Underwater Fun

Have I ever mentioned that two of our nice digital cameras were stolen?  Yup. So we rely on the point and shoot digital camera that my mom re-gifted to us and it's actually an underwater camera.

It's come in handy a few times lately when we've been in the pool.  Here's a few shots of Lilly underwater for only her second time!  Not only does she put her head under, but she swims and does twirls underwater too.  I'm soooo proud of her.  She either keeps her eyes open or wears goggles, but we need to get a pair that doesn't fog up and that is a better fit for her. 

Yay for Lilly

It's the end of her four-yr old program at Beach Manor and she's finally in a phonics book which means she can identify both upper and lower case letters.  It's been tough, but we've been working very hard with her. Her teacher was especially working with her because that would give her a perfect record of getting every kid in the class into a phonics book.

Then....one day....Lilly knew all the letterd.  It somehow clicked.  Now she's been coming home daily and telling me what different letters sound like. It's really cool! 

We're still reinforcing her memory of all the letters at home. Yesterday I gave her some word puzzles that Sophia had (I think they were a b'day present from Uncle Mike a few years ago).

She wouldn't leave the room until all the mini puzzles were finished. Each puzzle has a word written on it and a image of the word so she might start to recognize a few words one of these days. You can see the fox in the upper right corner...she called it a wolf.  Hahaha

She did them most of the puzzles all by herself and there must have been twenty of them. Sophia came in at one point and insisted that she help so Lilly allowed her to do two. Then Sophia moved on to other puzzles. Note to self.  Get some more puzzles. That kept them busy and quite for quite some time.

Just FYI: Lilly has been in a math book at school for a while so we're proud of her for that too.

Next year she will be attending Beach Day School which is an even better school than Beach Manor in my opinion. I tried to get Lilly in at the beginning of this year after she has spent a month or two at Beach Manor and I couldn't.  

Beach Day School happens to be located in our church and it happens to be full day compared to public school which is three hours and Beach Manor which is 3 hours of Kindergarten and then three hours of extended play & activities. Sophia had a great experience at Beach Manor, so I can't knock it, but they don't have the same teachers and I don't think they are as good. So, I think the extra individual attention that Lilly will receive at Beach Day will be fantastic.  Her schedule will be 9:30 - 2:15 (Monday - Thurs) and 9:30 - Noon (Friday).

The only thing is that Lilly absolutely hates going to church. She didn't like being in the choir and I don't think she enjoys sitting quietly waiting for the children's moment when she can leave the service. She honestly clings to me often when we're in the building...especially when I'm her teacher for Sunday school for the day. Sophia, on the other hand, absolutely loves choir and church.

I'm not certain the first couple of days are going to go so smoothly at Beach Day School, but I'm hoping Lilly will really enjoy herself soon enough. She has a friend in the class already. It's Norah.

The school projects are incredibly creative and clever. I see them every week because I teach Sunday school in the Kindergarten classroom.  They also have a Kindermusik class each week and an Abrakadoole Art class built into their weekly schedule too. Both have always been extra-curricular activities for us and now it's built in! Very nice.

Church Directory Photo

Yesterday we went in for our church directory family portrait session. 

We ended up ordering a really nice one of the girls together and we'll get small pictures of the all the poses we liked, but we left it at that. They asked if wanted Christmas cards, they explained their whole frame collection, etc... Will was not having any of it.  Thank goodness he was there because I thought the individual shots of the girls looked good awesome enough to purchase too.  We'll get a free family 8x10 for showing up. 

Here are a few of the pictures that I took at our house before we left for our photo session.  They both looked so pretty in their white dresses, although Sophia has the clear plastic "hanger helper" still attached to the should of her dress and it's showing in the picture.  Maybe it looks like a necklace, maybe?   

Bridging From Girl Scout Dasies To Girl Scout BROWNIES

Can you excited?  That's what 12 girls were today at our bridging ceremony. Can you see Sophia's happy face? She was like this for an hour leading up to the ceremony and all throughout. Her excitement even convinced Lilly to become a Girl Scout too. 

Two girls in the troop couldn't make it.  We'll have them bridge over to Brownies at the beginning of next year. 

They ceremony was one of three being held today at Little Island Park at Sandbridge beach - which is one of our favorite beaches. 

The ceremony began with each girl wearing her blue Daisy uniform and walking across "the bridge"that the girls are all trying to stand on in this picture below.  Notice the uniform change to brown.  Well, after tchey walked aross the bridge Carolyn, the troop co-leader, took off their Daisy tunic and replaced it with their Brownie vest. Once they formed a circle I called each girl up and turned her around a few times while I said: Twist her and turn her and show her the elf.  She looked in the mirror and saw.  And the girls said: HERSELF!!!!  Yes, some of them yelled it so it deserved exclamation points.  (smile). Then they each said the Girl Scout Promise while I pinned on their Brownie pin.  It was a Kodak moment for sure. Will didn't come with us so I don't have a picture of Sophia getting pinned. 

