First day of Pre-K

Naomi was off to Pre-K this morning! She picked out her outfit, complete with accessories!

I think she was already sick of me taking picture of her.

In front of her school while we were waiting.

Playing before the other kids got there.

I'm so excited that she's headed off to preschool and that she's excited about it! She will be learning all her letters and numbers, writing, reading, doing math and science, plus playing of course. She will also have lunch there (provided by me), and I think that will really help get her prepared for kindergarten next year, she is such a slow eater! It's hard to send her off for four hours on her own, but I know it'll be good for both of us.

We are AWESOME!

I'm the first to admit that I'm not a great gardener. I've killed most of the plants that have come into the my life apart from my Jade plant that has been with me for 10 years and my chocolate mint that has lasted 2 years now. Even knowing that, I was willing to attempt a vegetable garden when Naomi begged to have one just like Pa. We started small, one planter containing one cherry tomato plant and two bell pepper plants (one green and one orange). We have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams!
It's an almost ready tomato! We've harvested about 8 so far, none of them lasting for longer than 2 minutes before they were devoured!

This is the orange bell pepper plant, it has yet to produce much, but it seems to be growing well. The other bell pepper plant, the green one, immediately produced a bell pepper which was also quickly eaten.

As you can see, the tomato plant took over the entire planter! Michael kept telling me I should get it some kind of cage, but I didn't, and now I have an unkempt monster tomato plant...oh well...

Yup...she's mine....

So you've seen the images that come from a grumpy 4 year old after a long day in a strange city. What happens to that same 4 year old when Pappi takes her flower shopping at Pike Place Market, Mama lets her eat a McDonald's ice cream cone, and then you shove her onto a ferry? Well, she goes a little bit bonkers. She's happy mind you, but still completely bonkers. The biker guys who were parked next to us on the ferry were probably wondering who this child belonged to (eyeing both my sister and myself). I just laughed, video taped her, and thought "Yup...she's mine..."!

What happens when you give a 4 year old a camera?

We spent the last full day of our vacation in Seattle, and by this time Naomi was at the end of her rope. She had a major meltdown after we left the children's museum and even a trip to the top of the Space Needle wasn't fixin' it for her. So what do you do with an extremely grumpy 4 year old? Why you let her have your expensive digital camera of course!
Here we have a silhouette shot.


And a personal portrait!

This one is actually really good!

Artistic...

And she even got one of the three of us together. I think we have a budding photographer on our hands...

Seatlle

Pike Place Market, such a cool place, and a great view! Naomi sat on the Gold Pig, but I didn't get my camera out quick enough.

Naomi just looks so happy here! She's in Papa Ken's house in Poulsbo.

Playing with her soul mate Missy. Naomi and Missy played for hours! Naomi was even able to pick her up at one point, but poor Missy looked so uncomfortable that we discouraged her from doing it again.

She climb in the cat carrier. Missy seems a little confused.

Yep, fit in completely.

Wallowa Lake

Here is the view of Wallowa Lake, yep, that's snow on the mountains! Prior to our trip (like 2 weeks prior) the highs were in the upper 40's. Luckily for us it was in the 70's while we were there!

Naomi is testing out the water. The saying there is that the lake water was snow five minutes ago. It was freezing!

Floating trampoline, coolest invention ever! You could sun yourself on it after getting out of the freezing cold lake because it was toasty warm from sitting in the sun. This is December helping Naomi on...or off....can't remember which.

Aunt Jennifer's in the lake!

Naomi relaxing. She loved this inter tube and spent quite a bit of time on it. Notice that she's also wearing a life vest, better safe than sorry.

She looks very guilty here, although she really wasn't up to anything. She is wearing another of the kids dresses because she was still in character from the play they put on earlier. She was the evil villain's helper, Pinkalicious!

I don't have any pictures of meal time, but it was an amazing feat! We had 24 people trying to eat in one house. Each family took on the task of cooking one meal for all 24 of us. We had some of the best food! Chicken pesto, Salmon, Burgers, and Ribs!

We had such an awesome time with the family up here! I would definitely recommend that anyone who is heading up to Oregon check out Wallowa lake!

