Spring Update

Wow!  It has almost been 2 months since I posted.  What to say... Well, we have had a very busy couple of months, here's the short of it...
Lucy

• Lucy's schedule includes Daisies, winter swim, running club, book group, soccer
• Her favorite activities include riding her bike, reading, roller skating, climbing trees, climbing the walls (literally, she can climb up the doorways in our house), practicing soccer,, making art out of recycled materials, looking through her ribbons book from last year's swim season, helping make dinner, making her siblings go along with whatever scenario she has cooked up.
• Latest scenarios she has cooked up: "Mom, we are firemen astronauts in a parade who like to sing"  Said while wearing her astronaut flight suit, headset, juggling little bean bags, a fireman's helmet, rain boots (without socks as she kept pointing out, guess that is suppose to make her tougher) and singing "Dynomite" at the top of her lungs while Graham wears his rain boots, shorts, a few strands of mardi gras beads, and sings chorus for her.  Harper was curled up in her pajamas on the living room chair pretending to be watching said parade.  
• Sports notes
• Swimming- Lucy is taking off in the pool.  She is a speedy little freestyler, backstroker and her dives are awesome.  In addition, she is learning butterfly- butterfly!  
• Soccer- she is a great little dribbler and is speedy when she gets the break away.  BUT, she is so darn polite that she often gives the ball to other players to take off with.
• School notes
• Still chatting her way through the day
• Working on a story called "The 3 little crabs and the big bad lobster"
• Loved learning about money, time, and geometry and fractions
• Is mastering the spelling lists suggested by her teacher.  They don't have spelling tests in first grade, but she loves spelling.  Our game: for every 5 words she spells correctly , she earns a piece of candy for after school.  Her game: spell 10 words correctly because "I like like even numbers.  If I spell 15 right, then I really need to spell 20 correctly, because I like 4 better than 3 pieces of candy."  Whatever works.
• Big incentive for the end of the year- work on less chatter at school and more finishing of stories, morning work and other writing assignments and she gets to go to the Baltimore Aquarium with a friend to see the dolphins
• Science Fair project in March was "Tracking trash, how trash ends up in the ocean"
• Favorite outfit: Too small Superman tshirt, shorts, no shoes, neon yellow jacket when chilly
• Favorite quote: "Mom, your fancy.  I'm just not.  Look at that jewelry, those shoes.  Fancy.  Hey, for my birthday will you get me one of those charm necklaces?"  She then proceeded to pick out about 10 charms she wanted.  She's "fancy", she just doesn't want to admit it.

Harper

• Harper's schedule includes: school, ballet, Monday playdates with Anna, Wednesday playdates with Rachel, morning playdates with Penny
• Her favorite activities include Littlest Pet Shop, Barbies, baby dolls, playing restaurant, looking through books and retelling them like she's reading to Graham, looking through jewelry (mine and hers), playing in the backyard, painting her finger nails, putting on makeup, playing with Graham and Lucy, watering her flowers, picking flowers, collecting pine cones, learning the names of flowers, playing princess
• School notes
• Harper is a definite leader in her class and loves all the kids in her class, she loves choosing "Weather helper and snack helper" as her jobs in the classroom.  She has taught all her school friends to collect flowers and pine cones while on the playground.  She comes out of school every day with a handful of flowers to be put in a little vase that she puts on the bookcase next to her bed in her room.
• Her favorite area of the classroom is the science area. She also loves the art area.  
• Science Fair Project: (only preschooler to do a science fair project!) "How zookeepers take care of giraffes"
• Ballet notes
• Harper missed a few of her regular ballet classes when we traveled to Kentucky for spring break.  to make up the classes, she dropped into another class.  They are practicing their recital routines at the moment so when they would get to that part of the class, she would practice with them. Then, one day, her teacher asked if she wanted to show this class of strangers her class' recital routine.  And that's when my shy little thumb sucking 3 year old stood up and did her recital routine, all by herself, for a room full of other 3 and 4 year old girls.  I think ballet might just be the perfect outlet for her.
• Her class is learning a routine to a song called, "I'm a pretty rose."  Harper loves the costume- white, sparkles, tutu and roses.  Of course, SHE loves it!

• We just got our caterpillars for our butterfly house.  There are 5 so we all got to name one.  The names: Lucy- Creepy, Graham- 5, Sara- Iggy, Ian- Homer, Harper- Cinderella Tinkerbell Sparkle Glitter.  Quite a name for a fuzzy brown caterpillar! 
• Birthday on the brain!  More to come on that later, but know that she is obsessed with talking about her birthday, the party, the presents, how big she is...
• Favorite outfit: anything sparkly, pink, purple, frilly.  She loves clothes.  She loves sparkly sandals and flip flops, but also loves mary janes in any color.  She loves a tutu like skirt from Bon Bon that has pink, gold and sparkles- really, it was made for the Harpers of the world.
• Favorite Harper quote: " Mom, there's only one Harper- and I'm all yours!"

Graham

•  Graham's schedule includes: schlepping back and forth to school 3 times a day, schlepping to Mom's errands, playing with his buddy Charlie, Friday boys' playdates, more schlepping
• Her favorite activities include tackling, tickling, and wrestling, playing basketball, coloring, playing soccer, playing trains, cars, trucks, airplanes, looking at books, listening to books on cd, riding his scooter, playing restaurant, playdoh, playing super heroes.
• Grocery- this is Graham's favorite outting, well, favorite errand.  He loves the car carts at the grocery but more importantly, he loves the child sized carts at Trader Joe's where he does his own grocery shopping.  His cart always includes berries, granola bars, cinnamon bread, peanuts and bananas.  He once tried to add a bottle of wine, "for Daddy".
• Birthday on the brain.  Yes, HIS birthday.  You can ask him, he will tell you that his birthday is in September, but since we are planning Harper's birthday, he wants a piece of the action.  He knows that Charlie will be at his party.  And Knox.  That's all her really cares about.  Oh, and the fact that he will be 5.  Yes, you read that right.  5.  Favorite number.
• Favorite color- orange.  Orange everything.  
• Favorite outfit: Super man shirt (yes, I wrote that for Lucy as well!), Mickey Mouse tshirt, anything that Max used to wear, shorts, black "Kangaroo" shoes or gray flip flops- because they were Max's
• Favorite Graham quote,"I love you Mom."  I reply, "I love you Graham."  He answers, "We got a lotta love, right?!"  Right.  I also love when he yells at his buddy Charlie, "You're my best friend, right?!"  Hilarious.