Underwood Field Trip

 

Cora's class took a field trip to Underwood Family Farms to pick vegetables Wednesday.

I wasn't able to ride on the bus, since I had Violet. Genia and I rode together, with Owen and Violet. Thanks to Facebook, I gleaned some great photos from other parents who chaperoned. The bus ride, I hear, was fun but under control, since the children wore seatbelts and the high seat backs limited their interactions. Cora sat between Vivian and Sophia.

 

 Here's Cora and Vivian with first-graders Mikey, Gabe and Ian. Cora's "firsties" lucked out with this kindergarten field trip, since the rest of the school's first-graders were back at school.

After an educational presentation about how fruits and vegetables grow, it was time to board the tractors.

 

 We picked red-leaf lettuce, radishes, beets, bok choy and spinach.

Cora and Sophia, showing off their beets. Sophia has become Cora's favorite classmate; they've had several playdates, and are asking for more.

 I guess Cora was happier to have Violet along on the tractor ride than Violet?

Cora's class... I'll miss this group of children! I've really enjoyed interacting with them when I'm able to help in class.

After vegetable-picking, we had our picnic lunch together, and then explored the farm for about 40 minutes before it was time to pack up and head back to school.

It was a very nice day out, with perfect weather and no mishaps. I'm so pleased Violet and I were able to go.
Thanks to Sophia's mom Sue and Vivian's mom Elaine for many of these photos!

Mother's Day 2013

We had a great Mother's Day this year, starting out at church where there was a photo area set up for the moms, along with flowers and cupcakes.

I stayed on to help in the nursery for the second service. Our church has opened a second location in Newhall, to reach out to the community there and to relieve crowding at Valencia. Stace and I have committed to attend the Newhall campus for three months, to help get it started.

I came home to this beautiful spread of homemade cards, flowers, and pictures! I felt very loved.

I am so blessed to be their mummy!

Just a few minutes after I got home, while we were wishing Nan a happy birthday, the phone rang. It was Genia, asking about the afternoon... The night before, John and Stace made plans for she and I to go to the movies on our own.

The movie was sold out, but Genia and I had a great time shopping and lunching, on our own. Thanks, gentlemen!

 We were back out near the mall in the evening, when we met up with my own mom (and dad and Melly) for dinner at Lazy Dog. We had a very nice evening together. Love you, Mom!









Here, we're toasting our complimentary-to-all-moms champagne (mixed with mango nectar - yum!). I think Violet looks annoyed because we didn't give her any of our drink!

This is a closeup of the artful picture Stace made of the values we hope to instill in our girls, and live out in our family.

This picture is an idea we've been mulling over for a while, and I love the finished product.

I'd like to take the time to teach the girls about each trait in a deliberate way over the next few months. Maybe a good summer project?

Muffins with Mom, chillin' on the weekend

The mothers from Mrs. Hawthorne's class were treated Friday to "Muffins with Mom," an adorable set of songs devoted to their mommies. We also had gifts!

Cora drew some pictures of us together, and wrote out three coupons - one for making my bed, one for 10 hugs, and one for her picking flowers for me.

On our way back home, she was happy to hear I hadn't made my bed yet, and insisted I allow her to do so. When she finished, she even gave me the coupon back, so I can use it again in the future. I like that kind of coupon best!

You can hear the first song the children sang here. They continued on with four or five more, but my camera was running out of battery power.

Our Saturday was very relaxing. It was a warm one, so after soccer, we knew we were headed to the pool. Thankfully, Genia was more than happy to bring her kids too. Stace had a lot of fun with them in the water, while Genia and I chatted.

Owen loves to relax - above, you can see his favorite relaxing pose. He and Violet are having their post-dinner drink together; cheers! They are such an "old couple!"
They bicker and argue and laugh and play and follow each other around.

Thrilling Thursday

Violet is in her last few weeks of "My Buddy and Me," so Stacey wanted to take her one last time. He worked it out with Rigo, who also went Thursday to play with Liana.

I'm not sure who had more fun with Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, daddy or daughter.

While I'm on the subject of Violet, here are a couple of Violetisms:

About an hour after we put her to bed, we hear: "Mom, I need some help getting this feather out of my nose."

And...

Me: "Violet, you need to listen to my words. I asked you to put away all the panties you threw out of the drawer."
Violet: "But I'm looking at my panty collection!"

 

After class Thursday, Stace went back to work while we played at the park with several friends from class. And since it was Liana's 3rd birthday, after I picked up Cora, we three girls met Colleen, Rigo and Liana at Chick-Fil-A for lunch and play time.

After school, Cora was playing out front with Ave and Johnny, while Owen and Violet were having fun in our house while I started to prepare dinner.

Genia announced that since John was out of town, she was treating her kids to dinner out, and why don't we come along? One doesn't pass up such an offer!

I knew that Melanie was serving at Lazy Dog (her new employer), so that's where we headed. It's nice that all of our kids are at a great age to eat out at a restaurant; this is something we actually haven't done together very often since we've become so close to the Roberts.  

Winding Down

 This week, we went over to Sophia's house for lunch after Mom2Mom on Tuesday. Sophia had come over to play the prior week, while her mom Sue was in Burbank to be in the audience of the Ellen talk show.

So this week, the girls played while Sue and I watched the show, and picked her out in the audience shots. Here, the kitty-lovers are pretending to be "Super Kitties."

It's hard to believe we're already in that time of year, with various programs winding down.

On Wednesday night, we attended the closing ceremony for Pioneer Club. I also had my last church small group of the session - we start back up after summer - and I went to my last Mom2Mom meeting, too.

