Samantha's Last Day of Preschool and the Beginning of Summer

Samantha: 48 Months, Week 2
Aedan: 12 Months, Week 5 (Week 57)

After getting home from the weekend in Upland, Samantha couldn't wait to ride her new bike at home.  We try to go on family walks after dinner when we take Roscoe out, and Samantha enjoys riding her bike up and down the little frontage road of townhouses.  It's amazing how much this bigger bike is working better for her.  She can pedal much easier and has much more control over the direction of the bike.  I don't know if it's because her old bike was too small and this one is better because the wheel diameter is bigger, or if it could have to do with the old bike's condition and the tires that wouldn't hold air.  I'm so glad that I suggested this as a present idea for Upland Grandpa and Grandma because Samantha LOVES her new princess bike.  She rides it every day, sometimes multiple times a day.  Here is a video of her riding her bike; however, she can go pretty fast and got too far away from us to really get a good video of how well she can ride.

These pictures are actually from Monday, May 25th, but I did not put them up on my last blog.  We got a couple flowers from Grandma over the weekend for Samantha to plant.  I thought it would be fun to let Samantha pick out a few more to plant as well.  Ben and I spent time on Sunday night digging out all the weeds and thistles that had grown up around our bushes in the mulch.  Then, on Monday night, Samantha helped me plant the flowers.  She helped decide where she wanted them to be placed, and then we each helped dig the hole with the shovel.  Samantha enjoys pretending to be a gardener and was excited about watering and taking care of her plants.  She was (mostly) careful about not stepping on the flowers as she walked around.

This past week was one of a lot of "lasts" since it was the last week before summer break and everything slows down.  On Tuesday it was Samantha's last ballet class.  We haven't decided if we will sign her up for ballet again in the fall.  She enjoyed it, and she loves to dance, but we have also signed her up for soccer which practices one night a week and then they play a game on Saturdays, so I don't want to commit her to too many things.  We'll have to make that decision in the fall and see what we think.  

Now that summer is here, Ben is going to work on campus three days a week and stay home two days a week.  He stayed home on Monday since it was Memorial Day, and we ran some errands together as a family.  Wednesday was another day that he planned to stay home, and we made plans to visit the Cincinnati Museum Center.  Samantha does a puzzle with Daddy almost every night and usually leaves it on the table with one piece out for me to do.  Then, in the morning she cleans it up so that Aedan doesn't get into it.  However, on Wednesday morning, Aedan decided to help us clean up, too.  It was adorable to watch him pick up pieces and place them in the box, most of the time successfully.  He was so proud of himself, too.

Then, after breakfast we were off to the museum.  Even though Aedan was pretty tired, he did not take a nap in the car and once we arrived at the museum, there were too many fun things for him to even notice being tired.  We stopped at the ball area first, and Aedan loved playing with all the balls covering the floor.  This isn't normally Samantha's favorite area, but we got her  a little more involved this time in collecting balls in a bag and then pouring them in a bucket.  I would then pull the bucket up to the top with a pulley where it would then dump down a ramp and release a lever that would allow all the balls to fall out on whoever was standing underneath it.  Samantha loved that part, when the balls would come cascading down on her head.

Since we went to a favorite area for Aedan first; next, it was time for an area that is Samantha's favorite: the forest.  There are lots of places to run and climb, even a place for smaller children that Aedan enjoyed.

While Samantha climbed in the big kid area, Aedan crawled over the the large tank where there were lots of fish and turtles to watch.  He found it very interesting to watch them swim right by his face.  He kept reaching out and trying to grab them.

I even convinced Samantha to go in the little tunnel with Aedan so I could get a picture of the two of them together.

After Aedan ate a snack, I took him up into the treetops of the forest to let him crawl around for awhile.  He found the rope bridge tunnels to be very fun to climb on.  We took a break for lunch before visiting the history part of the museum center, which we had never been to before.  They had a huge model of Cincinnati which Samantha thought was pretty interesting to look at.  Then, we checked out some trains and let Samantha and Aedan play with the train table for awhile.  Aedan was able to walk around by holding on to the table, and even got a train for himself.

After playing with the trains, we saw a few other things in the history museum before going back to the children's museum.  Aedan was getting pretty tired, and I wanted him to have a chance to play with the water before it got too late.  He really loves playing and splashing in the water.  This is probably another one of Aedan's favorite places to play.  He was a happy boy. :)

After the water, we made our way through the Kids Town section and the area with blocks to build and a pretend construction area.  Aedan was still in a good mood even though he hadn't napped all day, so we just let him crawl around and play with whatever interested him.  He found things to throw and places to explore.  Samantha really liked this area with the pretend rocks that you could scoop up with a shovel into the dump truck.  She played there for quite awhile.

