Here are a few pictures to remind you what the girls looked like at the beginning of this school year. Matilda was 38 months old and Evelyn was 23 months old.
September, 2011
September, 2011
September, 2011
Just LOOK at what a difference 9 months makes! Here is Evelyn, always on the move, on her last day of preschool, May, 2012:
And Matilda. She still "fits" in the dress, but it's in the "must wear shorts underneath" category now, she's all legs and imagination!
Their school celebrated the last day by having all the kids and parents meet at Wheeler park. This is Matilda and her "best friend," Annabella, playing in the truck. Matilda has bloomed, socially, at her first school. She's gone from a baby who cried every day when I left for the first 6 weeks to the big girl who took the tiniest, youngest girl in the class under her wing, and made "best friends." She will miss Miss Stephanie and her other teachers in the fall when she moves on to her new school, but we are so happy with the great start she got at KPW!
Miss Heather brought ice pops for the kids. I don't think Evelyn ended up having one--she was much too busy climbing and running and sliding and playing with HER best friends--Brock and Henry. She has loved school as well and settled in without a hitch, thanks partly to Matilda being there. It will be interesting to see her on her own at KPW next year.
Father's Day weekend, the Kane County Cougars hosted "Princess Night" as a Daddy-Daughter event at the ball park. We ordered fancy new princess dresses for the girls, dressed them up, and took them out for their first baseball game!
Before we left, the girls talked me into putting on my "princess dress" too. It was good fun, but way too fancy and hot to wear to the ball park, so I changed back before we left.
When we arrived, there was a princess parade. The girls were all invited to walk around the ball park with their parents and show off their finery. Matilda dressed as Jasmine and Evelyn wore a Rapunzel wedding gown. She was a little unsure about the ball players, but Matilda was REALLY excited--especially when she saw the emcee was dressed as Prince Charming. She continues to ask me if she can marry the "king" from the baseball game.
They were really surprised to see one if their friends from school, Anika, at the game. They were given sparkly crowns, tried their hand at shelling peanuts and had plenty of water and skittles. Our seats were right in the sun, but the park wasn't full so we moved over to the 3rd base side for some shade. The girls got a little restless, especially since they don't understand baseball, so we left in the 8th. Maybe next time we'll be able to stay for the post-game fireworks! I can't remember who we played or who was winning when we left, but I do remember how delighted Matilda and Evelyn were to be showing off their gowns and attending this special event. Matilda is even more excited about going to a football game with Daddy this fall and they both keep asking to go back to the baseball park. It might be a while before we do it again, but I think the glitter in our car will be there forever to remind us of that night!
In June, we took Adelaide and the big girls up to Wisconsin for her first Door County visit! We all had a great time, relaxing, enjoying the views, and escaping the heat. The girls played hard all day, every day. The big girls took a long hike through the woods and spent hours playing on the beach. And, of course the swing set, and loved spending time with Grandma and Grandpa. Mommy and Daddy enjoyed the opportunity to go out on some fun dates and we'll be going back up for a longer visit in August!
Matilda is so tall that she's just STANDING there, not afraid at all!
Adelaide's first swim
Evelyn and Matilda "helping" to make pancakes
Oh, Grandma, we so appreciate the lovely rooms and comfy beds you've made up for us upstairs, but we think maybe we'll just crash on the dog bed, instead. Ok?
It's hard to believe how much she's grown! She's no longer my baby or my toddler; she's a big girl now! She's imaginative and smart. She's learning to draw recognizable pictures, she counts and picks out patterns. Her vocabulary is amazing. She's a little actress. She loves to dance and sing. She just tried swimming and loved it! She's so tall! She's a little mama to her baby sister and a best friend to Evelyn. She can speak some words in French, Spanish and Chinese. She will go to pre-school 4 days a week this fall. She sings in the choir and loves Sunday school. She makes up stories all day long and loves to be read to. She adores My Little Pony, Peppa Pig, and princesses. Her current favorite movie is Madagascar, but she watches any new movie that she likes repeatedly--to the exclusion of all others--until she has it virtually memorized and, only then, will rotate other old favorites back into the mix. She is friendly and curious and loves her family and her routines. She likes to cook and helps make scrambled eggs nearly every morning--she especially loves to make baked goods with Mommy. She likes to run and dance and has become more brave. She's potty trained. She hates to brush her hair. She loves to take a bath. She still sleeps with a lovey and a pacifier. She wears size 5 clothes and size 11 shoes. Her favorite color is pink. She says prayers before dinner and before bed. She asks brilliant questions and makes up funny jokes. She remembers everything. She is a joy and I'm so lucky to be her mother.
