1st day of 1st grade

Chloe woke up early this morning, and was so excited and ready to go to school. (Which is a good thing considering that yesterday morning, she woke up saying "Mommy, I don't want to go to school tomorrow, I want to stay home with you") But today, she was so excited to go. I asked her "do you think you'll learn anything today" and she responded "No, we'll just find out where everything is and maybe color a picture" She's an old pro at this school thing now... let's just hope that she doesn't get back into her old habits of talking during class (which she got into trouble for a lot the 2nd half of Kindergarten)

We walk to school (which is about a block and a half away from us) and Chloe likes to help pull her sisters, at least some of the way. She was ready for me to take over right after I took this picture because it was starting to be more uphill...

Now I need to remember what to do to entertain these other 2 kiddos without Chloe here to organize and plan our activities!!

Chloe's Butterfly Adventure

Chloe got a butterfly treehouse for her birthday from Martin, Shelly, Emma & Audrey (thanks!). We ordered the caterpillars and got to have the adventure of watching the caterpillars grow, form chrysalids, and then emerge as butterflies. It’s been a fun thing to have the girls get to experience and Chloe has loved every minute of being a caterpillar/butterfly caretaker. Here are some pictures of the process…

Chloe was so excited to let them go today and see them go free!

Matching girls

Today, the girls dressed themselves in matching outfits, they wanted matching clips in their hair, they wanted their snack and drink to match, they wanted their walking to match (so they held hands). So, I thought, "I need to take a picture of this" to document it for the future. I'm sure in a few short years, all of that sweet matching will be unheard of...

We even found a twin tree at the park to take their picture next to! Such sweet friends and sisters they are...

Peach Picking

We went to another pick-your-own farm this weekend and picked peaches. It was a neat place that had some other activities for the kids. (They also have apple-picking in the fall with even more kid activities (like crafts, an apple slingshot, and some other things like that, so we're hoping to go back again to do that)

Anyway, we had a great time. The peaches were so easy to pick and so huge...these were the biggest peaches that I've ever seen. We ended up with A LOT of peaches (I didn't really manage to wrap my brain around quite how many peaches we had). It cost a lot more than we expected it to, and we ended up with so many peaches. Then, I spent several hours last night peeling, cutting up, and freezing most of the peaches for later use. We're looking forward to eating LOTS of peach-y things in the next few months.

Trip to the Philly Zoo

On Tuesday, we went to the Philadelphia Zoo (which is about an hour and a half from us). Ben took off work, and we met up with our friends, Lisa & Grant (and their 3 girls) and Carolyn & John (and their 2 girls). We had a great time at the Zoo and it was fun to hang out with our friends.

The girls had a great time holding hands and showing each other all the animals "Chloe, you have to come look at this snake", etc

A couple of us stayed out with hungry babies while the big kids went in the primate house, and while we were sitting there, the gorilla came right up to the window and started eating a branch. Julia and I went right by the window and she really enjoyed being so close to him (she loves animals) We've been trying to get Julia to wave for awhile now, but she wouldn't ever wave at us. As soon as the gorilla started walking away, Julia started to wave at him. She also waved at some monkeys, a hippo, and several other animals. But when we came back home and tried to get her to wave at Ben before she went to bed, she wouldn't wave again. We now know she can do it, but apparently, she saves it for her special animal friends...

We had a great time in this kid's play area climbing up a big "treehouse" and in and out of these dinosaur eggs.

We also really enjoyed watching the otters play. There were several of them climbing up and then sliding back down the waterfall, and wrestling in and out of the water. They were having a great time! We all decided that it would be a pretty good life to be an otter.

Chloe's favorite animals were the giraffe, the flamingos (because they're pink), and the penguins (who knew there are warm water penguins??? They're from Peru)

The girls also had a great time doing non-animal things...like playing in the fountain, eating ice cream, and feeding some little sparrows the rest of their lunch. We had beautiful weather and a fun group of people to be with. All in all, it was a great day.

Chloe's Birthday Pics

I thought I'd put up a few pictures of Chloe's birthday today.

Here we are at Mcdonalds for Chloe's birthday lunch (we're waiting out the worst of the rain...)

