under the apple tree

Rachel had a day off of school today, so my co-teacher and I decided to take our kids apple picking.  Today was Honeycrisp day, and I knew it would be crowded, but I had no idea the kind of crowds we would end up fighting.  Whew!  It was crazy.

But the kids had a great time and we have a huge bag of delicious, juicy, Honeycrisp apples.

Yum!!!

first day!

First day of preschool!!

She's so excited.  It's my first day, too (no, I didn't take a first day of school picture of myself).  

Here we go!  It'll be an adventure, I'm sure!

the great room switch

We've been talking about it for close to a year....  Moving Rebecca out of her room, which is our tiniest bedroom, and only ever meant to be a baby nursery, and into the extra, bigger bedroom, which has been our guest room/computer room/junk room for the last eight years.  It's been all talk and no action for a long, long time, because we knew it would be a big ordeal.  We became a little more serious about it when Rebecca moved out of her crib and into a bigger bed.  She got some new bedding for her birthday, meant to go with purple walls, which she had requested for her new room.  But it still wasn't happening.  

But FINALLY last week, we shifted into high gear and got started on The Great Room Switch.  First, we started moving stuff out of Rebecca's current room.  The poor girl has stuff in every room of the house right now, including the hallway.  She has to go into her sister's room to get dressed, because all of her clothes are in there right now.  Then we built new shelving in her closet in order to store all of the junk we would be moving in there.  Then we primed and painted, and painted some more.  Oh, and somewhere in there, Rachel and I started painting my old desk, which we moved out of the "junk" room and will become hers.  

After painting Rebecca's old room and closet tan (my husband didn't want a pink office...imagine that!), we then started moving all of the junk into that room.  Rebecca's now sleeping in her new room, but her bed is the only thing in there right now, and it's still not purple.  But we bought the paint the other day and plan to paint it by this weekend.   After that, we can move her furniture in, and the project will be complete. Finally.  

It's been a ton of hard work, but the end is in sight.  I can't wait until it's done, and she finally has her new big girl room.

In other news, Rachel is home sick today. This is already her second cold since school started (less than a month into school!) and now she has a fever.  And so it begins....all of the germs.

third grade and other news

A week in to third grade at a new school, Rachel comes home from school every day and says school was, "Great!"  She's loving it.  Loves her teacher, loves what they're doing every day, loves the newness of being at a new school, just loves it all.  I'm so glad (and relieved, since I wasn't sure how she'd do at a new school).  

Socially it's a little bit of a struggle, but she's getting to know some of the girls and making a few friends.  Mostly she's been playing with her friend, Taylor (who is in another class, but they have lunch and recess together), but Taylor had to miss a couple of days last week, so she found some other girls to play with those days, and it sounds like she and Taylor are playing with some other girls, too, so I'm happy that she's not just sticking to Taylor's side.  

Last night was curriculum night, where I heard about what third grade will be like.  There's more homework (not looking forward to that....she already had a lot in second grade!) but I'm happy to hear that there are weekly spelling tests (they didn't learn spelling in second grade, which bothered me) and that her teacher is a stickler for neat handwriting (they'll be learning cursive this year--a practice most schools around here are phasing out, so I'm happy Rachel will have to learn it!).  

My biggest qualm about this whole thing is the bus. She doesn't get home until 30-45 minutes after when she used to get home--the bus was really late all last week, but it's been a little better this week, so it's more like 30 this week.  By the time she gets home and tells me a little about her day, she has about 10 minutes to play, and then it's dinner time.  Then homework time.  Then a little playtime, then bedtime.  And extra curricular stuff hasn't even started yet!  I don't know what we'll do when she has Girl Scouts or something--I think I'm definitely going to have to pick her up from school on those days, but that means a trip up to her school (40 minutes, round trip), dinner, then a trip back up into the same town for the evening activity (another 40 minutes round trip).  That's a lot of driving!  We talk sometimes about moving closer to where her school is, but that would lengthen my husband's commute quite a bit (and he already drives 50 minutes ONE WAY every day for work!), plus property taxes are a lot higher up there.  So I kind of doubt that will happen, unless he'd get a new job (and he did apply for one he saw, but nothing ever came of it, and positions like his don't seem to come up a lot).  

