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Allison

First Day of Summer School

First Day of Summer School

Allison was so proud to go to summer school today. She exclaimed last night and this morning that she’s “going to pre-school!” We followed our typical morning routine and drove to school. Katherine was excited to accompany Allison to the Main Building for class assignment and then Mezzo Building.

Once we entered the classroom, Allison put her backpack away, washed her hands and then headed straight to the shelves to handle the materials. The teaching assistant directed her to a practical life work. We all said goodbye to Allison, who didn’t even look up as we left…

According to the teacher, Allison worked well this morning and listened well. She said that she played with “toys” but didn’t do work?! I asked her if she ate her Cliff bar before pickup (while the other full day children ate lunch). She said, “Yes. But I didn’t have anything else.” After that statement, Allison clambered off her kitchen chair, opened the pantry and told me, “I pack my lunch now.” She packed peanuts, almonds and got an apple from the fridge and put it in her lunch bag for tomorrow.

Derby Days

One of the big summer highlights is Derby Days, namely the kids bike parade, the main parade with candy, and rides afterwards. This year, Allison rode the 12″ pink bike with training wheels. Katherine rode her 16″ bike with no training wheels. They were thrilled to decorate their bikes with red, white and blue – and flags too!

July 4th

Aunt Sharon and Uncle Jamey visited over July 4th weekend. It was a fun-filled three days. We picked raspberries at Remlinger Farms, made pie & cobbler, took the kids on a bike ride to the “choo-choo” train park, and a hike around Trilogy.

Katherine went to Tiger Mountain and hiked a third of the way up the mountain with her aunt and uncle. We were proud to hear that she braved the bushes and mud. Allison was very sad to miss the hike, as she tearfully told us that she “didn’t get to go.”

 

Lake Chelan

Lake Chelan

The kids had an amazing time at Lake Chelan with their friends. Steve and I are exhausted. ๐Ÿ™‚

Here are the highlights:

– The water park with slides was a hit. The kids went on all the rides they could with us, and then the beginner slides by themselves. It was a hoot to see Allison buzzing down the slide with her arms straight out and her mouth in a big smile. Allison tried everything without hesitation. Katherine resisted the longer slides until she saw Allison go down three times with Steve. Katherine had to try it then. She kept going at full speed until we all left.

– We spent much of our free time at the beach, building sand castles and flying kites. Steve practiced his kite technique, while Katherine ran around with her kite (thankfully not wrapping the line or kite in a tree or a person).

– A different family would host dinner each night. That meant the kids would run around before and after dinner in the RV Park. They befriended a neighbor girl who had a Pink ATV and let the kids ride it. Allison TORE around the park with Steve chasing her. The kids pretended to be a car wash, to fix the ATV, etc. They made up all sorts of chase games and pretend games to occupy themselves.

– Allison bowled for the first time — ball between the legs straight down the alley. Wouldn’t you know it, she won the first game too. This wasn’t really fair since she had bumpers. And, Steve would give the ball an extra nudge.

– The cherries from the fruit stands were delicious. We hit 2 or 3 stands during the course of our trip, indulging in Bing, Chelan and Ranier cherries. The kids also went back to their favorite ice cream store (Das Big Scoop) in Leavenworth for enormous ice cream cones.

– We also visited Ohme Gardens, which was originally created privately by a family and later purchased by the state. The kids ran around the park, perched on a mountain over Wenatchee, like mountain goats. We later visited the Rocky Beach Dam, checking out the fish ladder (and one sole fish swimming through) and the exhibits. The coolest part was standing inside the dam, looking out a window directly that the spill water.

We have TEN car seats

Today we managed to finally start culling down our herd of car seats. Patty mentioned, as she was about to re-install the Britax Roundabout in her car, how Allison was the only kid who could fit into the seat. It dawned on me that we could swap out the Roundabout for a larger car seat, allowing Patty to keep the seat in her car. So, here’s the conversation we had as we drove along:

Mom: We have 3…no 4 Britax Roundabouts. And, we have 2 boosters without backs, and 2 boosters with backs. And, we have 1 Britax Marathon and then 1 travel car seat. Wow, we have a LOT of car seats.

Allison: We have 10 car seats.

Mom: What did you say? (looking around from the passenger seat)

Allison: (with 10 fingers up) We have 10 car seats!

Not sure if that was a lucky guess, but we all stopped to listen to her. Now, we’re down to 9 car seats. I peered at the manufacturing date on the Roundabout, and sure enough it was manufactured in June 2002….almost 6 years to the day. If you believe the “plastic starts degrading at 6 years,” that means the car seat has only one place to go. Sigh!

