ongoings on the outside...

Our garden is continuing to bloom and grow, although there is more greenery growing than there are blooms.  Okay, so there really aren't any bloom in the garden at the moment.  But we now have apples that are growing!

And plums!

And more and more roses!

And more rhododendrons (not so excited here)

Oh, and we are picking radishes!  Sunshine was excited to show off our first pick from the garden.

what she does at night...

There are so many nights after we tuck the kids in that Sunshine gets out of bed and draws.  I had to take pictures of these because they touched my heart.  I hope they do the same to you.

iced purple...

Yellow is not a very good color for a little girl.  Especially where there are lines the color of butternut squash running down them.  Ew.  So for Sunshine's last birthday present we painted her room iced purple.  You can see the process (however, we still have about four feet of trim left to go).  The previous occupants were not very careful and let yellow paint get all over the unfinished wooden trim and even on the carpet in some spots!  We tried to be careful.  The most important part is that Sunshine is so much happier with the color.

tubular...

A couple of years ago Turtle got this from Grandma Hill.  He wasn't able to play with it very often before we moved.  Now it is out quite often and is played with a lot.  Turtle loves to use it to make forts and hideouts.  He is so adorable.  It's also nice when Sunshine gets to use it too.  On one particular day, one would climb inside and the other would drag the tube around the house as a "ride" so to speak.  They would switch and do it again and again and again.  I think you get the picture.

now she is six...

I made Sunshine clean her room the day before her birthday.  She asked me why.  I told her I had a surprise for her and that her room needed to be clean for me to give it to her.  I blew up 20 balloons and was going to do 40, but I started having an allergic reaction to the powder that was in the balloons.  Anyway, back to her floor.  I realized that her room was the previous owner's craft room and that we have been finding pins on the floor for two months (and yes, we have vacuumed several times!).  So then I thought that I would just hang the balloons up.  That made Sunshine very happy when she woke up and saw a whole bunch of balloons hanging up just for her.

We were very nice and let her open her presents early in the day, mostly because she saw a HUGE bag and wanted to get into that first.  Grandma Hill had sent some money and told me to get something for Sunshine.  I knew exactly what to get.  Something she had been asking for for months.  A Pillow Pet.  She was super excited to get one!

She got some clothes.

Some oil pastels and paper (because she is an artist, you know).

 She got some Littlest Pet Shop pets from her brother (one had fuzzy ears) and a princess book and figurines from her other brother.

She had an outfit change in the middle of the day when a package from one of her aunts arrived.  I love the expression on her face here, so I just had to include it for you.  Sunshine informed us that she never makes wishes though. She was just happy to have a heart-shaped cake with rainbow sprinkles.

gingerbread houses...

The school the kids go to doesn't do normal holiday parties.  However, they do make gingerbread houses for fun.  The entire month of December parents are encouraged to send in bags of candy to be able to decorate these houses.  When I went to help out in Sunshine's class I wanted to brush my teeth or throw up.  I couldn't figure out which one I wanted to do more, so I just decided to grin and bear it and help the kids out.  They had so much fun designing their own houses and grabbed candy to decorate it with. 

I eventually made it to Buddy's class, where they were just starting their own houses.  But I had to go take the other kids home so I wasn't able to take more pictures.

Here are their finished houses.  No awards were given out in Sunshine's class, but Buddy's class had awards and Buddy was given the "Ugly in a pretty way" award (he was hoping to get the cavity award).

The worst part of this whole process was that the kids each came home with a bag full of the extra candy.  Yuck.

soft start...

Sunshine had her first day of kindergarten today.  I went with her because of something called "soft start."  It's where parents join their children for the first day of school in order to make it easier on everyone.  Whatever.  Sunshine so did NOT need me there.  Two seconds after we walked in her classroom she ran off to play with some new friends.  She was super excited.

I got to watch her interact with her peers and with her teacher.  She remembered to raise her hand and not yell, which was fabulous.  She got to take a tour of the school and learn where things are.  She got to play on the playground, color and play with playdoh.  It was a regular school day.  I'm positive she will do great.

I was also able to be there for her kinder testing.  It's what they do the first week of school.  They test the kids to see what they know.  Sunshine knew all of her uppercase letters, the sounds they make, all but 'b' and 'd' of her lowercase letters and the sounds they make, she can already count to over 100 and she can skip count to 18 by 2's and 90 by 10's, she knows all of her colors and she can name 7 of 10 shapes (she missed cube, octagon and trapezoid).  The lady testing her was so impressed by Sunshine and said a lot of kids don't even test that well at the end of kindergarten.  Way to go Sunshine! 

playing ballet...

The kids had quiet time after church.  Sunshine and Turtle were being super quiet upstairs and then all of a sudden I heard the words, "Can we come down?"  Sure.  Sunshine was in her tutu and Turtle was dressed in, well he wasn't in his pajamas that he was in earlier.  Silly boy, that one.  Those two decided to put on a show for us and I thought they were so funny.  However, they do need to learn more about ballet before they go professional.

swimming with sunshine...

Sunshine isn't one who likes daring adventures. She is content with practicing things over and over or just having fun. Her method worked though. She jumped from a Pre-K at the beginning of her four weeks of swimming to being at level 5 at the end. Really? She has gotten into swimming a lot.

swimming lessons...

Turtle and Sunshine have been swimming this week and last. Turtle was very apprehensive at first and wanted nothing to do with the pool. Dad finally coaxed him in and after the first day of lessons Turtle decided he loves the pool. See his cute little "I really don't want to do this" face?Sunshine was made to swim. She loves the water and has for awhile.Day 3 or 4...Turtle is warming up and he loves his teacher, Mary. She has had all three kids now and we think she is pretty awesome.See? She loves the water. She will play and play and play whenever she has a moment without her instructors attention.Day, um...who knows. Turtle is showing nice form.
More swimming pictures later. I just wanted to update.

toothy...

Before After

Sunshine has had a loose tooth for awhile. She was eating an apple and one of the two loose teeth got even more loose and the next day she was eating a piece of jicama and it got even more loose. She came up to me and showed me. Buddy made me promise not to touch it and Sunshine agreed. So I told her to just give her tooth a little tug and it popped out. She didn't say 'ow,' she said 'oh.' So funny. She was so excited to have that tooth out. Don't worry, the tooth fairy came for her (she even knows that we are the tooth fairy).

creeping...

We found this little guy, okay so he was almost three inches long, crawling on our window. Sunshine saw him and shouted, "He is there because he wants me to be his human pet."