Bob's Birthday

Bob's birthday this year was pretty low key but I did need to get a post written up to show the beautiful cake Judy made. Nice to get multiple bottles of wine for your birthday.



The girls were willing to stay up to share cake and sing to daddy. Oh, the sacrifices!

Ashton rocking the kinder-scene

This week was the second Parent-teacher conference for Ashton and it was clear by all accounts that she is loving her Kindergarten. She enjoys her friends, her lessons and her teacher to no end. Jacqueline is also convinced she is a "Lincoln Lion" in prep for her own experience in two years time.

Of course, a big part of the study in Kinder is pre-reading and writing. She is writing a lot of stories in class attempting to work on her penmanship, her storytelling, her illustrations and her reading. In January, Bob and I were able to attend her writers workshop and hear one of her stories which was a total kick for us.

Ashton has taken to leaving notes for us around the house on a regular basis. Messages of love, prompting us to hurry up, to stay out, etc. On Judy's birthday she made a point to leave several messages on the door for her wishing her happy birthday.
Last weekend I was able to see Ashton rocking the playground as well. You can tell this is her regular "stomping grounds" and her new goal is to learn to get all the way across the monkey bars. Knowing Ashton you will be hearing of that accomplishment before too much time passes as well. It really took me back a bit to see her on the playground, she is so growing up. There just isn't any more baby in her (most days).
One other bonus of attending a local kinder is the ability to find friends from school at random parks around town. Sunday morning walk home from breakfast lead the girls and I to a park that happened to have a friend from school to play with.

I also broke down and let us eat at the counter at a local diner. While I happen to hate sitting like this myself but I realized that it did allow me to be in the middle of both girls and I totally remember being excited to do this myself at her age.


Which gets me to my final point. I seem to remember myself at six not being "small" and yet I somehow feel she is still so little. I'm regularly amazed at what she can do, at how broadly she can reason out logical conclusions and how she even is getting rather sophisticated at how she can hide things from us she doesn't want to share (mostly around candy so far).

Blanket Love

I'm sure you all know that Jacqueline is the only Bear girl with an official Lovey. Her blanket was a gift from Judy when she was born and now she has three of them (backup plan A and B). Ironically, she has moved from using her blanket as something to help comfort her at bedtime to a part of her day-to-day play.

It is not uncommon for her to need to wrap in her blanket after a bath and/or while getting ready for the day. Essentially a blanket-streaker.
She insisted I take a photo of her vs. getting dressed for school. Cuddling with her blanket and mom or dad is a cause for smile.

Of course a blanket is also a great cape, a shawl, a picnic ground cover a toga, something to wrap a gift in, something to wrap in paper as a gift to others, and so on and so on...

In addition when you are sick (with yet another ear infection) a blanket helps make you feel better while you sleep on the couch. Or as this case might be, when you fall asleep at the counter eating dinner and your mom puts you on the couch.

So, thanks again Judy for our favorite Lovey. While it is getting more worn it is even more regularly loved. I'm guessing this blanket might even be going to college someday so stay tuned.

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PS interesting that while this blanket is light pink Jacqueline calls it "white" sometimes... not sure what that's all about.