Storm Game

Storm Game

Last night was a big night for the kids. After taking afternoon naps and eating dinner, they went to the Seattle Storm game – courtesy of friends who gave us courtside tickets! Big highlights included:

– Free licorice at the courtside entrance!
– Dibs ice cream, popcorn, pretzels
– High-fiving Doppler, the team mascot
– Running onto the court for the train!
-….and holding onto the game ball during one time out!!

How did we get the ball? One of the refs saw us sitting with the kids. After the whistle blew, he walked over, handed the ball to Katherine, and said “will you hold the ball for me?”

Needless to say, we got home very late. But with school wrapping up on Wednesday, it was worth it!

Giraffes at Appreciation Day

A couple weekends ago, we went to the Zoo for MS Appreciation Day. Since we got there before the zoo opened, we were almost first in line, and the kids received cool pink backpacks with lots of zoo stuff. One the big activities that day was giraffe feeding. As you can see, both kids and Steve enjoyed sticking up various branches and leaves for the giraffe to eat!

 

Would You Like Some Lemonade?

Would You Like Some Lemonade?

6AM: Katherine woke up on Saturday to prepare for her lemonade stand. She and Steve hand-squeezed lemons. The kids had made both sugar and chocolate-chip cookies the day before to sell.

8AM: She and Allison were parked with their table and sign by the side of the road waiting for the garage sale to start.

9AM: She kept asking, “Where are all the customers?” I headed out to put more signs out directing buyers to our neighborhood garage sale (and to our house!)

10AM: She and Allison had sold 2 cookies. I kept promising her that people would arrive and to hang in there.

Over the next couple hours, we were on a roll. Despite the kids running off to the neighbors during lulls, Katherine managed to sell a good amount of lemonade and cookies. I would take the lemonade out of the cooler. She would then carefully pour the lemonade into cups and hand it to the customers. I would remind the kids not to touch the cookies directly. Allison must have spent the first couple hours practicing how to pick up cookies with napkins. She took her job very seriously.

Throughout the morning, they’d ask customers:

Katherine: “Would you like some lemonade?” (sometimes asking 3-4 times)
Allison: “You want some cookies??” (again asking 3-4 times)

I’d remind them that once they asked, they should let the visitors look around and not keep asking. But, boy, was it hard to be patient!

Through some very nice customers who donated an extra 25 or 50 cents each, and one larger donation, they managed to sell two thirds of the lemonade and more than half the cookies.

As expected, we didn’t make very much on the garage sale as a whole – but accomplished our goal of cleaning out the house. We delivered our remaining goods to Goodwill that afternoon.

Katherine raised $24.50 for the Hopelink End Summer Hunger Program. She decided, after hearing about the program and getting the materials at school, to donate all the $ from the lemonade stand to the program.

My Last Name is NOT Two!

Allison says the funniest things, although most of the time its unintentional. Today in the car, Katherine was warbling a made up song. It went something like this…

My last name is Bush and Daddy’s is too…
Bisco’s last name is Bush and Allison’s is too…
Mom’s last name is Chang…
<etc. etc.>

Well, a few more lines later, Allison piped up in a very upset voice. “My name is NOT Two. My last name is Bush!!”

Allison’s 3rd Birthday Weekend

Allison’s 3rd Birthday Weekend

Party planning began last month when I asked Allison what she wanted to do for her 3rd birthday. She said promptly, “bike on the driveway with my friends.” So, we planned a bicycle-themed party for little friends that consisted of:

– making foam license plates for bikes/trikes
– decorating butter cookies in the shape of bicycles, hearts, flowers
– pinning name on the road (pin the tail on the donkey)
– hitting a pinata

The kids had a blast decorating cookies. We had frosting, decorator frosting pens, and sprinkles on the table. The kids and adults used all the cookies and supplies – and took the cookies home with them.

Also memorable was our pinata. Steve hung it from his basketball hoop and provided the kids with a piece of PVC pipe. They must have each hit that pinata 5 or 6 times to no avail. So, he offered his baseball bat to Allison. Unfortunately, they whacked the pinata so hard it flew up and hit the basketball backboard. I think the swing also hurt Allison’s shoulder, and she cried for several minutes afterwards. Needless to say, one of the kids finally got the pinata down intact. The dads broke it apart for them.

Allison’s 3rd Birthday

Allison’s Birthday

Allison celebrated her birthday this year with a small family gathering and a little party for a handful of girls. Despite fairly low key events, we ended up with two very tired kids today!