Here, Jill has charge of the 3-year-olds. Good thing one of us had the sense to bring in books and drawing paper!

 Here's Cora with her small Scooters class. Next year, she'll move up to the next age group, and Violet will be able to take part as a Skipper.

Sadly this was the last Pioneer Club meeting for Ave, Johnny and Owen. They had fun seeing each other every week here.

Underwood Strawberries

Last week, we went to Underwood Farms in Moorpark for our annual strawberry picking trip with our Mom2Mom friends.

Behind Violet, you an see the smoke from the huge Camarillo Springs fire. We were several miles away, but the smell was pretty strong and later in the day ash was floating through the air.

Violet enjoyed it, and I took Cora out of school an hour early so she could come along too. 

Our friends Michelle and Brooke met us too, since they now live so close. Moorpark is about 45 minutes from us, but 10-15 minutes from them in Camarillo. 

 Unfortunately, our trip coincided with one of two very hot days, with temps in the upper 90s.

Despite loads of sunscreen and water, Violet was still searching for shade on our wagon ride back from the strawberry field. She only found it under the bench seat.

Underwood has quite a few animals to check out; here Liana and Violet insisted the alpacas were baby camels.

An old combine is now open for the children, and has a slide.

Cora did very well playing with Cora and Liana. Maybe because they're now bigger girls, she had a lot of fun bringing them into the imaginary games she loves to play. They ate it up, following her lead most of the time.

Here, Violet was hiding in part of a wooden train play structure.

Despite the warmth, it was a really fun day out. The breeze cooled us off and we found enough shade to make it comfortable. And, we went home with four boxes of freshly picked delicious berries!

Soccer and a boat ride

On Saturday, Stacey played in a golf tournament, so Grandpa came over to take Cora to soccer and practice his photography.

He's getting very good!

 After soccer, Grandma and Grandpa took the girls on a harbor cruise in Ventura. They saw dolphins, sea lions, pelicans and colorful starfish.

Then they enjoyed the interpretive center.

I'd love to say I enjoyed my free time, but our cats were sick so we spent our time at the vet. Turned out Spencer caught giardia (an intestinal parasite) on one of his outdoor jaunts, and shared it with his brother.

In the evening, Stace and I went out and watched "42," the Harrison Ford movie about Jackie Robinson's first year with the Dodgers, when he broke Major League Baseball's color barrier. Good film.

Violet at Three

Violet had her three-year well-check this week, and all went very smoothly. She had one vaccine, and it was hard for me to believe how easy it was. I held her tightly, and she didn't even cry!

Size-wise, our pint-sized princess is barely clinging onto her spot on the height chart. At 34.5 inches, she is in the 5th percentile! I know she is several inches smaller than her same-aged (and younger) friends, and I know Stace and I are, um, diminutive ourselves, but wow. Ninety-five percent of 3-year-old girls are taller than Miss Violet.

Violet's weight of 28.8 pounds puts her in the 30th percentile.

Now, for some details on our 3-year-old.
Naptime has become a bit iffy with Violet. She still sleeps most days, but sometimes, she plays instead. Here, she made sure both lambies got a rest (with the basket she stole from the dresser), but she remained wide-awake.

Whether she sleeps in the day OR not(!), Violet has been falling asleep quite late into the evening. We'll put her down at 8, and she will still be awake and talking, playing, singing at 9:30 or even 10. Thankfully, she doesn't cry or demand much, and since she is alone in her crib, it's really not a problem. (Yes, crib - we haven't had any reason to move her into the toddler bed, and so we haven't. Maybe this summer...)

For several weeks, she was needing to use the toilet at least once, and often twice, after we'd left her at night. She actually would "go," but the routine was still tiresome, so last week Stace told her "no more." She hasn't been asking as much since that night.

She wakes up dry about half the time in the mornings, and has been day-trained since 2 years, 10 months.

See that gaping hole? Violet's days (or nights) of using a "night night" are over. Stace and I didn't even have to do anything to break a habit I thought would be much more difficult to end.

One non-napping naptime, she bit a hole in what I thought was her last dummy/pacifier. She went without for a day (with a lot of tears), and then I found another by her bed. A week or so later, she bit a hole in that one too, after lots of warnings that this was the last night-night, and wasn't she getting to be a big girl anyway???

She had no problems this time at all. She even said, "I'm a big girl, I don't need a night-night anymore," and was quite proud of herself.

That night, she also said she didn't want Seahorse (above) either, that it was "a baby thing." But we've kept that in the bed for her when she wants to play with it.

Our girl is a silly one. Here, she emerged from the bathroom with a new hat. "I have Minnie Mouse on my head," she said, in her husky, breathless, silly voice.

She also likes to get naked, especially when she's not-sleeping in her bed; several times when she was still "needing" to wee after lights-out, I went in to find her naked.
When I'd ask why she was naked, her answer was matter-of-fact: "Because I got my clothes off!"

She likes to make us laugh, and she laughs and smiles easily. Lately she also has been more defiant and slower to obey; we're keeping a close eye on this and hope to nip it in the bud.

She is a pretty girly little girl, much more so than Cora was at this age. She likes dolls, Calico Critters, fairies, bubbles and play-doh, and has begun to enjoy dressing up.

I still get the joy of realizing it's very quiet in the house, and finding her reading or playing with puzzles in her room.

She loves playing with Owen, Liana, Marley, and of course her kitties and Cora.

And she loves going to Ms. Diane's class; just another few weeks of My Buddy and Me, and then she'll be headed for the dropoff summer camp and "Terrific Tots" in the fall (both also with Ms. Diane).