This is why we have two kids

Jr. Tanagrams from Sally Honeycutt on Vimeo.
 

Fun times at the park

All the best amenities

Janet closed on a house last week and will be moving in July. The girls approve of the new house:

Friendly eight-year old next-door neighbor with a tire swing and a tree fort - check.
Green bathtub - check.
4 houses closer to us than her current rental house - check.
All the other features of interest to the grown-ups - who cares?


This photo is a few months old, but I suspect we'll have many more opportunities to see Hazel enjoying herself on the neighbor's tire swing.

OCP Graduation

Juniper is officially a preschool graduate! Yesterday we attended a very sweet graduation celebration for the OCP Larks (pre-K) class.

Ms. Shannon called up each child and read out their proclamations of what they will do in school next year. "When Juniper is a kindergartener, she will have fun playing and paint her toenails."

 T-H-E  L-A-R-K-S  O-F  O-C-P! (You may need to zoom in to see it.)

Hooray! The kids were really excited to get to the part of the ceremony where they got to throw their letter boards up into the air. They had a hard time holding on to the boards long enough to show off what they spelled.

All of the Larks were asked to bring in a rock with their names, decorated however the child chose. The kids left their rocks in the OCP play garden, to represent their time at the school.

 Juniper and Claudia

 Most of the Larks...

 ...and their very enthusiastic parents.

Juniper and the very beloved Ms. Shannon. Juniper was fortunate to have Ms. Shannon as her teacher for her 2-year old class and her pre-K class.

Hazel didn't care much for the ceremony that blocked access to the bike path, but she was very excited about the celebratory ice cream cone.

Juniper was reluctant about having her photo taken; as a result, there's no photo where both Aaron and I are looking at the camera. At least one of us is cajoling Juniper in all the photos of the three of us.

Juniper's friend Thomas was even more reluctant to be in photos, but Aaron had the magic touch to convince him to join in on our family photo.



Thomas and his mother Paula are among our very favorite people at OCP. Thomas is unquestionably Juniper's best friend at OCP, and the two of them have a special and delightful relationship.




The other photo has more people looking at the camera, but Juniper's expression in this one is so terrific we can't resist the duplicate shot.

Thomas, Juniper, and Claudia have been in the same class all three of their years at OCP.

 It has been a delight to watch them over the years. Look how much they've grown since their first class picture! (And that was taken at the end of the year; I wish I could link to one of the three of them at the start of the year.)

Self portrait of Juniper as a kindergartener. (I will confess, I got a little teary-eyed when Ms. Shannon gave us this.)


 
We couldn't imagine a better preschool experience for Juniper. Our heartfelt thanks to Ms. Shannon, Ms. Wendy, Ms. Betty, and all the amazing OCP families that work so hard to make the school the special place it is.

Puddle stomping at Arabia Mountain

Catching flies with honey

Hazel seems to be learning that polite requests are a more effective bedtime stalling tactic than screaming and crying. Friday night at bedtime:

"And, Dad, while you're here, may I have a sweater?" Aaron gives Hazel a sweater.

"And, Dad, while you're here, may I have Juniper's covers?" Aaron gives Hazel Juniper's covers.

"And, Dad, while you're here, there's a rhino in our room."

"There's no rhino. Rhinos don't like living in houses. They live in Africa."

"And they also live at LegoLand."

(A few months ago, Hazel was traumatized by a rhino she saw in a cartoon at LegoLand. She's been talking about it ever since.)

Happy grandmother...tired child