But she's happy and loving life, so I'll put up with the bus situation.  On Saturday she was sad that she couldn't go to school!

In other news, I don't think I've written about the fact that I'm going to be a preschool teacher this year!?  It's a long story, but I decided not to go back to where I taught last year, and then this preschool opening came up where Rebecca is going to school this year.  They were willing to take me with only elementary experience, not preschool experience, so I'm giving it a try.  I'm only teaching on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the same two days Rebecca will be at school, so it works out well.  I'm still just "Mommy" the rest of the week.  

I have a partner teacher  (also new to the school, so we're the blind leading the blind--though she has at least taught preschool before!)  and we'll have 12 little three year olds in our care.  Yikes!

So Rebecca and I have been spending many of our mornings at the preschool, getting ready for the start of school (Sept 4 is the first day, so it's coming up fast!).  She can't wait for school to start (she asks me every morning, "Is TODAY my first day of school?")  I'm a little more reluctant.  I'm anxious to get into the swing of things and figure things out, but I'm also worried about how I'll do and whether I'll like it.  Everyone else seems to have more confidence in my and my abilities than I have in myself.

here we go!

First day of school here....lots of firsts.

First day of Third Grade.  

First day at a new school.

(This is a picture of her new school...isn't it the coolest building ever?  She's so excited to go to school in a castle!  You can barely see Rachel, Rebecca, and her friends, Taylor and Ali, out front.  This was taken yesterday during "Meet the Teacher" time.  Taylor will be there, too, but in a different class.  It's the first time they haven't been in class together since kindergarten.  Sad.....but I'm happy they'll be on the bus together and will get to see each other at lunch and recess.)

First day transferring busses (because she's not going to her home school, she has to take a bus to a transfer location and get on another bus to her new school--this mom's super nervous about this part, but the alternative is to take her myself every day, and a 20 minute drive one way each morning and afternoon isn't really ideal).

First day for this kiddo to have to entertain herself again after a whole summer of having her sister to help entertain her.  They've played together SO much this summer and for the most part they get along really well. She'll really miss her playmate.

School doesn't start for her until September, so it'll be a few weeks of just the two of us.

at the fair

Last week my husband was gone on a missions trip in Honduras, so my parents came down to help me out with the girls for the week.  

One evening they took us to the state fair.  Rachel, especially, remembered it from the year before and couldn't wait.  

Here is Rebecca on a ride--Rachel was too tall for this one, and was very sad that she couldn't ride it this year.   :(

But they did ride a few together.

(They didn't sit next to each other because Rachel wanted the pink frog and Rebecca wanted the red one!)

We saw the band perform, a horse and carriage competition, ate some fair food, and walked all around seeing the sights. 

Columbus Commons

On Fridays this summer I've been watching Rachel's friends, Taylor and Ali.  I try to take them somewhere to help break up the long morning.  Today's adventure with the girls was to check out the Columbus Commons.  On Fridays in the summer they have Commons for Kids, which is all free, and they put out all sorts of things for the kids to do.  Today there was mask coloring, in addition to the things they usually have.

Free carousel rides (I stood next to Rebecca and we took this selfie!)

Building with these big blocks

Showing off their masks....

There was also a bounce house.....no good picture of that one, but they enjoyed it.

the lemonade stand

Another summer, another garage sale/lemonade stand....

This time the two girls I watch on Fridays were here to help Rachel with her lemonade stand.  They made it much more fun for Rachel (and helped her become much more outgoing with advertising to passers-by), but she also had to split the profits with them.  But they were all thrilled to make over $12 EACH.  The following day Rachel had one with her sister (though Rebecca wasn't much help at all....) and made another $20 or so!   These shoppers like their lemonade, brownies and cookies, and the cute sales girls!

My garage sale did much better than I expected, too.  Hooray for getting rid of stuff AND earning money to buy school clothes!

fun with friends

We made our yearly visit to see our good friends, Allecia, Kaden, and Marin this week.  We talked about maybe meeting somewhere new this year, but Rachel and Kaden both wanted to go where we've always met, so we stuck with tradition.....bikes, playground, lunch, splash pad, and ice cream.  

Not a great picture.....Allecia, I really hope yours look better than this sorry picture!  (I forgot the camera and took this on my iPod.)

