October 2015 Pics

One of the dads brought his guitar to school and Z loved it.

ZJ fell asleep in the stroller a couple times after picking up IJ from school. I've had to give her an earlier bed time since school wears her out.




The kids wore their costumes to IJ's school carnival.










We are still helping IJ's kindergarten teacher from last year with her class garden. The zinnias we planted in May are still blooming.




We also went to the carnival at ZJ's school.


I'm reading the 14 book Oz series to the kids.








ZJ got her clothes dirty at school one day and I found her with this shirt on. We both thought it was silly.


One night I checked on the kids and they were both sleeping in the same position.




The day before Halloween IJ was playing with ZJ and hit his head on the coffee table. It left a deep gash and he had to get a staple in his head at urgent care. He was a super patient as usual.


Once IJ and NJ got home from urgent care, we put the kids to bed and got ready for the costume party we were attending that night.


Halloween!

ZJ's 4th birthday celebrations

ZJ's actual birthday happened to be my work day at her school so I was able to spend the morning with her and NJ decided to take the morning off to spend time with her too. He stayed the entire morning with her and got to experience her school day.

ZJ's school celebrates birthdays by presenting a fake, reusable birthday cake while the children sing "happy birthday." They also get to wear a crown all day at school and take it home.


Then the 3 of us went out to lunch.


ZJ had her favorite, avocado rolls and ate 2 entire orders.


That evening we had chocolate chip pancakes for dinner and gave ZJ gifts from our family. NJ and I surprised her with her new mermaid bed, including the purple quilt, new pillows and a handmade, custom mermaid doll. IJ gave her a mermaid puzzle.


The following Saturday we had another celebration with NJ's parents and I made a chocolate ice cream cake for ZJ.




She ate that entire giant slice with no problem.


The following day we had yet another birthday celebration. This one was the birthday "party" as far as ZJ was concerned. We invited her friend and her friend's brother. The brother is in IJ's class and ZJ has become friends with his sister from playing at their brothers' soccer games. They gave ZJ a stroller and a baby doll, we had a tea party and I painted both girls' toenails.

ZJ's 4 year pictures

ZJ is 4 years old!

10.6.15

ZJ is 34.5 pounds (48%) and over 39" tall (38%). She wears size 9 shoes. She loves puzzles and can do 100 piece ones on her own. She likes drawing, painting and making art. She loves to play outside digging, climbing and now loves riding her balance bike. She can go quite fast on her bike and is starting to balance a bit. She occasionally rides to and from her brother's school. She loves books and being read to. She can write pretty well when words are spelled out for her, she's sounding out words and starting to spell 3 letter words.

ZJ has finally started school and loves it. She's in a preschool coop so I work there once every 2 weeks. She goes Tuesday through Friday 3 hours a day plus an add on program on Fridays where she eats lunch and stays an extra 2.5 hours. Her school has daily art projects and cooking projects or tea parties, lots of outside play time, and lots of creative indoor play time. Each week is a different theme and the parents are responsible for these. ZJ is one of the oldest in her preschool and she is starting to make friends and interact with the others. The first few weeks she mainly played by herself and talked to the teachers.

ZJ is a happy, joyful child. Seeing all the other personalities at her preschool has made me realize this even more. She is smart and loves to talk and ask questions. She loves to cuddle. She bonds with the parents of other kids, mainly IJ's friends' parents and loves to talk with adults.

ZJ no longer refuses to have her hair up and since she started school, it's up most days. We do buns, pigtails, a ponytail or other combinations. She always has clips in the front because we are growing out her bangs.

ZJ goes to sleep in her own bed every evening and wakes up and gets into our bed every single night. It is usually in the early morning hours. She sleeps about 11 hours a night and since school started she's napped a couple times because she fell asleep in the stroller heading home from IJ's school in the afternoon. She should sleep more but since she comes to my bed every night she wakes with my alarm every morning,

Other than colds and congestion which she gets over very fast, she's had one other illness. She woke up in the middle of the night vomiting repeatedly for about 2 hours and was then fine. This happened during the summer.

Here's her 4th year at a glance (last year here):

September 2015 Pics

ZJ started drawing a wide variety of things. This day was robots.


IJ started guitar lessons. This is his fancy new left handed acoustic guitar.


ZJ started preschool!!!


Her school changes themes each week. The first was all about bees.


Every day there is an art and cooking project. The O bracelet was the cooking project.


Two days each week the kids can have a tea party. They have to invite a friend, set the table, make a sandwich and lemonade to share, serve each other and wash their dishes when they're done.




On Fridays ZJ stays at school longer and packs a lunch. This was her first packed lunch and she helped make it.


IJ had 100% positive marks in his first week's visit to the literary center at school.


There's an easel set up for painting any time at ZJ's school. She painted her daddy with facial hair.

August 2015 Pics

We turned ZJ's car seat to the forward facing position.

The kids swam at the RV park when grandparents visited.


IJ is finally figuring out swimming but still struggles.




  

Lots and lots of fun park visits before summer ended.




















1st day of 1st grade.