We decided it was getting late, both kids were getting tired, so after stopping to play in the sand for a little while, we decided it was time to head home.  Samantha wanted to get her picture taken in front of the fountain before we left, and both kids passed out in the car on the way home.  We even got Aedan back to sleep in his crib to continue his nap more once we got home.  We had a great day out together.  (I think we were just as tired out as the kids!) I'm so glad that Ben has the flexibility in his job to be able to spend this kind of time with us.  

Thursday was a big day for Samantha as it was her last day of preschool.  They had an end of the year party, and parents and family were invited.  Daddy came with Aedan and me, and we had a good time celebrating Samantha's year.  All the preschoolers played on the playground, and Samantha enjoyed writing with chalk and playing with Aedan as well as her friends.

After playing for quite a while, the kids gathered together for a little performance of their favorite songs.  They were pretty cute singing together, and Samantha loves to sing, so of course you could hear her voice loud and clear.

Then, everyone gathered around for the preschool awards.  Samantha sat with her good friends Henry and Matteo.

Here is Samantha's first day of preschool...

...and now her last day of preschool.  My how she's grown, not just in height, but in learning, too.  It's amazing how much she's learned this year with her numbers and letters and sounds by just going to preschool two days a week.  She has made some new friends and loves her preschool teachers, Miss Betsy and Miss Becky.  We are looking forward to another year of preschool next year three days a week with the same teachers and many of the same friends.

We had a more relaxed morning at home on Friday after a rather busy week.  We played outside with our neighbors, let Aedan have a good morning nap, and prepared for the arrival of Chicago Grandpa and Grandma, as well as Uncle Matt later that afternoon.

I don't take very many pictures of Roscoe, but I came downstairs and saw him laying on the couch in a cute way, so I just had to take a couple pictures of our senior citizen doggie.

It was a good weekend visit with my family.  On Friday after nap time and dinner time, we went Uptown to the fountains to let the kids play and show my brother around Oxford a little more.

Grandpa and Grandma brought down some special toys from my childhood that I was going to pass down to Samantha.  They brought our old Barbie dollhouse that my dad made for us, as well as all our Barbie related paraphernalia.  On Friday night I went through it all to decide what I wanted to keep so that we could show it to Samantha on Saturday morning.  Daddy took Samantha out for a few minutes on Saturday morning so that we could get the Barbie dollhouse up into Samantha's room and set up.  Then, once she returned home she opened a few other birthday presents from Grandpa and Grandma: a new mattress pad, bed skirt, and bed sheets.

Then we let her come upstairs to see the new dollhouse.  She was SO excited and pretty much wanted to play with nothing else the entire rest of the weekend.  It was fun to see her playing with something that holds so many memories of playing with my sister many years ago.  Plus, she even got Uncle Matt to play with her.  I don't think he played with Christy and me that much!  There must be something special about playing with your little niece.

On Sunday after church, before we put the kids down for their nap, O took a picture of Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Matt, Samantha, and Aedan.  We got a pretty good one, at least everyone is looking at the camera!

Then, Samantha wanted to take a silly picture of Daddy with Ariel and her horse.

We had a long and busy weekend with family staying with us, and for some reason that always tends to wear Samantha out.  She's more of an introvert than we originally thought she was, and I think she gets overwhelmed when around people outside of our family for an extended period of time.  Samantha played quietly by herself for much of the morning on Monday because I think she sensed that she needed some down time.  We did end up going to the library for a little while to do a scavenger hunt, find out how to sign up for the summer reading program, check out some new books, and let the kids play for awhile.

For some reason Aedan has been waking up really early lately, sometimes as early as 5:00-5:30.  Monday was one of those days.  Starting our day off that early makes it rough for everyone involved.  I hope that there is some reason for it, maybe that he is going through a growth spurt, or maybe because of his top right molar that is still trying to push it's way through, or even maybe because he is learning how to walk and that is disrupting his sleep patterns.  We could all use more sleep!

Samantha was wearing a sparkly skirt over her pants that Monday.  (She likes to dress herself in some pretty over the top outfits sometimes.)  I decided to put the skirt on Aedan as a joke to Samantha.  She thought it was pretty funny, and we just had to get a picture of Aedan in a sparkly skirt with a football shirt.  Poor little guy, that's what happens when you have an older sister; you're going to get dressed in girl clothes at least sometime in your life :)

(Blog post about May 26-June 1, 2015)