Ben brought home these beautiful pink roses for Chloe for her birthday.

Chloe with her new Webkinz from Grandmama & Grandaddy! She got one on Saturday at her party and has been having a great time playing online with her, but she was SO excited to get 2 more for her birthday today!!

Chloe with her decorate your own mirror & then starting to decorate it.

And blowing out her candles...

We had a fun day celebrating our girl. We measured her today against our growth chart and she was so excited to see how tall she'd grown (we measure them on it every 6 months and she'd grown a lot since 5 1/2). She was thrilled that she'd grown all the way up to the butterfly (on the chart)

Ben sat down with the girls this morning and was talking to them about this baby that was born 6 years ago. He asked Gracie "Do you know who that baby was?" and she responded "I can't remember"

We also found out today about Chloe's 1st grade teacher (Mrs. Cerimele), and that a couple of her friends from last year will be in her class again (although several others are not). We got some more information about what supplies she'll need and all that. So, that has helped her to get a little more excited about the thought of school. She still has another 2 weeks, so we still have time to do a few other fun things this summer...

Chloe's 6th (real) birthday

In honor of Chloe’s 6th birthday today, I’m writing a list of Chloe, so we can remember who she was at 6…

• Chloe likes to organize things. She loves to have a place for everything (“this is my pony bin, and this is my book bin”). She’s organized our shoe rack, our pantry, the pictures on our refrigerator, and still wants to organize some more.
• She loves the color pink and has since she was about 2. The ironic thing is that we were somewhat opposed to the color pink and didn’t really get much that was pink when she was a baby. But as soon as she started to somewhat pick out what clothes she would wear, she would only pick out the pink clothes and has been stuck on pink ever since (if there’s ever a choice between pink something and another color, you can bet she’ll pick the pink)
• To go along with that, she’s into anything girly…if it has sparkles or frills on it, she’ll LOVE it.
• She loves patterns. She’s always deciding “well, I did this yesterday, so that means today, I HAVE to do this…” For example, we were having sno-cones a lot for awhile and she’d tell me “today is my cotton candy day, and then tomorrow will be cherry” I tried to convince her that if she wanted to have cherry today, she could change up her pattern, but she wasn’t very into that.
• She’s very proud of the fact that she was born and lived for 3 years in Texas. She’s quick to tell Gracie “yes, you were born in Texas, but you only lived there when you were a baby”
• She likes to make signs for things. If Julia is touching something and Chloe doesn’t want her to, she’ll make a sign with a baby and a red circle & line. A month or so ago, she made signs to go on the bathroom door so we could change them to show if the bathroom was occupied or open.

• She’s always willing to lend a hand. I can always count on her to go get a new outfit for Julia, and she loves to help get juice or pour cereal.
• She’s very emotional, especially when she’s tired. If she’s tired, she can start crying over the slightest frustration.
• She was always looking for trouble as a baby. She started climbing out of the crib at about 18 months (in contrast, Gracie never climbed out of the crib…we moved her to a bed when she was 2 ½ to make room for Julia). Chloe also painted her room with poop once (when she was supposed to be napping). She found a Sharpie once and wrote all over our kitchen with pink Sharpie (cabinets, fridge, dishwasher, a couple toys that happened to be in the kitchen) Thankfully, it came off of everything except for the toys.

• For her 4th birthday, I planned a pirate birthday party without consulting with her (I thought it sounded like a cool party theme and thought she’d love it) It was a fun party, but she’s never quite forgiven me for it, so now whenever we’re talking about her next birthday party, she’s quick to throw in there “I DO NOT want a pirate party”
• This year, her party theme was Hello Kitty, which she decided on probably a week after her 5th birthday. She’s definitely a planner. She looks through every birthday supply magazine that we get in the mail to prepare for what she’d like to get for decorations.
• She takes forever to pick out anything. There’s a prize basket at the dentist that you get to pick out a cheap little toy for being a good patient and it always takes her so long to pick it. Or when we let her pick out a birthday present for someone, we could spend hours walking around Toysrus while she agonizes over what this person might like.
• She loves to help Julia. She’ll walk her around the living room, change her diaper, help take her out of her carseat, sing to her when she’s crying.
• She loves to be left “in charge” If I need to run downstairs to do laundry or take the dog out, she’ll ask “do I get to be in charge?”
• She does very well when you give her a job to do. If she has a responsibility, it’s like something switches inside of her and she’s up to the challenge and ready to do it to the best of her ability.
• She loves anything crafty. She’ll sit at the table all day and put a craft together. She loves to find little bits of ribbon or pretty paper and glue it onto pictures. She loves to paint and draw and anything involving scissors and glue.
• She likes to have things her way and go the way she had planned. If Gracie wants to do things a little differently, it can start a major war because it’s not the way Chloe was thinking it would go.

