Boulder Girl

Today the family headed to The Circuit for some rock climbing with one of CJ's friends. CJ has never done this before, but she did great. It didn't hurt that one of the kid-centered areas had a slide to come down after you climbed to the top. There was also an elevated line she could bounce across (with a little help from Daddy).

I'm pretty sure we'll be back.

Smart Kid

Today CJ had a great thought.

She said "I just want to stay a kid forever. I don't want to be an adult. You have to do all that boring work on computers and don't get to just play with toys."

There's An Artist Amongst Us

Portraits

I believe the orange is Mama and the red is CJ. We've advanced to having five fingers, but still no bodies

If you can't find her in the house, chances are she's in the office looking for tape.

Here's the art wall she's created in Mama and Daddy's room:

And a small gallery next to her bed:

And this is where most of her work ends up in her room:

Here she is hard at work, creating more!

Nature Girl Makes a Friend

Today we took Nature Girl back to Forest Park for a hike. We arrived at the beginning of the trail at the same time as another little girl and her family. Before we knew what happened, CJ and the little girl (did I mention she was also dressed in pink and purple?) were bouncing up the trail together holding hands. They had lots of fun looking at the waterfall and finding, supposedly, snails, snakes and an inch-bug. They even tried to organize a castle performance at the stone house. CJ had a great time.

Here's a Story

Yup, another post today. We drove past a bead store and Mama said something about Grandma liking the store. Then CJ went in to her imaginary mode where she is the Mama to her doll Shayla.

"Oh, yeah. I took my daughter Shayla there the other day. It was so funny. We found this great Lance Armstrong bike shirt and we wanted to show it to Daddy, but we didn't know he'd tiptoed off to go potty. He would have loved it. We were calling for him. It was so funny."

Sleep Training

CJ is sitting here with me as we were trying to figure out the problem with our videos (apparently a Blogger issue that we hope will be resolved soon). She asked me to post a note that she is now sleeping in her bed until six in the morning.

Four and a half may be late for sleep training according to the "experts" (yes, Mama loves quotes), but it is going ok.

For some time she's been coming in to Mama and Daddy's bed at some point in the night. We dealt with it differently, depending on how tired we were. Then one night last week she came in, but we were already awake taking the puppies out so Mama put her back. This happened 3-4 times as Mama explained that her and Daddy's bed was only big enough for 2 people. Finally Mama said something about sleeping on the floor and CJ chose that option so she got some blankets and laid down and slept there the rest of the night. The next night she came in once and Mama put her back to bed. A short while later CJ tiptoed back in and quietly set up her blankets on the floor and went to sleep.

Mama wasn't sure that sleeping on the floor was such a good idea (we do have a 70 and a 90-pound dog). No worries. Since then CJ has been sleeping in her bed pretty regularly until about 6 in the morning. She usually comes in once, but just stands by our bed until we take her back to her room and then she settles in for the rest of the night.

Good work, CJ.

Developing Language Skills

CJ's starting to say big words. One day she was talking and all of a sudden "possessions" popped out of her mouth. And she talks about the "culture of kindness" at school. And some other word that shocked Mama when she said it (but not so much that Mama can remember it now).

And then there are the back seat driver quotes that have been going on for some time, with new variations:

"Mama you are going sixty!"

"Mom, why did you turn and not put your blinker on?"

"Daddy, seat belt please"

and as we approached more road construction today:

"Geez, do they have all the roads jacked-up now?"

Guess she'll be ready for kindergarten soon. Or truck driving school...

Free Breakfast

Yesterday's mail included a coupon for a free Starbucks oatmeal so Mama took them up on it today. It was pretty good, but reading that there were 100 calories in each the nut package and the dried fruit package, plus 50 calories in the brown sugar package made me feel guilty. Not so guilty that I didn't add them, but a little guilty nonetheless.

Old Four Eyes

Well Mama is wearing her glasses today and apparently for a while. After waking up yesterday with a sore right eye, she was able to get into the eye dr. today and the news doesn't sound so good. She may have a corneal ulcer so no contacts for a while. Hope the drops do their magic...

Tubing

Reminds me a bit of last year's Wheee.

Summit

After our vet visit we stopped for a bite at the bakery and discussed what to do today. CJ has been dying for more snow, so we checked out the pass reports and they looked clear so we decided to go up to the mountain. Since Mama and Daddy are a little bit of snow wimps when it comes to driving in the snow, we were glad to see clear roads, but got a little worried when we got pretty close and still saw green trees.

In the end, it worked out and we made it to Summit for some fun in the white stuff. CJ loved it. She said it was fantastic and asked if we could come back every weekend. I'm sure the chocolate milk and M&M snack didn't have anything to do with that!

Here she is making a snow angel while hiking back up to inner tube some more:

Report Card

The puppies had their annual check-ups today and both are doing pretty well. Big B has lost a bit of weight and they don't want him to lose more so we'll up his food and maybe he'll hang out near the kitchen for some snacks. I don't think he'll mind that. Our vet is so nice. If only she worked more than Fridays and every other Saturday! She spent a lot of time with us and we got Little B's license renewed and we were able to get manicures (or pedicures?) for both dogs.