It's always SO good to see them and catch up in person, but never long enough.  :(  the kids enjoyed each other, too.  It was a perfect day for playing outside and getting wet on the splash pad!

even more natural play

Last week was a busy week at our house.  It was VBS week, which is a highlight of the summer for my girls, and to add to the excitement, I also kept two of Rachel's friends (twin sisters from Rachel's Girl Scout troop) all day each day so they could go to VBS with their friends (lots of the kids from Rachel's school/our church go there for VBS).  So every morning was VBS and every afternoon was fun with her friends.  So it was a busy week full of fun.

One afternoon after VBS we met some friends for lunch at a park near the VBS church.  They also have one of the Natural Play Areas I wrote about in my last post, so of course, Rachel wanted to check it out.  None of the other girls had ever played in one of the natural play areas before, so they were excited to see what it was all about, too.

Someone got the idea to build a log cabin.  Then they decided to make a table and chairs inside the cabin.  They made six chairs, enough for everyone to have a seat.  I won't post the pic I have of all of them sitting on their chairs, but here's one of Rebecca in the cabin at her seat.....see how hard they worked?  They dragged logs and stumps forever!  

Also adding to the fun this week was an American Girl movie premier.  The new movie, Isabelle, premiered at the movie theater near the American Girl store.  I took my girls, the two girls I was watching, and Rachel's friend, Taylor's mom took her two girls and a girl she was watching....so between us we had seven little girls.  It was a sea of little girls, ages 4-12ish and their moms....  But they give you lots of free American Girl swag, which the girls loved.  Free paper dolls, free craft, free doll t-shirt, free popcorn, and so forth.  They loved it all.  I wish I had a picture, but the one I took didn't really turn out in the dark theater.

What a week!

natural play

In the last few years our metroparks (we have a great metro parks system) has introduced something called "Natural Play Areas" in some of its parks.  These areas are areas in the woods where kids can climb trees, build forts, go creeking, and just play in nature.  

A few weeks ago we went to a new-to-us park on the other side of town, and as part of our exploring, we discovered one of these Natural Play areas.  Rachel had just finished a week at camp, where she was out in nature every day, creeking, getting muddy, and having a great time.  So she LOVED playing in the woods in this new play area.  Since then she's been bugging us to go see the Natural Play Areas at some of the other parks.  We happen to have one in our park that is just up the road from us, so yesterday we went to check it out.

On Fridays this summer I've been watching Rachel's friend, Taylor, and her younger sister, so they came, too.  The girls had a great time exploring and then building this fort.

I love that she loves this stuff....even though it's not really my thing, I'm happy that my girly girl (notice three out of the four girls are wearing skirts and sandals...not exactly hiking-in-the-woods apparel!) doesn't mind getting muddy and having fun in the great outdoors!  

Then there's this.....the opposite side of the coin.  

Next month my brother and his family are moving to Poland for a year, during his sabbatical (he's a college professor).  So they had a big moving sale, and this Playmobil princess castle didn't sell, so they passed it along to us.  My girls have been having a ball with it this week.  Never mind that it's missing a whole bunch of pieces.  They're loving it.

visiting Grandma and Grandpa

I don't have a whole lot in the way of pictures, because I didn't have a camera on this trip--my husband took the camera on his trip.  These pictures are from my mom and my brother.

We've spent the week at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  It's been a full week, with a trip to IKEA, a trip to the park, a trip to Sauder Village (pictures in a bit), July 4th with family, and a trip to the lake.  The girls have had a great time.

These pictures are from Sauder Village, a village/farm where you learn about what life was like back in "the olden days."  Both girls really enjoyed it, though Rebecca wanted to touch EVERYTHING and managed to get her head stuck in a fence!  Despite those issues, we had a great time!

And here are pictures of the 4th of July.  Not great....but it was our girls' first experience with sparklers.  They loved it.

We watched the fireworks from the front lawn.  It was perfect weather, perfect view, perfect night.  The girls were so excited and loved every minute.

lucky 13

13 years ago today it was a hot day much like today is supposed to be.  In an un-airconditioned church.  

But I was one happy girl.

We celebrated yesterday ( a day early ) with a kid-less afternoon together.  We played miniature golf, went out to lunch, took our first trip to the North Market, tasted our first Jeni's ice cream (which was amazing and so different!) and took our first "selfie."  It was a great day (though very hot....not unlike 13 years ago!)