Soccer Summer 2010

Naomi took 5 weeks of soccer classes this summer. She really enjoyed it, but she's definitely one of the youngest in her class, so sometimes she was trailing behind the other kids.

It was great exercise too!

She's willing to follow the other kids, but it's hard to get into the action.

Swimming Summer 2010

Naomi loves swimming! Slides on the other hand she isn't so fond of. But she'll jump into the water without any fear.

Here she is attacking her teacher. He was great with the kids!

I can't ever get her to look at the camera, but at least she's smiling!

Naomi ended up being able to swim all by herself for short distances after this session.

Gardening

We went to Las Cruces over Easter weekend, the weather is warmer down there than it is here at home. So Naomi helped to plant some seeds in Yaya and Pa's Garden. Otis looks like he wants to help too!

Doesn't she look cute with her gardening gloves!

I'm not sure she really understood that plants were going to grow from those little seeds, but she planted them just the same.

And a final pat to make sure that the seeds don't escape. She also watered them thoroughly to make sure they had a good start.

Hoping this video shows up...

4th Birthday

My 'baby' is four! The time has both flown by and gone slowly.
Yaya, Pa, and Jennifer made a gift that was a great hit! It was an edible aquarium!

Here she is getting ready to open a gift from Michael and me.

It's Ponyo! She LOVES this movie and we've watched it a ton since she got it.

A Ponyo cake to add to the craziness.

Gymnastics

Naomi has been in gymnastics for about a year now! She is so much more coordinated than she used to be. She even knows a ton of gymnastics terms and doesn't look at the coach with a strange expression when she asks her to do a V-sit.

Since it's a preschool class they have them do things fun like hopscotch, it makes them learn to jump onto one or two feet depending on the squares.

Here she is climbing the 'mountain'. If the coach isn't watching closely she'll climb all the way to the top by herself!



Every class, the coach create a series of activities for the kids, this time they were supposed to do a chin up and then pull over, then climb up the hill doing a bear walk and slide down, then they were supposed to jump from the spring board to the mini trampoline then to the mat with only 3 jumps, and finally they finished with 'donkey kicks' on the four colored squares. Of course, the camera and I had a fight, so I missed the first part when she did a chin up to a pull over, but she was awesome I can assure you!

Why on why would the cat climb into Naomi's bed?!? Foolish animal! I can't decide if Naomi actually wants the cat to like her, or if it's just her secret desire to be able to pick the cat up and carry her around. She acts like she's going to pet her, and then suddenly she grabs her, and scuffle ensues and someone ends up being angry (usually 3 someones, 1 got grabbed, 1 got scratched, and 1 is yelling...I'll let you decide which is which).

This and that

This is in Durango. We went up there last weekend to attend a wedding. Naomi had so much fun playing in the snow near our hotel, but sadly we couldn't pack it into balls.

I just thought this was a great picture of her! She's all dressed up to go to the wedding.

And this last picture is what happens when you ask a 3 year old to clean up. All of these toys were in the living room, I asked her to move them into her play room (which for her credit, she technically did...) while I cleaned up in the kitchen. Guess we'll working on putting things away next!

Christmas

We had Christmas at our house for the first time this year! Naomi loved doing all the preparations to get ready for Santa Claus. This picture is of her first thing Christmas morning, she got up at about 6:45 am, pretty late for her.

Here is Aunt Jennifer showing off one of Naomi's Christmas gifts. It's hard to tell, but it's a straw that is shaped like glasses, we tried it out with water later in the day, very funny!

Naomi got an Easy Bake oven, plus a cake decorating station. Now she can be just like Mama!

Here she is baking her first cake.

And the completed masterpiece! She covered it with red fondant and then sprayed a green design on. We all ate a piece of course.

We had a wonderful Christmas, and it was almost white. It snowed on Wednesday pretty much all day, but then it was mostly melted by Thursday.

Thanksgiving

I know...I'm a month behind, but life has been crazy!
Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving in Las Cruces: Naomi made Apple Tarts with some guidance from Yaya.

They were delicious!

Then Yaya and Naomi concocted some spa treatments, a fizzing bath salt, and an oatmeal honey face mask!

Not much stayed on, but she had fun licking it off!

All the excitement was too much for Michael, so he had a little nap during our vacation.