Soul Girl

She must have heard this song at the party today. She popped up during dinner and started singing it. Later she wanted to know where your soul is in your body.

Party Girl

Here's CJ ready to head off to a birthday party with her custom decorated gift wrap. Notice the big "4" in the top right corner? She's really into writing her words and always grabbing paper and asking how to spell words. And since Valentine's Day, we have been getting cards and family portraits almost daily.

CJ Olympics

CJ loves racing. Tonite she was the first one to the front door after the dog walk. She said she won. She won the "rainbow" medal. Mama came in second and won the "pink" medal. And Daddy was the last one up so he ended up with the "skudge black" medal. Guess the dogs don't count for this event.

Foodie Girl

What happened to the good old lemonade stand? When we take the puppies for a walk, we usually pass a house that has an old iron fence where the top of the railings look like a soft serve ice cream cone. CJ started to stop there to offer us pretend snacks. At first it was ice cream or hot cocoa only, but now the list includes smoothies and margaritas! I think we have a foodie on our hands.

Kindergarten Update

It's officially crazy. We've been to about 15 schools and there's no clear leader. Last night we checked out a private school, even though we thought we weren't thinking we'd go that route. So many opinions out there and so much competition for the popular schools. It will be interesting to see what we end up with in the next few months. We've applied to one "alternative" school and need to start working on charter applications before our public school lottery choices are due. Tonight Mama skipped a charter school open since it wasn't mandatory and we attended a tour there on Monday. It's hard for Mama to imagine her little 5-year old going to school with high school students.

Lego Girl

This morning we met some friends at the science museum for some play time and lunch. When we got home CJ pulled out her legos and went to work. She played with them on the office floor for hours. No complaining from Mama.

The Composer

When CJ got home from music class today she grabbed a piece of paper and started to duplicate an exercise they did in class today of writing music notes. They have a ta, ti ti, and a tommmmm. Here's her work.

Idol

Here's our Idol, CJ, singing an original creation with her own pink microphone.

Sunny Days

It was a warm morning so we spent some time on the porch.

We had a visit from butterfly girl and she showed us her magic rock:

Some puppies enjoyed the sun, while others (stuffed ones) were rocked by their Mamas:

There was art to be done:

And finally a visit to the neighborhood school park:

Cousins

Today CJ's cousins came for a visit. What to do, but to take them to one of their favorite places - the big blue slide. Lots of energy was spent climbing up the stairs to slide down big blue. And not too many crowds to fight on a Friday late afternoon/early evening.

An Early Memory

On the way to school this morning we were following a car with those family stickers on the back - you know, one figure for each family member. It had a boy and girl (or maybe mom and dad) and two puppies, who were looking at each other. Mama said something about that being how our family looked, with 4 members, before CJ was born. Then CJ said "But I was in your tummy. And it was dark and scary and I couldn't see. And food kept falling into my mouth!"

Pinky Pinks

This morning, before the tea party, we went to REI for Mama's favorite sale. The Super Clearance Sale. Everything that is marked down to a number that ends in $0.83 is half off the marked down price. Lots of great deals. CJ ended up with a great new ski coat and pink hat (just in time for warm weather).

Tea Party

Today CJ was invited to a Tea Party at her friend's house. The girls all wore fancy dresses and had fun decorating felt heart bags with letters and hearts. Then they decorated heart fans with stickers and had tea and a snack before playing a bit. CJ wore her ball gown and a fancy tiara.

Design Girl & Words of the Day #3 Comes Full Circle

Tonight CJ brought out her "sticker book", (in reality a Pottery Barn paint chip collection) and started to ask Mama if the color was yellow. I read the back and the color was actually Sparkling Wine, which is more of a cream. Then she moved on to the next two colors and nailed them. She started talking about whether or not she should use "butter" or "gold". Watch out HGTV!