Steve and I were thinking back to Allison’s first birthday when Katherine delighted in opening Allison’s gifts. Allison didn’t really seem to mind. She just loved the attention of having a birthday. When Allison turned two, I remember Steve holding Katherine back so Allison could open her gifts. One moment stands out for me: Katherine wriggling and crying as Allison opened her dollhouse. Now at three, she clearly wanted to open her own gifts. Katherine sat to the side and watched. Her biggest concern: would Allison share her gifts? I guess this is one of the first times that Allison has received interesting gifts that Katherine wants to share! Throughout the day, we’ve had conversations with both kids as they’ve debated and argued about whether they shared or not.

We’ve got a ton of pictures from the weekend that I’ll post tomorrow, when I have time to process the pictures.

Mother’s Day

Like every year, I woke up to find two kids sitting on top of me and breakfast served in bed. This year’s breakfast: cold cereal, cut fruit salad, coffee, juice, veggie sausage….and a big decorated cookie. ๐Ÿ™‚

Katherine sat next to me and talked all thru my breakfast. Allison practiced jumping off the bed.

For mother’s day, the kids gave me a new purse. Their thinking: the bigger the purse, the more I can carry on their behalf! New additions to the purse include Band-Aids, various lollipops collected this week and hair bands.

Skinned Knees Every Day

Now that the weather is finally almost spring like, the kids have started to bike more and more around the driveway and neighborhood. Katherine still needs someone to start her off on her bike, while Allison is self-sufficient and fairly possessed on her training wheels. Yesterday Katherine went for a bike ride with Steve around the neighborhood. Katherine ended up riding all the way to the local choo-choo train park (in Redmond Ridge) and back – probably a 3 mile trip total with a couple pretty big hills. Steve jogged next to her in street attire and shoes (ouch), while Katherine “slowed down” so he could keep up. (Note: she is a very fast cyclist once she gets going.)

Allison meanwhile had a total of 3 Band-Aids on both knees yesterday. She probably skins a knee once a day, whether from running full tilt on the driveway or biking. Katherine managed to even scrape her hand, trying Allison’s 18 inch bouncing ball on the driveway.

We also added Band-Aids at the Ice Cream Social this week at Eton School. This was our third social and probably the busiest yet. Steve was about an hour late, and I spent the full hour making sure the elementary kids didn’t mow Allison over on the playground. From kids running around fueled with sugar to Allison climbing a fort popular with lots of boys, I was convinced she was going to get hurt somehow. She did skin a knee somehow. And, Katherine somehow got a cut on her finger. Luckily we escaped further injury. The kids were exhausted the next morning.

Allison’s Development

Allison is a busy kid these days. She has swim lessons, soccer class and music class – and we’re thinking off adding gymnastics back now that she’s 3. One of her greatest joys is preparing for soccer. Allison received a soccer jersey and shorts that she wears with pigtails to a 3-4 class every week. After class she leaves the jersey on for the rest of the day. ๐Ÿ™‚ For her birthday, we gave her a set of small Pugg soccer goals. My mom got her a size 3 soccer ball, which we saw her moving down our lawn to the goal.

Her other favorite outdoor activity is weeding. Yes, bending down and picking small weeds! Our neighbor has a big maple tree which lost many seeds last year. These helicopter seeds blew into our beds and germinated into small 2″ trees. We had them all over the beds. Allison was a huge help picking them the last couple weeks. She’d gather up her plastic bucket, find a spot on the bed, hunker down and pick until I told her it was time to go in. She would say, “we don’t want trees all over our yard! look there are more weeds!”

Allison is still a very easygoing kid and likes to entertain the family. She spent this morning’s car ride playing with her new “silly” toy from McDonalds. She would move the doll arm and the toy would start blaring music. Allison would yell out, “Dance Mama Dance” and then go off in Spanish. Thankfully Steve understands what she’s saying, because I have no clue!

Last week, I took her to her third study at UW I-Labs. The researchers asked Allison to participate in defining a new protocol for a behavioral experiment. Allison was very patient throughout the 20 minute process, interacting with the research assistant. I think she was a bit puzzled by the repetition – “Allison where would you put the horse if you wanted it to be green? etc. etc. She answered most questions accurately, but began to get confused at the end of the experiment.

Katherine’s Development

Katherine’s big area of focus is emotional development. We’re working on identifying feelings these days and sympathizing with others. It’s gratifying to see progress. For instance, Steve was teasing me about something the other day. Katherine piped up, “That’s not nice. You’ll make mom feel bad!” On the other hand, she’s also working on testing boundaries, for instance around sassing, which we’re working on.

From an academic perspective, she can decipher different words in situ. On Friday, we sat at a light watching a school crossing guard. Katherine asked what she did. I asked her to read the back of the vest, which she did – “School Zone.” She will also occasionally read a few pages at night with Steve. She also practices basic addition/subtraction at school.