• She loved going to Kindergarten, and loved her teachers and friends there, and really loved the structure and rules. I think it gave her a lot of security to know how things were going to go everyday.
• She’s a bit fearful…it took her forever to be willing to jump off the diving board even with a float. Now, I’m working with her on getting her to swim some without a float. But she’s funny…if she’s in the shallow end, she can swim with no problem and with great form and be able to swim really far, but if you try to get her to swim even a small distance into the deep end, she gets afraid because she doesn’t have that security of knowing she can touch and she won’t do it. She’s getting to where she’ll swim a little more in the deep end if she’s close to the wall, and I know before long she’ll get it, but it’s just funny that she can’t get past that fear.
• She has a yellow duck blanket that she was attached to starting at about a year. She still LOVES that blanket and sleeps with it and wants it if she gets hurt or scared (although the rule is, she has to leave it in her room). For a long time, she’d like the blanket to be cold, so she’d stick it in the freezer and then get it out and snuggle with this freezing cold blanket. She likes to chew on the blanket, so it’s completely full of holes and tears and is falling apart, but she still absolutely loves it.
• She loves being able to do things by herself. She can crack eggs for recipes, she loves to pour juice and cereal for herself, she likes to get her own toothpaste and make her own sandwiches. She’s very independent.
• She’s very strong-willed. She likes to get things her way and we’ve had lots of stand-offs before she’ll finally give in and go with the way things need to be.
• She’s used to running the show…at home and at our playgroup, she was always the oldest one, so she was the one directing things “Let’s play house…you’re the daddy and I’m the mommy…” or one of her favorite things for a long time (when she was 3 or 4) was to go around asking everyone “would you like to have a lovely tea party”
• But, when she went to school, she was the youngest one in her class (since she’s an August birthday), so she’s had to get used to not being the boss.
• She and her friends at school last year, in Kindergarten loved to play Jedi’s. They’d have special bracelets and codes and couldn’t step on a crack because (in addition to breaking your mama’s back), it would hurt Luke if you stepped on it. They were also very into saving caterpillars (in the spring, these tent caterpillars are EVERYWHERE around here) and she’d come home talking about this one boy who would step on the caterpillars, but they’d tell him “That’s a living thing, you need to be nice to it”. They also were very into rock collecting, at one point during the school year, I looked in her backpack and she had a pile of about twenty rocks in there. I offered to take them out to lighten her load, but she wanted to keep them in there.

• She was very independent starting from birth. She wouldn’t nurse if I was holding her head at all. She often would cry because she was being held too much and when we’d put her down on the floor or the “magic ottoman”, then she’d stop crying and be happy.
• Chloe is the one who looks the most like me. She’s very proud of this fact, and loves it whenever people tell us that. She has brown eyes and amazing dark eyelashes (she had these even from birth…they’ve always been very striking)
• As I’ve said, she loves to plan things and loves to make lists. The day before Emma came, she had written a whole list of all the things that she wanted to do with Emma while she was here.
• School has also made Chloe more outgoing. She was always very shy around other kids and wouldn’t play with other kids at the playground, but since school, she’ll go up and introduce herself to the other kids and have a great time playing with all the other kids at the playground.
• She’s very thoughtful. Today, for her birthday dinner, she wanted hot dogs & macaroni & cheese, but she knows Gracie doesn’t like that, so she told me “and for Gracie, you need to fix a peanut butter & jelly sandwich with goldfish”.
• These past 6 years have flown by! It’s been fun to watch Chloe grow and learn and to see her turn into such a fun and happy girl!!