Happy Anniversary to my wonderful husband.

And now he's going off to leave us for a week, while he climbs the Presidential Range in New Hampshire.  The girls and I are headed up to see Grandma and Grandpa for the week.

camp

This week is Rachel's week at Girl Scout day camp.  She loves it, and has even met a couple of girls who will be at her new school in the fall, which will help with the transition, I'm sure.

It's been rainy the last couple of days, but she doesn't seem to mind much.  She's loved the hiking, creeking, cooking, crafting, you name it.  She loves it.

Rebecca is missing her favorite play mate, though.  She and I went to the zoo on Monday with some friends, which she loved (she's asked me every day since if we can go back today....).   

(Rachel photo bombed Rebecca's picture....Rebecca didn't like it.)

Then they each photo bombed the other, and all was happy again.

catching up

This summer Rachel is playing catch up on some things most kids her age seem to be already able to do.  First was bike riding.  It's now her favorite thing to do, since learning to ride without training wheels.

Next is math facts.  We've been practicing on her fluency, and she's getting a little better, but they're still a struggle for her.  Trying to catch up so that when she starts multiplication in the fall she won't have as much of a struggle.  

And then there's swimming.  

She's always been really afraid of the water.  I've not put her in swim lessons because I felt like it would be a waste of money, since she'd likely cry and/or refuse to do what was being asked of her. But this summer my parents really felt like she should learn, so they said they'd pay for her to take lessons.  So last week they began, Monday-Thursday, for two weeks.  Last week was cool and rainy, and the pool was FREEZING.  She was in level 1 and in order to move up to level 2, she had to go under the water ten times without plugging her nose (they call them "bobs.")   The first day she wouldn't go under at all.  I knew she could do it because when we were at the Great Wolf Lodge she did it over and over.  But this pool was absolutely frigid, so I couldn't really blame her.  The second and third days it was rainy, so the lessons were held in the indoor pool, which was warmer.  She also had a different teacher those days, who seemed to work better with her than the one from the first day.  So she went under a few times inside, but she still plugged her nose.  The fourth day she was back outside in the cold pool, with the teacher who wasnt as good, and didn't go under at all.  She cried that day because it was the end of the first session and she hadn't passed, so she didn't get a sticker for her certificate (you get a sticker to show when you pass a level).  She wanted so badly to do it and to pass.  She hated that she was with little kids, three and four years old, and wasn't learning any real swimming skills.  But she just couldn't seem to overcome her fear.  We practiced in the bathtub at night, and went to the pool a few times in the evenings so she could practice, but nothing seemed to work.  

Yesterday the second session began, and it was more of the same.  She didn't go under.  She was so disappointed in herself.  After swimming yesterday we went to run some errands and she saw a bike at Once Upon a Child that she wanted (it was the next size up from her current bike, which she is outgrowing).  She wanted me to buy it, but i said no, so she asked me to take a picture of it to show Daddy, so I did.  I showed it to him last night and he said, "What if I tell her we'll buy the bike if she passes tomorrow?"  I didn't want to do that--I really hate bribing.  I also said, "What if someone buys it and its not there tomorrow?"  But he was sure it wouldn't make a difference anyway, because she wasn't showing any progress, so he told her.  

So what does she do today??  Ten bobs without plugging her nose!  She passed!!!  

(Coming up out of the water)

She was thrilled (I have a video of it, and her squealing and laughing with glee, and if I ever figure out a way to post it, I will.)  I was so, so proud of her.  And she was so proud of herself, too.

So afterwards we went back to get the bike, and what do you know.....it was gone.  So I spent the afternoon online shopping for bikes.  I found one on Craigslist that was brand new and arranged to get it.  We brought it home tonight, and it's too big for her!  :(  The problem is that she still hasn't learned to take off from a stopped position on her bike--she has to get herself going with her feet on the ground and then puts her feet up on the pedals to start, and with this new bike, only her toes can touch, and she can't get a good start that way.  So until she learns to start from a stationary position, she won't be able to use the new bike.  (I guess that's now one more thing we need to add to the list of things to catch up on!)

 

So that's a bit disappointing, but still, we're so proud that she overcame her fear.  Now she's in level two and learning to float and glide.  She's happy to be learning "real swimming."  

