Losing my marbles

Wow.  Grace has grown up so much in one week of kindergarten.  She won't tell me much about school.  Some days she tells me I am allowed to ask only two questions.  (That is bad when I waste one on a question like, "Why is your glue still in your backpack?")  Some days she makes up funny stories about what happened in her class.  And some days - if I get lucky - she actually tells me a tiny bit of something about her day.  A couple of days this week she was playing with wooden blocks with grooves in them when I picked her up.  You build a contraption and then race marbles down.  This is a new interest for her.  I like the open-ended play and that she has to figure out how to make the marble run work.  And, since we didn't have anything like that in our house, I did some research and found this awesome Quadrilla set at a local toy store. Right after school today we built this twisting tower together.

The only problem is that there are marbles rolling all over the floor.  The set comes with about 30 of them and Grace wants them ALL to roll in her tower at once!

Browns brainwashing

If you live in this house, you are
supposed to cheer for the home team!

Grace started kindergarten

Like I mentioned on Facebook last night, I am not sad about Grace starting kindergarten.  She has been in "school" since she was 18 months old.  But, I did get a little choked up when I put all her supplies in her bookbag.  This is really happening and my baby is getting to be a big girl.  She was over the moon, beyond excited this morning.  And when I asked her to complete the sentence, "I am ..." she said "happy".  There is nothing better.

Waiting with the girls for the boys to arrive.
Her teacher, Mrs. Peterson, was getting everyone checked in.

I hope this new adventure is the start of a journey that will take Grace to destinations we can't even imagine yet.

I love you.  And you will always be my "baby".

Let's try this again

Getting ready to play!

Grace wanted to try soccer again, so Kyle made arrangements for her to attend practice in our community's youth soccer club.  The time conflicts with music lessons, but in August and September there are a few Saturday mornings that we don't have music so Grace was able to go and play.

Grace was given a gold jersey and all the kids joined their coaches for different skill stations.  They went to each location for about 15 minutes and practiced dribbling, shooting, playing 1 on 1, and moving the ball between cones.  Grace did a great job!

They played freeze-tag and to unfreeze someone
you had to kick the ball between their legs!

Near the end, they played a game against another group.  Grace did okay but she was a little too polite and didn't "steal" the ball from the other players.  We need to help her learn to be more aggressive in sports.  When she does get the ball she can run pretty fast and after Kyle coached her a little at a break, she went back in and kicked the ball away from the other team so they couldn't score.  Another time she put herself in the goal and blocked a shot from going in.  That one might have just been a fortunate accident - in the right place at the right time!

This looks like she hit the ball with her head or her chest, but really she was tossing it to Kyle.

After soccer we went over to Grace's new school to find her name on the kindergarten class list.  We already knew her teacher's name but it was fun to find her name anyway.  

Walking back to the car after soccer. 

The school's mascot is a raccoon.

Grace's lake

I can't believe I haven't posted in 10 days!  That has to be some kind of record.  It isn't because we aren't doing anything....it is because we are so busy with work, school, soccer, and trying to squeeze every last bit of summer out of these August days.

We have a BIG, BIG, BIG event coming up next Thursday.   But until then, here are a couple of Grace's lake photos that she made with her camera.  The child never ceases to amaze me.

Three princesses

We had a great time on July 28th at the Akron Zoo's "Princess and Pirate Night" with our friends Dawson and Karli!  Personally, I think our princesses are much prettier than any Disney princess!  (We are really making good use of that Ariel dress and headband!  Grace wears it all the time. )

Thanks for the photo, Kellie!

City playground

I haven't posted in a while....we have just been busy.  But here are a couple of photos from NYC when Grace enjoyed one of the water playgrounds in Central Park.  We didn't intend to get wet (which is why she is not in her bathing suit) but once we got there it loked like a lot of fun so she took her shoes off and jumped in!

Love the buildings in the background!