To start her birthday off right, we put a bouquet of gerber daisies in her room before she woke up and dressed up her door with colored crepe streamers. She LOVED the flowers and decorations. It was her very first bouquet. She toted them around for a while, touching and smelling them. Then she threw them up in the air, expecting them to cascade down around her. They were bound with a rubber band so they just landed with a thud on the floor and we put them in a vase on display. We also decorated downstairs with balloons and streamers and decorated one of the "big chairs" as a birthday throne for her to sit in.
Grandma and Grandpa and Shanti and Laura and baby Ruth all came over for a lunch time birthday party. Matilda was happy to have her guests and has indicated that she's starting to think about parties with friends her own age--maybe in a year or two!
She received so many generous gifts! The Kirady's gave her barbie clothes and a My Little Pony with a train that she loves. Aunt Natalie, Uncle Chase, and Boston sent her a My Little Pony with a little farm and she slept with it that night! Grandma and Grandpa Gustafson brought her all sorts of wonderful presents--Prince Charming, a beautiful blue dress, a pretty night gown, a movie--all great! Shanti and Laura brought her a polka-dot dress and brought cute clothes for Evelyn and Adelaide too so no one was left out. My grandmother sent her a cute castle card in the mail and we got her two prince dolls and a bunch of ponies. Evelyn was dying to unwrap something and Grandma had to keep hiding packages that Evelyn was starting to tear into and trying to distract her. Matilda was absolutely delighted!
I'm really proud of how her cake turned out this year. Twilight Sparkle is her favorite pony. I tried a new decorating technique called a frozen buttercream transfer to decorate the cake and it turned out really well! I will certainly do it again, but I'll be a little more aggressive with smoothing the frosting before freezing it next time, I had to do my best to iron out the squiggly fill lines with the tip of a knife after placing the transfer this time, but I still think it came out great--especially for a first try! In addition to the FBT on top, I decorated with a rim of sparkly pink sugar crystals and a border of stars on top and around the base of the cake. On the sides, I piped stars and placed a color coordinated nonpareil on the center of each star. The inside was a vanilla cake dyed pink and purple to match Twilight Sparkle. If you're interested, this is the image I was trying to recreate on top of the cake.
Matilda blew out all 4 candles on her own for the first time this year. She wished to "go to the wild!" Evelyn ate only frosting. Adelaide loved her first tastes of cake and Matilda was delighted to have a little taste of cake and frosting and eat a little strawberry ice cream. She requested Kraft macaroni and cheese for her birthday lunch so she had that with grapes and milk. The grown ups had grilled fillet mignons that Ed butchered himself from a tenderloin primal. We served thyme and garlic seasoned grilled sweet potato medallions and grilled onions on the side and had 2 bottles of red white and blue stripped Chandon "champagne" to toast our big girl turning FOUR!
The girls really love to cook now. We make eggs together nearly every morning. Matilda knows just how to stir them up for the scrambled eggs and she's even learning how to crack the eggs herself.
She also likes to help make sandwiches and put fruit on the plate for lunch and is eager to pitch in however she can with preparing dinner! As the experts promised, she's more willing to eat things she helped make too, so it's been working out well. A little messy, but completely worth it.
Since the house is on the market, we've been baking more often too, to create that welcoming, homey scent. Evelyn and Matilda have adorable aprons my friend Molly made for them that came in their easter baskets. And they love making anything they can PINK! We've had pink chocolate chip cookies and a variety of pink pancakes, cakes, muffins, cupcakes, and breads. They love anything "Pinkalicious!"
This unassuming loaf of buttermilk honey sandwich bread hides a surprise inside...