Proud of my girl who is finally learning some big kid stuff and catching up a little to her peers.

by george, she's got it!

For two years Rachel has wanted to ride her bike without training wheels.  Every time we'd try to take them off and teach her, she'd try a couple of times, get frustrated that she couldn't get it, usually cry, and give up.  I've written before that she isn't really determined to do things that don't come easily for her.  That's why I was so thrilled when she worked and worked at the monkey bars last fall.  Unfortunately, she's her mother's daughter, in that she wants to be good at whatever she does, and if she can't do it well, she doesn't want to do it at all.

Meanwhile, pretty much everyone she knows can ride theirs, and she felt babyish, and didn't like it, but wasn't all that determined to change things.  She hardly ever wanted to practice, and it was like pulling teeth to get her to try.

A month or so ago a friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook of her son (someone Rachel knows from church, and he's the same age as she is) finally learning to ride his bike.  That got her interested.  She asked me that afternoon to take her out and help her, which I did.  She started asking more and more often.  I looked up online, "How to teach your child to ride a bike," and in a couple different places I saw the suggestion of taking off the pedals and just letting them learn to glide and balance, without worrying about pedaling.  It made sense....I'd heard about balance bikes for several years, which are the same idea.  We just never had one, so she hadn't tried it.

Two days ago we took off the pedals.  She started practicing walking the bike, eventually learning to lift up her feet and glide a little bit.  This morning I started setting goals for her:  Let's see if you can make it to the next mailbox.  Now lets see if you can go two mailboxes.  Now try to get all the way to those garbage cans down there.  She enjoyed the challenge for a change, and caught on quickly.  Within a few minutes she could go quite a ways.  A YouTube video I watched said that the next step was to put the pedals back on and just have them glide with their feet on the pedals.  So I mentioned that we should put her pedals back on.  "Really?"  She asked.  I told her she didn't have to pedal, but just put her feet on the pedals.  "I can't pedal?" She asked.  I told her she could if she wanted to, but didn't have to.  I put them back on, she got on, and tried it.  All of a sudden she started pedaling and went halfway down the street!  She was squealing, and I was yelling with tears in my eyes, "Wow, Rachel!  Great job!  Look at you go!"  I couldn't believe it!  The first try!

She's so proud of herself, and we couldn't be prouder of her.  

birthday recap

Here are the pictures from Rebecca's birthday celebrations.

On Memorial Day (the day before her birthday) we headed up to see our nephew march in the parade in my husband's hometown, and then visit his side of the family for a little while. 

Before the parade

During the parade (she read that whole book while waiting for the parade to start....)--these little popper things (on her nose) were passed out during the parade.  For some reason they decided to put them on their noses.

Rachel and Rebecca's cousin, Ashley, who watched most of the parade with us, took good care of Rebecca.

After visiting with family, we surprised the girls by heading to the Great Wolf Lodge, instead of Grandma's house, which is where they thought we were going.  They were thrilled!

Last time we were there Rachel saw other people playing this scavenger hunt type thing called "MagiQuest" where you point a wand at a bunch of stuff and look for clues and so forth.  She wanted to play it in the worst way, but it was super expensive.  This time we bought a Groupon for our room, which included a credit on our account, which we allowed Rachel to use to play MagiQuest.  She loved it, though she became very obsessed about it (as she does about most things she's excited about....she talks about little else while she's in the midst of the obsession).  She's still talking about it and reading the clue book, over a week later.

 

 

After story time that night, Rebecca wanted to meet the character.  Rachel didn't.

We took pictures the next morning while waiting for the pool to open.

Rebecca did a lot of this....longing for the pool and asking, "Is it open NOW????"  That's what happens when little girls wake up at 6:00 AM and pools don't open until 9:00. 

The next day was Rebecca's birthday. We swam for awhile, then left after lunch to head to Grandma's house to celebrate the birthday girl.

(new flip flops....)

 (both girls got new sleeping bags from Daddy so they can go camping....)

I didn't get many pictures of her opening presents.

After the festivities, Grandpa took both girls for rides on the tractor.   I don't know who thought of it, but once one of them did it, they both had to do it....  I'm sure Grandpa loved it!

It was a fun celebration for our big four year old.