Bilibo

Mama came across a Bilibo today and brought it home. CJ didn't know what to think at first, but once we watched a video on their website, she realized how much crazy fun she could have with it.

Just Call Her Jack

As in Jack and the Beanstalk

CJ brought home 2 magic beans from school a while back. One we planted in the dirt and one we put in a wet paper towel for a while. Once it sprouted, she stuck that in the dirt with the first one. The pot has been sitting on the kitchen counter and just gets a little water every now and then. When it started to grow, we added a stake, but the plant is way past that height now. It's as tall as CJ.

Eek! A Mouse.

According to CJ, we have a mouse in the house. We haven't gotten around to getting rid of the gingerbread house yet and Daddy noticed that some more of the gumdrops and other decorations are missing. CJ swears she hasn't eaten any of them and claims it must be the mouse.

Little Miss Independent

Today was the first day of our new session of music class for CJ so all the parents stayed. It's the same group as last term, with one new boy. This is the big kids class and they are learning a lot. During one song the kids each had an opportunity to raise their hand and decide what everyone could "do" to the music. There were a couple of ideas and then one child chose "running". It became the only thing that the children would choose. CJ put her hand up, but didn't have an idea at first. When the teacher came back to her (after 5 more "running" choices), CJ chose "dancing". I think everyone was glad to have a break from the running. How creative she is. Then we went back to "running" for another child or two before the song was over. Mama was glad to see her independence.

Sweetheart

Here's our little sweet"heart" modeling her heart sweater and skirt. Check out her necklaces - they are candy necklaces from her stocking. She's had them stashed away in her closet for a while, but they are slowly being consumed.

Let The Madness Begin

Today Mama attended her first of the Kindergarten open houses. There are so many schools to see that our calendar is pretty full for the next month or two. And that is just with neighborhood, magnet and charter schools. At this time we aren't planning on looking into private school.

Snickerdoodles and Pigtails

Back in the kitchen for some cookie baking. She was just pretending to eat a ball of dough and was really good at rolling them in the cinnamon sugar mix.

What's Better Than...

An ice cream smile?

Chef CJ

She really does like to work in the kitchen (especially if nibbles are included). Here she is rolling out the dough for our homemade pizza. Yum.

And The Winner Is...

CJ.

Here she is with the holiday coloring sheet she submitted to a local store:

And here she is with her prize:

Over the weekend we got the call that she had won and today we went to claim her prize. There were several age groups and each had three winners. $15 for first place and $10 for the second and the third place winners. CJ won the $15 prize for the 4-5 age group.

She calls it her gift cerfiticate and as of yet we don't have any idea on how she is planning on spending it. They do have some nice toys there (as Santa knows) and last time we were there she purchased a new Groovy Girl courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa (thanks again).

Namaste

Santa came through with CJ's request for a yoga mat (yes, a pink one) this year, so today CJ and Mama headed out to a free yoga for youngsters class thanks to the local library system. It was more of a yoga story time, but CJ had a great time and got to stretch and break in the yoga mat. We also picked up a couple of yoga for kids books while we were there.

Ok, So It Sort of Worked

We were at Starbucks earlier today and got online with Mama's new Ipod (thanks Daddy!), but Mama couldn't figure out how to actually "compose" a post to the blog. It only took the title and labels.

We're On-online@sbux!

She Likes to Vacuum

Yup. That's right. After sleeping in a sling/pack while she was a baby and the vacuum was on she changed into the kid who hated the vacuum, making it difficult to clean the house while she was home. But tonight SHE ASKED to vacuum. And said it was fun. Let's hope this continues for a few years!

The Chinese Garden

We had to compromise. Daddy suggested a hike, but Mama had mentioned that the Chinese Garden was free and CJ couldn't get it out of her head. She even picked out a flowered dress to wear to the "garden". In the end we hiked over to the Max train and rode downtown and walked a couple of blocks to the garden so we were able to get an urban hike in before the garden and then we walked around a bit more after our visit.

We weren't sure what to expect, but it was pretty kid friendly with a bulb planting going on and a flower coloring activity. We even got our fortunes from the fortune telling sticks. There weren't too many flowers, but the ones we did find smelled great - other than the one we found on the bridge...

Prosperity

That's what black eyed peas are supposed to bring if you eat them on New Years Day. So, Mama picked some up at Trader Joes a couple of weeks ago. She didn't know that the neighbors were going to send over some Hoppin John. So, she found this recipe for Gumbo and with a few changes (Tofurky sausage, plus a little olive oil, veggie broth, omit parsley, paprika, bay leaves and file powder, add cajun seasoning), we had a meal that will serve us a few dinners. Now we'll have to see how the rest of the year goes.

Happy New Year

Don't tell the Ducks fans, but CJ picked Ohio State. It may have had something to do with their silver uniforms.