in her sketchbook. Last night her class had their art show so we could view everyone's creations. It was so fun to see the creativity and work of 4-8 year olds.

Catherine's sculpture is on the right--made from wood, pipes, fabrics, paints. They worked for about 6 weeks on this piece and did it all themselves, even drilling holes in the wood. On the left is her horizon painting, one of our personal favorites. (and it only took her 15 mins to do it!)
On the right is her line drawing. They used some kind of doodle cars (I'm not exactly sure what that is) to draw lines and have intersecting points. Then they were only given a few paint colors--red, green, yellow, a little white and a little black. And look how colorful and creative this huge painting is. Her teacher said it was a lesson in perseverance to do such a large piece.

Catherine's personal favorite is her watercolor still life of a vase of flowers. They have these great watercolor crayons that then turn to paint when you wet them. This was her favorite activity of the entire semester.
And my other personal favorite is her Expression Face. They could paint a face with any kind of expression they wanted. She said this person is scared and screaming. I think it's great!!
We've already signed her up for two art camps this summer and I'll try to be as creative as I can to encourage her passion. I always wanted to be artistic and creative, but I am so thankful God gave Catherine this gift. It's so much fun to see her express herself and her imagination through her drawings and masterpieces!

Anna at 13 months

Sweet and spunky Anna is now 13 months old! Her little personality is really starting to shine and she makes us laugh. She can be so laid-back and funny, but if she doesn't get what she wants she will scream and let you know. I guess as the 3rd child she has learned how to speak up!

Her favorite hobby is definitely playing in the pantry. She even managed to open the veggie sticks this time and get a snack. You'd think I don't feed the child the way she rambles through the pantry.

Her other big accomplishment this week is learning to walk! She'll only do it while pushing a toy (like this stroller) but we're really excited for her. She did discover quite the dilemma though. She usually has 2 fingers in her mouth and holds her blanket with her other hand. But she can't do both of those and push the stroller too. It took her a few tries to figure out how to put the blanket on the stroller while she walks. She won't go anywhere without that blanket!
Her hair is starting to grow more and she's getting those cute little curls on the back. It reminds me so much of Catherine at this age.
She went for her 1 yr checkup today and she weighs 20lbs 3 oz (26%) and is 30 inches long (66%). She is having some trouble with recurring ear and sinus infections. She actually had an ear infection today that I didn't suspect, even though she just finished a 2 week round of antibiotics this weekend. So we're trying a different type of antibiotics to see if we can get it cleared up.

She definitely has 2 or 3 hernias above her belly button, just like Catherine. So we'll keep watching those and at some point in the next year or two probably do surgery to correct those. We also had her tested for the milk allergy in the past month. It appears that she has a mild and delayed allergy. She develops a rash and hives, but not for a few hours. While it's inconvenient to avoid milk, this is actually good news about the allergy. It's not the kind of allergy that's going to cause anaphylactic shock and it's likely that she'll outgrow it before she's 5 years old. We'll just recheck every 6-12 months and until then avoid milk.

Overall she's doing great and is such a blessing to our family!

Farm Field Trip

On Friday, I went with Catherine and her K4 class to a farm in Blue Ridge. Catherine was very excited for me to go with since I missed the other 2 field trips she had this year (once I was sick and once I was out of town). The weather was very beautiful and we had a great time.

Catherine's favorite animal to see and pet was the bunny rabbits. They were so soft.

Anna had fun on the field trip too. They had a fire truck there (not really sure why) and she liked her pink fire hat.

They played some fun field day games with the kids. The girls had lots of fun with tug-o-war and beat the boys!

They were really cute in their potato sack race.

Lots of cute girls on the tire tractors before we had our picnic lunch and hay ride.

We had a great day and I'm so glad I got to go with Catherine. I can't believe she'll be done with K4 in a few weeks and then we'll be getting ready for kindergarten!!