The Girls

Wow! I just looked back and saw that I haven't had a "girls" update post since Christmas!!! It's now July!!! Yikes. So much has obviously happened over the past several months. I'll try to write about the latest happenings and then try to play catch up....

We'll start with Ashley. Well, she has officially "graduated" preschool at OLPH! She is moving on to KINDERGARTEN! That is crazy. She had a great year. Her teacher, Mrs. Connolly, had nothing but nice things to say about Ashley--from how sweet she is, to how well she plays with others, to how bright she is and such a hard worker, etc. Ashley can officially read, and has been able to for a while now. She started off earlier in the school year reading site word books, where the teacher would send home books that connected stories to the pictures and used site words. Now, she can basically read any beginning reader's book. She still needs help sounding out some words, but can get most. She can also count well beyond 100, she can do sequential adding (5's, 10's, etc). She is a smart cookie!

OLPH had a nice graduation for the kids, including a real cap and gown, and diplomas. It was really sweet to watch. It'll be her HS graduation before we know it, sniff sniff!  In May we visited Manito Elementary School (where she will be going), toured the classrooms and met the potential teachers. She is excited (and a little nervous) to start....but she will do great, she is so ready for full time school and learning.

On April 7th, Ashley lost her very first tooth! It was her middle bottom left (if looking at her). Within three or four weeks, she lost her second one, the middle bottom right. For the first tooth, the tooth fairy brought her a Silver dollar.

Hmm...what else? She has totally mastered riding on her scooter. She whips and zips all around, does circles around you (literally). She's getting pretty good with her bike too, and will probably be riding a two wheeler soon.

Ashley has gotten much braver with age too. She used to be more cautious like me, but now she takes more risks. I.e. we went to the beach recently, and she was letting Matt lift her up into big crashing waves.

She has also learned how to do the monkey bars. She swims pretty good too.

Ashley loves rainbow everything. All her pictures and drawings always include rainbows.  She and Emily still love to play dress up, and dress up almost every day.  Or make believe, setting up tea parties or restaurants for her dolls or us.

Cousin Robby was born a few months ago. Ashley is so sweet with him, as well as other friends babies. She can be very loud and has a strong personality, yet around babies she is very sweet, gentle and loving. It almost makes me sad that we won't be having any more kids, since she would be real sweet with them. But at least she has cousins ;)

In addition to lots of go go go summer fun with small trips, playdates, etc, Ashley has also been having fun with some camps. Her elementary school offered and encouraged the kids to go to a 2 week program, Safety Town. Now she is signed up for Oakland Rec camp for a few weeks, which goes from 9-3 in order to prepare her for longer days of school hours since she has been used to just a few half days. It's been a blast.

Now onto Emily. Emily has gotten so big. My friend (who has known her for a while) just commented the other day on how big she was, a real big girl and no trace of baby left in her. I have friends whose kids are 3--granted, they are on the younger end of 3, while Emily is 3 1/2 now--but Emily seems so much older than they do. I think because she and Ashley are so close, Emily tries so hard to be a big girl like her, and they have the same mutual (sometimes older) friends, it really has made Emily seem so much older too. She really doesn't have a hard time keeping up with the big kids at all. In fact, she even surpasses them in some activities!

She talks quite well and has an extensive vocabulary for her age. She does still make some slips, which happen to be adorable, like saying "her is _____", vs. "she is _____". (She mixes up he/she for him/her). I've corrected it more than I can count, but she still says is. One day I'll miss it.

Emily continues to be very athletic. She doesn't play soccer, but she could...she's got great eye/hand or foot/hand coordination. We also like to play kickball in our yard, and she's great at that too. She loves to be moving and doing. For the summer, we attached our large kiddie pool to our swings slide, and turned it into a water slide which she absolutely loves.

Emily is also a smart cookie. Had everything checked off on her list for preschool expectations. Can count, do ABCs, can spell her name, etc.

Both she and Ashley love to help. We have a morning/night routine, and a couple little chores throughout the day. In addition to that, they love to help cook or bake, they like to help with dishwasher, etc.

