Coloring eggs

On the Saturday of Easter weekend, we colored Easter eggs!










On Easter, we ate some of the eggs! (We don't all like eggs, but we all tried them anyway!)

The Kindergarten Easter Party

Holy Family Kindergarten has a long-standing tradition of having a party for every holiday, and each holiday party has its own traditions to boot!

For Easter, a family that lives off of Diamond Ave. hosts an Easter Egg Hunt in their gardens. This family has been doing this since their 23-year-old daughter was in Kindergarten. They have Easter decorations all over their house, and their gardens have lots of great hiding places for eggs.

One of the parents always dresses up in the Easter Bunny costume and greets the children when they arrive at the house. Then each child gets to take a picture with the Easter Bunny.

(Nick and I went over to help hide the eggs before the Kindergarteners walked over. Nick saw the Easter Bunny and declared "that's not the real Easter Bunny. That's a person in a costume. The real Easter Bunny is magic.")

(Last month he shocked Eric and I when at bedtime he announced, "Santa is not real." I found out later that he was telling us he's not a real person, he's a magic person.)

After the Kindergarteners follow the bunny pawprints on their walk over from school, they greet the Easter Bunny, hunt for their eggs, and have time for craft and game stations, and then they have snack: cupcakes!








Nick was wearing a bear hat for the second day in a row. He was a bear.

Meet the Masters

This school year, I am a Kindergarten docent in the "Meet the Masters" program. Each month, we teach the students about an artist and lead them in an art project highlighting an art technique relevant to that artist.

So far, we have taught them about Joan Miro, Henri de Toulouse-Latrec, Paul Gaugin, Georges Seurat, and Auguste Renoir.

For April, I was not the lead docent, so I was able to take a few pictures to share with you.

The Master this month was Rembrandt. He was very deliberate about what was in the light and what was in the shadows. Therefore, we taught the students about identifying a light source and then shading the people or objects in their art work. Since Rembrandt was Dutch, the children drew windmills!

3rd Grade Literature Tea

The 3rd grade recently completed their March book reports. They read abridged versions of classic novels ("The Wizard of Oz," "Moby Dick," "Treasure Island," "Anne of Green Gables," etc.)

On the day of the Literature Tea, they arrived dressed as a character from their book, and the teacher interviewed them as if they were on a TV talk show. Halfway through, they had the "Tea." Parents brought in lemonade, iced tea, cookies and brownies, and served them to the kids, who had made floral centerpieces for their desks.

Katie was Prince Edward from "The Prince and the Pauper." She and Grandma made the costume during Grandma's visit.



Julianna helped Katie by wearing her backpack on the walk to school.






Katie's group: Prince Edward, Heidi, Anne (who told us she was from "Nova Scott-y-a which is in Oregon I think"), Peter Pan, and Robin Hood

Post-Its are fun

The girls like to play with post-its from time to time. They enjoy making labels for everything and sticking them all over the place.

The other day, after school, I was watching them make labels together: couch, door, oven, microwave, book, chair, etc. etc. etc.

After a while, I wandered upstairs and found Dino asleep on my bed:

Father-Daughter Dance!

The Holy Family Girl Scout Troops hosted a Father-Daughter Dance. Katie and her Daddy went out to dinner first with some other Daddy-Daughter pairs.

At the dance, they learned the swing step, and some line dancing, and the girls got to have the floor to themselves for some jumping around!

They got home late from their fun night together!

Katie is trying volleyball

I talked Katie into joining the YMCA's new volleyball league! She's got practice on Mondays and games on Sundays. The league lasts two months. I am very proud of her for agreeing to give it a try!


This is during a game. She's on the front line, in the "ready position" (except she needs to get her hands ready too!).



This picture is fun: Katie practicing violin after coming home from volleyball practice!

Jog-a-thon

The Kindergarten:

The Third Grade:

The original Jog-a-thon date had to be postponed due to rain, but we managed to hold the Jog-a-thon this week!

What a pretty day - a bit on the chilly side, but sunny - perfect for an hour of running!

I was the Volunteer Coordinator, and from my vantage point everything seemed to go well...

Julianna and the rest of the Kindergarteners were new to the Jog-a-thon, so I went to their classroom beforehand to tell them how it works. Later, several parents came in to help pin the lap cards to their shirts and walk them over to the track.

The Olympic theme was playing as all of the students arrived at the track and found their grade's headquarters. Then more energetic music started, while the kids warmed up and got ready.

