Singing at the end-of-year assembly; Caroline at the far right waving.

Caroline receiving her end-of-year Montessori badge from Ms. Yost

A bunch of friends at the school picnic - Sarah, Stephanie, Caroline, Emma and Anna.

Caroline with her pal Spencer, and Johanna also from their class.

Caroline-isms

Caroline has been playing "waitress at the Cafe" with her little kitchen set (swear to Heaven, the smartest $75 we ever spent when she was 18 months old - she still plays with it nearly daily!) So we spent one whole afternoon with her taking our orders and making us plastic food. When James and I had run out of ideas, we said "what do you recommend?" Caroline asked what that means, and we told her that it meant we wanted to know what she thought would be good to eat. So after cleaning up the "kitchen", it became her new favorite word - "Mommy, I recommend that we have peanut butter sandwiches for dinner. Daddy, I recommend we watch Charlie and Lola". In other words, here's what I want - get to it! hahaha

Another evening, after a very busy day, Caroline was worn out. She was fading fast all through dinner, and when I put her to bed she barely paid attention to the stories we read. Like always, I knelt down next to her bed to give her a kiss goodnight and either talk about something we did that day or something that will happen tomorrow, etc. But for the first time ever, as I was talking, Caroline said "Mom, I'm so tired I can hardly hold my eyes up. Can we finish this tomorrow?"

Ice Cream Truck

The ice cream truck came this afternoon...

and Mommy's letting me eat it before dinner, even!

Ahhh, bliss!

Relaxing in the backyard shade.

All the cars lined up to go to McDonald's (no, why would we play with just a few cars? hahaha)

Barbies go shopping (yes, Mom, we did still keep all the Barbie stuff!)

Looking for bird's nests in the backyard trees

More Ballet Pictures

"Point to where you came from...."

"And spin!"

The butterflies emerge from their cocoon (Caroline is in the center)


Erin and Caroline flap their wings

Clapping when the teacher said they could keep the butterfly wings...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Boy were we RELIEVED when the ballet performance went off without a problem. Caroline had decided to skip a nap that day (I normally require it on ballet days just to have her in a better mood) so was running on pure adrenaline, making her prone to a meltdown. She was so nervous about what to do if she forgot what to be doing, but did so well that some of the other girls were looking at her to help them remember what to do!

The Ballet Recital!

My little ballerina!

Stretching

Showing off their rhythm learning

Poise and balance. They had to balance the beanbag on their head while walking on tiptoe down a line on the floor, then make a nice finish. All the parents agreed it rather uncomfortably resembled sobriety field testing! But at least Caroline's beanbag didn't fall...

Easter Pics

Caroline loved coloring Easter eggs again - she thinks it is MAGIC to pull a white egg out of the cup and find it a different color!

This bright blue one is my favorite...

With her Easter basket after finding eggs hidden around the living room

Caroline on St. Patrick's Day - she told her class that her panties even had green stripes on them! hahahaha

My new favorite picture - it's nice to be able to put her hair up and get it off her neck!

Picture Day at Montessori School - "I'm so glad you're at my class, Mom!"

Enjoying the warm weather at the park

Caroline the roller skating diva!

(practicing in the basement because it was about 28 degrees outside)

Caroline's artwork - she is the purple person at the bottom, yellow sun at the top left, blue clouds, purple squiggles are lightning, black spiky things are thunder, and pink swirls are wind.

Had to report for all family members to read: You aren't the only ones. Caroline READ me a book last week! A simple little book maybe 4 pages long, about the elves helping get Santa's sleigh ready for Christmas. She read the ENTIRE thing, with the exception of words like "brimming" and "although". (and I know she's not doing it from memory because I've only read it to her once or twice around Christmas time) Her teachers said that she has been working on her letter sounds at school and doing well, with minor confusion of lower case b/p/d/g/q/etc, but that's a normal developmental thing, not a sign of dyslexia.

Some overdue pictures

Flopping down in the 16 inches of snow - it's really hard to walk in that much snow when your legs are so short!

L-R is Ellie, Caroline, and Ellie's big sister Erin. We met up with them outside and had fun stomping snow lumps, sitting in the snow, and Ellie just liked eating it...

Only a week and a half later, the snow was totally gone and it was warm enough for some "hanging around" outside.

Practicing some soccer kicks