Happy Birthday, JKK!

JKK turned the big 45 last Wednesday...we did a lot of celebrating and wish making.  We love him so... 

Bday pancakes for breakfast

Momofuku Birthday Cake (his favorite) BEFORE lunch

Syd sang the loudest

First wish was the girls

Then we had to redo so that daddy could make a wish too

Then we had family band practice!  Funny story with a bit of background: Millie has a princess guitar that daddy always steals from her.  He loves to jam on that thing.  For his bday, I figured he needed the real thing.  We got him an acoustic guitar AND a ukelele, which I'm secretly hoping to learn.  Millie was THRILLED that we could all play together.  However, before we had even given him his gift, we were eating cake and Mills said out of the blue "now you won't have to play my princess guitar anymore".  He figured it out and we gave him his own right after that.  Kids are so funny.  Don't tell them your secrets!

Saturday, the celebration continued...Nana kept the girls for us to go out in Fayetteville.

We met a bunch of friends for a fun bus tour of different breweries!  We even coordinated our plaid.

We had a terrible time.  Obviously.

Millie's Wish

Me:  what do you want for Christmas?
Millie:  a house all to myself

They're Famous!

Amber Lanning shoots for the local Kids Directory magazine.  She needed some girls to help her out for a nail salon ad.  Millie and Syd loved it!  Such a fun morning with Amber's precious daughter.

School Artwork + Homework

Things are getting real for Mills at school now.  No more messing around.  Her teacher actually grades stuff, and she has even had homework a few times.

practicing with scissors

tracing

lots of tracing...her teacher circles when she gets out of the lines.

Ms. Lea has also pointed out that she needs to learn to color inside the lines.

When I told Millie that Ms. Lea said she needs to work on coloring inside the lines, Millie said "well I didn't know".

This homework was attached, so we practiced coloring inside the lines.  She did all of the yellow stars and was really proud of herself!

She loves this concept of homework.  After rest time, she comes out and asks to do her homework. ;) I wonder how long that will last...

mazes are a favorite

storytelling

 guess we need to work on staying in the lines with painting also

look at her name!

I love this fish.  Beautiful.

great job cutting!

letter recognition

Ms. Lea sent homework for the parents too.  I had to make Millie some scrapbook pages and send them to school.  You know I loved it.

This month's theme is feelings.  Sidenote: she looks so old on red shirt Wednesdays in her little uniform

self-portrait

Mills had no problem giving examples for each of these feelings.  She can be pretty dramatic.

Millie's coloring style has changed recently.  It's very aggressive and always rainbow-like.  Millie's is far left, then Syd, then Natasha.  This is from Natasha's last day to babysit this Summer.  The girls love her.

She's proud to show off her school work each day.

Before school pics include posing now

Piddy hasn't brought home much artwork yet.  Just this beauty, which I think is frame-able.

Funny story: Syd knows most of her colors.  However, she doesn't call them by the right name.  Instead, she refers to colors by saying the name of each corresponding Paw Patrol member.  This is her favorite TV show about a group of dogs.  Each dog has it's own vehicle in a different color.  For example, the bulldog is named Rubble and has a yellow bulldozer.  So when you ask Syd what color is this (yellow) object, she says "that's Rubble".  I would correct her, but I think it's so funny.  Syd what color is that (red) strawberry?  Marshall.  Ha!

She enjoys her mornings alone to play with whatever she wants while Millie is at school.  She's actually amazing at playing by herself.  One morning I was talking on the phone to mom and couldn't find Syd.  This is where I finally found her. ;)