After everyone gathered together for a prayer, the students went back to their grade's starting point, and it was "Ready, Set, Go!"

Julianna stuck with her friends or her sister, running some but mostly walking, and completed 10 laps! The same as Katie's Kindergarten number.



Katie did some running with her friends, some running on her own, some run/walking with Julianna, and some running with me. She completed 15 laps, the same as last year. She and I both think she could have done more, as there were a few laps when she wanted to run, but walked with Julianna instead.



All in all, good job!!



Here is a video, if you are able to watch it:
It starts with the Kindergarteners taking off on their first lap.
Then watch for Katie waving as she runs by (about a third of the way through her first lap).
Then Julianna and her friends come walking in as they finish their first lap.
Later, we see Katie has joined Julianna's group for a bit.

Last weekend

On the spur of the moment, we found out that my friend Jodie and her kids were in Newport Beach last weekend visiting her dad! We dropped everything and drove down there to see her on Saturday, and Wendy did too:

We played a bit at the Balboa Fun Zone and spent a little time on the beach.


Then on Sunday, the girls and I met Darell, Kathryn, and Kathryn's mom Maddie at the Huntington. We had a lovely time visiting the gardens and the European art gallery. It was my first visit to the new Chinese garden:

Funny!

Good Eats

Nick and I would like to show you what we did Thursday morning!

We baked an apple pie!

Here's our chef mixing the pie filling.


Now he's putting it into the crust.


We made it an open-faced pie, because we only had one pie crust dough in the refrigerator (store bought, but that's why we were making the pie - because we had a crust in the fridge!).

It's ready to go in the oven!


While it's baking, Nick would like to show you the tool he used for the apples:


I didn't take a picture while he was using it; I was too busy holding it steady for him while he cranked the handle.

He loved this tool! He did ALL the apples himself!

The pie is done! As you can see, we served it to everyone in the family after dinner!


YUM!

Where did February go?

Hmmm. It's March now.

I'm not sure how that happened.

I feel like I've been buried under a huge pile of volunteer duties. I can think of three big things right off the top of my head that I've been working on during the last two weeks.

I've also been going to the gym a bit more. I've been pretty good about going to a class twice a week since early October, and during the last couple of weeks I have been extra focused on making sure I get there. I am seeing NO RESULTS. Wheee!

We got to see Darell and Kathryn a few times, between hitting them up for babysitting and watching Westridge girls' basketball with them. We get to see them and Kathryn's mom this coming weekend!

We also got to see Noni twice! Katie missed her the first time, because she was at Catherine's sleepover birthday party. It was on Friday the 13th. Some of the girls decided they had better stay up until Saturday because it would be creepy to sleep on Friday the 13th. I don't have to tell you if Katie was one of them!

Well, I did manage a few photos this month:

Nick's friend Sean came over and they played with cars in the living room!




Nick and I had a little Mardi Gras celebration together. He said he wanted to go to the donut shop, and I decided I could shell out the $0.85 for our date!


The kids and I went to the zoo the other day. We enjoy reading maps! (We also enjoy watching industrious little orangutans!)





This month we started letting Turbo go outside in the back yard! He is very happy with the arrangement!



This photo tells two stories. One, Julianna lost one of her front teeth on Ash Wednesday during school!

And two, you can see the big scratch on her face where Turbo attacked her! She was playing outside with Alyssa and Nick, and Turbo ran up, jumped up and attacked her face! She was very upset. SO WAS I. GAH.


But let's move on. Here's another photo, taken just three days later when another tooth fell out!

You can see that the scratch is almost gone already. Phew.

I think the tooth fairy is moving in! Since January 22nd, Julianna and Katie have lost seven teeth! Seven! (Katie four and Julianna three.)

In fact, they lost four during the last week of February alone, including one each last Saturday! That's right, a double-tooth-fairy-visit!

And it's not over: Julianna has one more loose one, and Katie has three loose teeth!

They are falling out left and right around here!

Poor Nick keeps pulling on his teeth and despairing "when will I lose a tooth?" I can't blame him feeling left out right now! But he visited the dentist this month and I saw his x-rays. None of his teeth are getting ready to come out, in case you are remembering that Katie lost her first two when she was 4.5!

As for Eric, he started February with the big downsizing at his company, and now he's ending February with jury duty. That's right, he's on a jury.