Wednesday, May 25, 2011

School and Summer

Sara Beth had her last day of school of the year. To commemorate the occasion, Heather took another picture of her by the front of the house.


Just for comparison, below is a picture of her in the same location back in last October on her first day of school.

Now, technically, she had school this past Monday too, but we had to pull her out a day early as we were going down to Florida for a family vacation with Heather's family. The drive down was as pleasant as can be expected for a 11 hour car ride with a nearly 3 year old. On the way, she fell asleep about 45 minutes before we arrived at our hotel room, and then would not go back to sleep for 3 hours. But we did arrive at the final destination, a condo we shared with Cliff, Kathy, Jonathan and Allison, in one piece.

Sara Beth loved the beach, though she kept asking to go to the condo's pool. I kept telling her we didn't drive half way across the country to play in the pool, so I forced a daily mandatory beach time before we could play at the pool. Sara Beth did enjoy the sand, though the waves did scare her a bit. She did enjoy it when I dug a "baby ocean" in the sand where the water could seep in, but no waves could reach her. She decorated the walls to "her ocean" with shells we collected along the beach.


In addition to the family sharing the condo, she also got to interact with all of the family we don't see all that often. Here is Sara Beth and Aunt Doodle sitting down to read through the scrap book that I mentioned in my last blog post.


Sara Beth blew bubbles at her Granddaddy. And when the bubble wand fell into the bottom of the bubble container, she insisted in extracting it all by herself. After several minutes of struggle and one mangled olive grabber utensil later, she let her Granddaddy help get it out. A little while later, the wand fell in again and this time I had to get it out. It would have been so much easier if the bubble container was half an inch wider.


Sara Beth also got to see her cousins. She showed off her "baby ocean" to Madison, gently guiding her to see all the sights.

She also kept saying hi to Wesley. A lot of people kept telling her how much they liked Sara Beth's dress, to the point that it is now her favorite dress. She proudly displayed it for the camera and then asked Wesley if he liked her dress.


The long days out in the sun with no nap finally caught up with her on the last day there. She fell asleep before dinner and we couldn't wake her, so we just put her to bed in her dress. She did wake up a couple hours later to eat some yogurt and be carried along the beach before passing out again. Then, for the first time all vacation, on the day we wanted to get up early and leave for home, she slept in till 8. On the 11 hour car ride home, she was, again, really good. Though she did burst into tears when, in the middle of Louisiana, she asked to change into her new favorite dress and didn't like hearing that it was packed and needed to be washed before she could wear it again.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

How to get a smile

Well, now I know how to get Sara Beth to smile for the camera: give her a bicycle.


Heather likes to plan ahead, so she found Sara Beth's birthday present (the bike) months ago, and we have been storing it in the attic for her Birthday. Well, I decided that we could let her have it early so she could get more use out of it (Heather had been ready to do this for a while and was just patiently waiting for me). So, my parents get her a helmet, I stay up late one night assembling it in the garage. The next day, she wasn't on the best behavior, so we didn't let her know that it was sitting out in the garage. But then, she had a day where we didn't worry about rewarding poor behavior and bring her out into the garage. She has no problems smiling for the camera.

My parents brought over some of my old toys like a metal tractor and wagon that goes behind it. Sara Beth loves it and will haul stuff around the house in the wagon. Earlier this week, she was pulling a full load of markers into the dining room. This time, she filled it up with underwear and was taking it to her playroom.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Story Time

Most nights, at bed time we give Sara Beth a bed time story. And then Sara Beth will ask to give us a story next. One night, Sara Beth proceeded to tell Heather the following story:

"Jesus was walking on the water. Then a shark came up and went CHOMP on Jesus' legs. Then Jesus went to shore where there were monkeys in a tree eating bananas. They gave Jesus a band-aid with a picture of Dora on it, which made his legs all better."

Summer is approaching quickly. Sara Beth's school put on an end of the year singing recital. Sara Beth performed wonderfully, singing at the top of her lungs. But for one song, they were hitting sticks together in time with the music and I sat in my seat cringing as Sara Beth enthusiastically swung her wooden blocks mere inches from her neighbor (the picture below was taken at the beginning of the song before Sara Beth started to get more in the groove and more energetic).


After the recital, Sara Beth's teachers wrapped up scrap books for each of the children chock full of pictures from her year in the mother's day out program. There were identical packages on the table with kids names on them. Sara Beth recognized which of the labels was her name and correctly selected her scrapbook. She then wanted to review it with us several times, and pointed out all the things she was doing when the picture were taken.


I don't wear normal shoes. I wear Vibram Five Finger shoes, that basically look like gloves for your feet. I love them and their comfortable feel, but they do have a tendency to make my feet dry out. I don't mind dry feet, but whenever Sara Beth notices the callouses in them, she becomes concerned about "daddy's dry feet." Not wanting to waste an opportunity, I gave Sara Beth some lotion and told her she could rub it into my feet. She does give a great foot massage, for a two year old. She then went on to tickle Heather's feet.

One evening, we sat down to play with play dough. I got some shape molds out and began to form creatures. Whenever I got a completed form out of a mold, Sara Beth wanted it so that she could cut off the excess pieces.

We are still working on smiling for the camera. This was right before going to her recital. Her excitement definitely comes through in the picture.