Pinkalicious Panda Bread! It didn't turn out as well as we expected, things rose a little side-ways (I think our dough is just too soft to really make this work properly) but the girls thought it was darling. If you look closely, you can kind of make out the white panda face, with dark eyes and ears surrounded in pink. We were hoping for something more like this, but the girls were happy with the effort and it tasted great.
We went to the Mill Race Cyclery on Sunday to pick out big girl bikes for Matilda and Evelyn. They chose matching hot pink "Lil' Puddin'" bikes. Matilda picked a pink and purple helmet and Evelyn picked a white helmet with dinosaurs. Then, since we had a showing going on at home, we went over to grandma's house to ride the bikes on her nice long flat driveway. They mostly just sit on the bikes and ring the bells right now. Matilda likes to be pushed around, but I bet by the end of the summer they'll have it down!
Well, she's still "singing" in the church choir (although she doesn't seem to like to actually SING at the services, more just stand there and hopefully leave her dress and her nose alone!) Regardless of whether or not she is sharing her singing talents, she seems to have won over the congregation as we frequently receive compliments about how charming and sweet and funny and smart and cute Matilda is. She will be starting pre-school at the church in the Fall and is excited to join her choir and Sunday school friends. She will certainly miss her friends at Kids Play World though! She has made her first "best friend" outside the family. Her name is Anabella. She is the smallest, youngest girl in Matilda's class. According to her teacher, Matilda took Anabella under her wing and was looking out for her and it's evolved into playing princesses together every day they are at school and Matilda talks about her best friend at home and wonders if she has to eat her dinner, take a bath and go to bed too. She also has enjoyed playing with some girls from the neighborhood--Jordyn, Jadyn and Hannah.
She is becoming more helpful in the kitchen and want to make scrambled eggs all the time. She helps with cookies and bread too. She's usually very good about throwing away trash for me or doing other little chores to help with the baby and is starting to show an interest in helping me clean up the house. She wants to hold Adelaide but isn't quite strong enough, so I have to remind her not to pick the baby up without a grown up, but mostly she's a great helper and a cute little mommy. She's also recently discovered both My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake, and loves those shows. She and Evelyn are acting out little stories with their dolls all day long. She's demonstrating more interest in drawing now and writing and wants to know what every sign she sees says. She also is becoming very independent wanting to do everything "by myself!" or "just like Mommy." She can put her own shoes on, go potty, help get dressed, help make her bed and get into her own car seat now! She also has mastered using her utensils, sitting at the table like a big girl and does a great job drinking out of cups without lids.
Finally, she's been working on learning French! She loves to look at the french vocabulary books with me and she's learning two french songs now. I hope that she'll be able to say a few things when the Kiradys come to visit in August!
In early February (8-10) Adelaide and I flew down to Florida to visit my grandparents. She did so well on the plane, she fell asleep before we even boarded and didn't wake up until we were getting off the plane on the trip down.
We were lucky to have beautiful weather, my grandma and I took Adelaide for an hour walk in the 80 degree sunshine each day and I think she really enjoyed being out--it was the first time in her life that she was able to go outside and feel warm weather! On each walk we ran into a local mom walking her baby, too. It was so funny to me that Adelaide was out in an undershirt and diaper and the Florida baby was in a sleeper and hat and blanket!
We had a lovely visit with delicious meals and great conversation. I'm so glad that we were able to go down and introduce her.
I took Matilda out for a "Big Girl Day" today and we had a fantastic time! First, we went to Jac-n-Jills kid salon to get her bangs trimmed. Next, we went to the nail spa and she got a mini manicure with violet polish and a little flower on each thumb. She sat still, was super polite, and made charming small talk with everyone we met. She was such a good girl, we rewarded her by meeting Daddy out for lunch. We went to Red Lobster. Matilda had macaroni and cheese, watched the lobsters in the tank and was terrified when the nice hostess fished one out of the water and offered to let her touch it.
After our big day out, we came home and had a nice nap. Evelyn was so jealous when she saw Matilda's nails that she was chasing her around yelling "Doz is MINE nails, Matilta!" So, we sat down and did Evelyn's nails too.
Adelaide was blissfully unaware that anything had happened.