He did join us at the beach after the ceremony so he had a free pass to skip. Not every dad was there, but a lot of them were.  Anyway, I digress....after the ceremony we went to the beach and had a fun time playing in the sand. 

These are a couple of super, excited, girls.  All hyped up after eating cupcakes with globs of icing.  

This is a picture of the cupcake cake.

Here's our troop flag. 

Hilton Head Island, Oh how we miss you...

We're still recovering from our fabulous vacation to Hilton Head last week.  We went with friends and all stayed together at their time share resort on the beach.  It was such a nice dry break from the constant rain we were experiencing in Virginia Beach.

It was so much fun to go to the beach in the morning and the pool in the afternoon....or the pool in the morning and the beach in the afternoon.

Lilly bounced around in the water using noodles and her tippy toes until the very last day when she felt brave enough to actually go under water.  She must have done it at least 100 times after she learned how to do it.  I'm so proud of her.

Sophia and Haley had a blast jumping and doing cannonballs into the 5ft deep end of the pool. 

The 101 degree spa was also a favorite among all the kids.  After a dip in the hot tub it seemed like they always wanted a snow cone or a slushy and since the resort had a roaming snow cone stand, that wasn't a problem.

We saw a juggling show at the side of the pool one day and Will was called up to "learn how to juggle".  Since he is quite a pro at it we were all chuckling.  He claims he dropped the ball at first because he was pretending he didn't know what he was doing. (smile).

Will taught Sophia how to play chess on the giant chess board. I watched for a while and I think she was actually catching on a bit.  Will, of course,
whipped her butt.

On the night of Lilly's birthday we ate dinner out and visited a face painter clown while we were walking around outside the plaza.  We stayed late to watch Shannan Tanner, a local performer, check out the pictures below.

One day we took a dolphin-watching boat cruise with another local performer.  I don't have sea legs that's for sure. When I had to get up and walk around below deck with the kids so they could get a snack and a drink I felt pretty awful.

Speaking of awful, Lilly got carsick on the drive home and literally threw up in the recycling bin in the garage when we got home. Sophia came down with a super high fever and had the fever chills and cold sweats for about 15 hours.  I hate when she has fever dreams because it's so hard to calm her down. Luckily Will is really good at holding her tight and taking care of her.

Hilton Head Island is now my favorite vacation spot, well, besides Disney World.

One day we played miniature golf and Will and I tied for last place. Ha ha ha.  The girls darted ahead of us so we didn't keep score for them. 

Unfortunately our camera decided to quit working for a few days and I'm still waiting to get a copy of Michelle's pictures.  She has a really nice one of the four of us.  I can't wait to see it. 

Lilly and Carlie in their ballet outfit

Lilly had dance pictures on Thursday night so she had to wear her hair in a bun and put on some makeup.  She loved that part. 

Here she is with Carlie in their outfit for the ballet and jazz dances.  The tap costume is much cuter, but I didn't get a picture of it this time. 

I'm looking forward to the recital.  Lilly does so well at dance. 

Not to be outdone by her older sister

Lilly, too, received a Barbie house for her birthday.  She got the Malibu House which doesn't have all the bells and whistles as the one that Sophia got, but it's more "her size".  We gave it to her on the day of her birthday party...which was this past Saturday.  

We had it at a frozen yogurt & toppings bar.  If you look closely at Lilly's shirt you'll see an ice cream cone on the front.  I found the t-shirt at The Children's Place and I found the iron on at A.C. Moore and made her shirt.  She was super excited to wear it. 

The frozen yogurt place had a party room so we were able to play a few games before we ate yogurt.  Lilly didn't even want a cake. 

You can see a game that I made hanging on the wall behind her.  The kids liked it....behind each ice cream cone was a hand drawn image and the girls each had to find a matching pair. I had just enough so that each girl could only find one match.  It was actually hard coming up with 11 drawings that I could produce that were (a) recognizable and (b) able to be easily duplicated.  Ha ha ha

We also played my version of pin the cherry on top of the ice cream cone which you can see hanging behind us on the left.   

Sophia's birthday present

We splurged this year and got Sophia the Barbie Dream House for her birthday. 

She's been saving her money up for it and has $48 but it seriously would have taken her forever to reach her ultimate goal.

Lilly and I put it together and set up all the little pieces while Sophia was at school.  When she got home we surprised her by hiding it behind this sheet.  She hugged me harder than she ever has before after she ripped off the sheet cover. She was thrilled to pieces.

She shouted:  JUST WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED!!!!  

The house is literally as tall as Lilly. It has three floors, a working chandelier, a toilet that makes the flushing sound, a working doorbell, and a three-story elevator.