Proud Architect

Hazel does love her castles.

Two book lovers

A common request in our household: "Juniper, will you please read the words up loud? I don't know how to read the words."

Kindergarten Graduate

Today was Juniper's last day of kindergarten. Juniper's school emphasizes a variety of good qualities they are trying to foster in the students (thinker, open-minded, compassionate, inquirer, etc.). For their kindergarten graduation, each child got to pick one of these qualities to describe herself. Juniper chose "risk taker."

At the start of the year, we never would have described Juniper as a risk taker. She's so bold and outgoing that many people may not have realized how completely unwilling she was to do something she couldn't do "right." She would quickly become frustrated and give up when trying something where she wasn't immediately successful. There is so much that comes easy to Juniper, we feared she might sail through on the easy accomplishments without starting to learn how to do hard things. Juniper made a lot of progress this year in learning how to be a risk taker. She tried new things that were hard for her. She did things that weren't perfect on the first try, or the second try, or sometimes the third try. She still gets frustrated when she tries something and falls short of her vision for how it should be, but she is much more willing to put herself in that position than she was 9 months ago. We are proud of Juniper for learning to take risks (and grateful to ICS and the amazing Ms. Wong for pushing her to become a risk taker).

Hello, spring!

Hot Buttered Toast

One of Hazel's favorite books is Mercy Watson to the Rescue. One day she woke up from her nap and proclaimed that she wanted to eat hot, buttered toast--just like porcine wonder Mercy Watson. You can see how delighted she was to be reading Mercy Watson while eating her toast.

(If you have a child between the ages of 3-6 and you don't get all the toast references I suggest checking out Mercy Watson on your next trip to the library or bookstore!)

Happy Mother's Day

Because the absurd side of parenting is underrepresented on this particular holiday.

Bubble fun

Baths can be a trial when we've got an agenda of getting the girls to bed on time, but it sure is fun when they have time to play and enjoy it. On an unrelated note, check out how crossed Juniper's eyes are in this pre-surgery photo.

Science Night

A few weeks ago we got to hold an actual human brain at the ICS science night. It was pretty cool.

And a little bit strange!

Hazel's Castle

A long time ago, there used to be a mice who was a queen, and she made her own castle just like this. And I'm going to tell you a legend. Then a shark came and ate it--the mice, of course. Then the shark was the queen. Chomp. Chomp. Then there was lots of mice; then the shark ate all the mice he found in his castle. The castle fell down. Then I built it back up. Then he had some dessert--a panda. Cause the panda was in the cave. Well, he was roasting coffee because he wanted coffee, and he did not have any coffee at his house. Then the shark found him and ate him. Then you came tumbling in. The shark did not like to eat grown-ups, so you and Dad went in and you guys did not get ate. There's one more legend. It's a legend about this castle, a long, long time ago before anything was real and only castles were real. And the panda was now dead.

Hazel's favorite car