As big as Emily has gotten, and as independent as she is most of the time, she continues to be a momma's girl, and still asks me to hold her a good bit. Sometimes I get discouraged because she begs me, saying "hold me momma" when I'm in the middle of stuff and super busy....but most times I love it, and try to savor it since I know I won't be holding her much longer. I love that we still rock together in her rocking chair at night, and I will continue to do so as long as she asks and wants to.

I don't know if I ever mentioned it in a previous post, but Emily is absolutely OBSESSED with SpiderMan. It all started last Halloween. She randomly picked SpiderMan out on a website of kids costumes and has been obsessed ever since. It's calmed down a bit recently, but she was wearing her SpiderMan costume every single day, in addition to Spider Man pajamas and clothes, and bath towels, and toys, etc. It was so cute. I think I will forever associate anything SpiderMan to her, even long after the phase has ended.

As active as a kid as she is, Emily is also a TV fanatic, and would watch it for hours if I let her (which I don't). Ashley will be coloring (she LOVES to), and Emily will be begging to watch TV.

Unfortunately, Emily had to miss out on camp this year. I had signed her up for VBS again since she LOVED it so much last year...She went the first day, but ended up getting sick that night. She was throwing up, followed by a high fever that lasted for like 5 days. Poor thing. I hated seeing her that sick. I also hated that she had to miss VBS. Hopefully next year will work out. But, we have been having nice bonding time while Ashley is at camp.

We have also been having an incredibly fun, fun, busy, exhausting summer. Back in May, before school was even out, we took a weekend trip to the Poconos with Matt's parents to do some biking, pedal boating, beach and pool. June was busy with Emily's school concert, end of the year party, trips to the YMCA lake, Ashley's graduation, trip to movie theater, Oakland carnival with friends, 2 trips to NY to see Grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, Grandpa (Aunt Kristyn and Uncle Brian were in town from Italy so we jam packed fun activities in), extended family. We took a trip down to South Jersey one weekend to visit Jayne, Ed and fav cousin Ethan, another trip down to LBI/beach to visit our neighbors and friends, Becky, Seth, Tyler and Colin while they were staying with Seth's parents. We did a trip to the Bronx Zoo (Emily stayed with Grandmom and Grandpop and went to the movie theaters with them since she was just over her sickness), then they took a trip to the Pocono house with Grandmom and Grandpop since our friends Matt and Christi Wagner came to visit from SC, and we were showing them around NYC and going to a Coldplay concert.

It's really been a whirlwind. In addition to all of those trips, we've been doing the day to day playdates with friends, day trips, etc.

Lastly, Matt and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary while we were up in NY visiting. We had an awesome time. I totally surprised him. A while back, I had seen this video where a wife totally surprised her husband for their anniversary by wearing her wedding gown, being all dressed up, and had their wedding song playing. He came in and almost started crying, then they danced together. I thought it was so sweet, and stored it in the back of my memory for special occasion. When we first decided to go up to NY during our anniversary date, I was bummed because I didn't think I could swing it. But then Kristyn and Brian said that they wanted to treat Matt to a round of golf for a belated birthday gift, so it was perfect. I informed them of my plan, and got them in on it by having Brian text us when they were about a half hour from home so I could be all ready. I'm a horrible liar usually, but I managed to be convincing and told Matt that the extra big suitcase (which had my wedding gown in it) had special surprise things that mom asked me to bring up for Kristyn's 30th (we were celebrating our anniv, Kristyn's early 30th, and bon voyage party all at once).

It was great. When the got back, I was in my gown, all dressed up. We had it decorated, had fake rose petals that my "flower girls" put down for us, and had our wedding songs playing (the one I walked down the aisle to followed by our 1st dance). Matt was totally surprised and loved it. We danced together. Ashley even got in on it. Great moment.
The girls loved it too, especially Ashley. A while back she had watched our wedding video with me and was bummed that she couldn't be there. So when I told her what I was doing, she said "I'm so happy and excited that I could cry". She was also excited that they were my new "flower girls". It made it extra special.

Anyway, that is all for now. Hope I got everything!