Papa and Nana's Visit

Papa and Nana came in town for a short visit from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon.  We had soo much fun!  The weather was pretty good for the most part.  It was cold, but no storming or anything.  It snowed some but it all melted away pretty quickly.  On the last day it was bizarre.  It looked like a blizzard was blowing in for about half and hour and then it cleard up and was a beautiful sunny day and then it happened one more time before returning to a sunny nice day about 40 degrees.  We crammed a lot into a short visit.  Mia and Papa started a sea monkey habitat and Nana got to help me feed Lennon some food.  We baked some yummy cookies which disappeared far too fast!  We went to the newly improved Boston Children's Museum and it was awesome!  There was so much to do.  Mia painted, explored things through a microscope and experimented with balls falling from different heights and Lennon got to participate in a research study for MIT.  Nana got Lennon to fall asleep on her in a makeshift baby carrier made out of a blanket and her scarf.  On the last day we went to Mia's soccer game in the morning and then they took us to Target to let Mia and Lennon pick out Valentine's Day gifts.  Mia got a fairy Barbie from the new Barbie Movie, Barbie Mariposa and a Littlest Pet Shop Talent show thing and Lennon got a new pair of soft leather baby shoes with Giraffes on them.  Mia was very sad to see them go.  She cried her eyes out at the airport.  She is such a sweetie!

And the award for Miss Congeniality goes to...

Mia just got her first report card for Kindergarten.  She passed with flying colors and got a wonderful note from the teacher.  It said:

"Mia is a delightful girl.  She pays attention and is eager to learn in school.  Mia has been consistently progressing.  She is beginning to use inventive spelling in her writings.  Mia works and plays well with the other children in the class.  It is a pleasure to have Mia in the class."  Ms. Yau

Other than not knowing what it means to use "inventive spelling" we are of course very pleased with this report card, but not surprised at all.  She has really been enjoying school and has made lots of friends.  She is in love with a little Italian boy named Giovanni Silva.  They are on the same soccer team.  He has been away on vacation for a couple of weeks now and she is missing him.  Whenever we are walking into or away from school almost every kid we pass knows Mia's name.  She has made friends really easily and relates to the kids in her class as well as she does the kids in the second grade  Even with all her new friends, Naomi Brill (who is in the second grade) is still her best friend.  They can barely stand to go two days without seeing each other and when they do, they act like long lost sisters when they are finally reunited.  They play so well together and love each other very much.  They talk often about what they will do when they have to be parted for us to move back to Texas.  I tell them not to worry, that it is still a long ways off before that will happen.  It will be very hard for them though I think when it is time for us to leave.  

Oh yeah, the grades thing in kindergarten is different.  They don't get letter grades and they also do not get pass/fail or anything like that.  The grading system is like this:

S - Secure, the skill has become second nature....

P - Progressing, The child has developed a mid-range level of the specific skill...

H - Having difficulty  (and there are others too, but Mia didn't get anything other than S's and P's)

She mostly got S's, with a few P's in there.  P's were in social things like listening and transitioning from one activity to another which I imagine is difficult for most kindergarteners who have not been in another type of school environment previously.  

We are soo soo proud of her!  I miss her so much now that she is in school all the time.  Above is a picture of her proudly holding her first report card and a picture of her with Naomi from their last sleepover.

You are learning well young grasshopper!

Mia had another ice skating lesson today and she did soo great!  She made a lot of progress.  There were many less falls and she gained a lot of speed too.  Towards the very end she fell right on her bottom and got hurt, but other than that she had a great time.  She pays attention to everything the instructor says and is really good at implementing the techniques.  As I was looking around during practice most of the other kids would fall all over the place, but she would almost always catch herself before she fell by bending her knees and putting her hands on her knees like they told her to do.  When she did fall she usually fell forward onto her hands and knees as they were instructed to do.  She's really looking forward to when she can do spins and go really fast.  I'm glad she is enjoying it so much and I hope she continues to enjoy it and not get discouraged.  She's really hard on herself when things don't come naturally to her.  I think she gets that from her Daddy.  He was up all night working on a school project.  He finally came to bed at 5 30 this morning only to get back up and start working more two hours later.  It looks like this semester is going to be a little more time consuming that last semester.  

Big Baby Lennon

I forgot to post that last tuesday we took Lennon to his 6 month check up.  He weighed in at a whopping 19 lbs and 4 oz!  Not quite as big as his cousin Jackson, who at only 5 months has already past the 20 lb mark, but still in about the 85-90 % for weight and bigger than Reagan his other adorable cousin.  He was 27 inches long and that is in the same percentile.  Our doctor said he looked great and was happy to hear he was sleeping through the night now.  Even though I said recently that I didn't think he was quite ready for food, he has proved me wrong.  Every night now before bed he has some dinner with his nightly nursing.  He has tried green beans, peas, butternut squash, bananas, prunes and avocado.  His favorite is definitely prunes.  And it's actually been so much easier to make my own baby food than I thought it would be.  And definitely much cheaper for us which is nice.  Mia continues to adore her little brother and is always best at getting his most fabulous smiles and deep belly laughs.  Shelby is deeply entrenched in the new semester now and we are missing him.  We usually take him down to the train station in the morning now though after we drop Mia at kindergarten, so we get a few extra minutes with him each morning.  He is great and almost always gets up with the kids when they wake up before the sun comes up and lets me sleep a little longer.  There's a nasty flu going around, but so far we've all been lucky enough not to catch it.  We're all doing great and enjoying our lives up here in chilly Boston, MA.  (Shelby is really excited thinking the Giants are going to win the superbowl and he just jumped up to cheer and accidentally punched himself in the nose. he he) 

The budding artist

Mia got this great set for Christmas from Uncle Kelsey.  It's a barbie learn to draw set.  There is a DVD that gives you step by step instructions on how to draw a bunch of different characters from the many barbie movies.  As with all children's toys you always wonder what will actually get used and what will sit in the closet or toy chest untouched.  Well, she is totally into this.  She uses it all the time and has used some of the tips from the DVD in her everyday art as well.  She really loves it a lot.  Thanks Uncle Kelsey!  Here is a picture of her with one of the drawings she did today.  Enjoy!

My sweet little Valentines

As has been the tradition ever since Tiny Bear joined our family back when Mia was only 7 months old, Vickie AKA Granmommy, sent the kids Valentine's Day gifts.  They were so cute that it inspired us to do a little photoshoot of our own.  Mia picked out the background and the socks and thought of lots of creative poses.  She is really into photography.  In case you can't tell from the pictures, Lennon's giraffe has a little bib on that says Lennon's first Valentine's Day 2008.  Both gifts are super cute.  THANKS GRANMOMMY!!

Lennon's Six Month Pictures

Here's a sampling of Lennon's 6-month photos we had taken last weekend.  

Click Here to see them all!

Customer Name: Jenna Francis

Access Code: LTP66901019006JCP