Then we were watching the Blazers game (#1-yes, she watches TV and #2-yes, it is often sports) and talking about the scores. See how Mama was turning it into an educational math lesson? She knew that they weren't in Portland because the floor wasn't red. So we were talking about the uniforms and how in the NBA (opposite of the NFL as far as Mama can tell), they wear white on the home court and black when they are the away team. Mama mentioned cowboys and how good cowboys wore white hats and bad cowboys wore black hats. Probably not a PC conversation, but it didn't matter because CJ butted in and said "I hate the Cowboys, but I LOVE their outfits. They are sparkly and have silver stars."

This was along line with the words of the day, which were holiday inspired Love and also Hate. " I love tomatoes, but I hate crunchy carrots." "I love this cinnamon applesauce, but I hated that pear sauce." (Totally a lie - she picked the pear sauce and never complained once about eating it).

Then Mama asked what books CJ and Daddy had read last night and CJ told her about Daddy's choice and her choice. She told me she selected her book because it was pink and white and sparkly. She also said "If you give me a choice, I'm going to choose pink and sparkly every time!"

Rainbow Family

Here's today's family portrait. CJ's the one under the rainbow. She's walking Little B.

Who Needs an Ipad?

Check out this hot pink "computer". She even has a special tool (chopstick) for it.

Notice the flip down keypad?

I think she said she was looking for a puppy school on it.

Super Bowl Sunday Goes to the Dogs

Not much of the game or commercials seen here. CJ seemed fine this morning and had a blast playing with Daddy. But this afternoon she was ready to melt into tears over the least thing (like messing up where she punched a hole in her Valentines) and she let us know that her left ear was hurting. After a warm bath (which brought on more tears), she lay down with Mama and we both fell asleep in front of the Puppy Bowl. When the real game started, so did the tears and Mama's headache. So we headed to Immediate Care where CJ was prescribed some antibiotics for her ear infection, which was apparently getting ready to spread to the other ear as well. Since we were at the doctor's office, Mama got checked out, too and she was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection. Fun, fun.

The appointments actually went pretty quickly, the only issue was that we finished up after 6, which had us driving to 3 pharmacies before we found one that was still open. By that time, we ended up in the post-Super Bowl rush at the pharmacy. Mama wasn't aware that such a thing existed. We're hoping that everyone will be on the mend soon.

Card Shark

Tonight we had family game night and played a few rounds of CandyLand. CJ set up the game, while Mama and Daddy cleaned up from dinner. She told us she had shuffled the cards and it was ready to go. She never forgets that the youngest player goes first. But somehow Daddy knocked over the top card and noticed that conveniently it was the ice cream cone, which it the picture card closest to the finish line. Could CJ be cheating already? Later she got a bad card and started to fold it, like she wanted to mark it somehow. Hmmmm.

The Factory

Here's CJ. Hard at work in the Valentines factory. She needs 21 for school friends, plus a few extra for teachers, family, etc. She loves the glitter glue!

Our Visitor

Can you see the visitor we had today?

Daddy saw this raccoon crossing the back fence and going up into a tree in the neighbors yard. This was the best photo we could get of him.

What Are the Chances?

Mama had some free time today and she loaded the Urban Spoon app and a flashlight app onto her Ipod. CJ thought they were pretty cool and she picked up how to use them pretty quickly. The first time she did a restaurant search on Urban Spoon, it spit out her favorite - Bella Pizza!

Sharing

CJ's school doesn't have show and tell, but they do allow kids to share at the morning circle. I think each child has an opportunity to share, if they desire. Today, CJ will be sharing her "family board". The other day one of the teachers gave us a poster board and told us to fill it however we wanted to and then to bring it back to be the family of the month. CJ and Mama spent some time pouring over 4-1/2 years of photos on the computer, trying to narrow it down to a few that would fit onto the board. We decided to include a Halloween one from each year as well as some of our favorites. And CJ added some art and hearts as well.

Word of the Day, Part II

Today the word was ridiculous. "Isn't that Reee diculous?" Over and over again.

Word of the Day

Died.

Not sure where it came from, but CJ was all over this word today.

She told one of her teachers about the neighborhood pig who had "died" in August.

She told Mama about an inchworm at school that had "died".

And when we were talking about the topsoil we moved into the yard last summer, CJ even remember how Mama's back had "died" while she was doing that.