puddle-wonderful

"The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful."
- E. E. Cummings

Here is a poem by e. e. cummings, for my girl, who loves to dance with me in the rain.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

First of all, I just want to say thank you to you good friends who took the time to offer me advice and support in regards to my last post. Things are going MUCH better for Katelee in kindergarten. We made it through last week and this week has been so much happier! She has been eager to go to school again; I think it just took a little adjusting time. In fact, today we were discussing taking another camping trip, and Katelee said, "No! I don't want to go camping!" When we asked her why not (she loves camping) she responded with, "I don't want to miss any school!" We weren't planning on missing school for our camping trip, but we took this as a really good sign that she is adjusting and the sadness of last week is over for good. :)

We recently had a couple fun events that I need to blog about. First of all, last Friday night our ward went to the Colorado Rockies game. On the way there, I taught Katelee the song, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" which she continues to sing everyday in the cutest way! It is my favorite song she sings right now. We had a lot of fun at the game, even though it rained on us, and the Rockies sadly lost. We rode the train downtown and enjoyed watching the game and being with friends. We are looking forward to going to another game soon!

Last Saturday, we joined our Families Supporting Adoption friends to march in a local parade. FSA joins in the parade each year in an effort to spread the good news of adoption. :) Here are some of us, getting lined up for the parade.

We enjoyed decorating Katelee's bike for the event. ;)

Tossing candy to the kids watching the parade was the best part of the experience.

Except maybe the fact that we were lined up right behind the clowns. Katelee LOVED that, and enjoyed going up to talk to the clowns whenever we had downtime. :)
After the parade, we all met at a nearby park for a picnic lunch and had a good time visiting. I really needed these few hours to focus on adoption and help show others how wonderful a thing it is. This is why I love FSA; it is such an emotional support to me as I try to stay patient while we wait to adopt. As we sat and talked, I got to see some families who have been blessed by adoption and see their beautiful children, hear other people's stories, offer mutual support to other couples who are waiting to adopt, and just overall form stronger friendships. FSA is definitely a blessing in my life.

Kindergarten, So Far . . . and a Plea for Advice.

Katelee really enjoyed her first homework assignment for school this year. She was asked to create herself on a paper plate, using any materials she wanted. She had a great time choosing supplies for her face, and especially loved the buttons. I helped her glue the hair on, and tied the bows, but mostly she did this all on her own, and had a great time. My favorite part? The eyelashes. :) These were hanging in the hallway for back-to-school night, and it was fun to see all the faces hanging up!

The second part of the assignment was to answer a questionnaire the teacher sent home. Katelee wrote all her own answers and illustrated them as well. Here were her responses:

Favorite color: Pink, teal, purple (each written in their own color)
Favorite animal: Elephant (with a great illustration!)
Favorite food: Watermelon (again, she drew a beautiful watermelon slice next to her answer.)
Favorite sport: Swimming
Favorite season: Fall (She drew a few leaves and swirling wind.)
Favorite book: Junie B. Jones
Favorite vacation spot: The BEACH
Favorite hobby: drawing (with a few drawings next to the word to illustrate the point.)
I wish I could say that kindergarten was going perfectly smoothly and all was happiness around here. However, after the first couple of days of school, the excitement wore off and Katelee started asking to stay home. She cries daily and says she wants mommy and doesn't want to go to school anymore. It's horrible! I was happy taking her to school while she was loving it, but there is nothing worse than taking your child to school when they don't want to. This is literally the first experience of this kind I've ever had with Katelee. She LOVED going to nursery, to primary, to preschool . . . So I'm trying to figure out what is different this time around, because preschool was pretty much the same amount of time as kindergarten. I've decided there are a few factors. Her kindergarten teacher, while very nice and professional, doesn't have the same loving, hugging personality as her previous teacher did. Also, for the first time ever, Katelee doesn't know any of the other children in her class. (The only other child in her school from our ward is a 4th-grade girl.) I've been making an effort to help her make friends, and we had a play date last week with a new little girl from her class and plans to have more. In the meantime, I am just praying and hopefully teaching her skills to cope with her worry at school . . . and praying some more. If her feelings continue long enough, I won't hesitate to pull her out. I feel perfectly capable of teaching her at home. However, she is such a social bug, and I really don't think that is the best thing for her. I think she will adjust and be happy at school, and after Labor Day they let me come in the classroom and volunteer weekly (or more) and that will be helpful. Until then - I'd love ADVICE from all you moms who have been through this before!

First Day of Kindergarten

Katelee has been very excited about staring kindergarten this year! On Wednesday, a week ago today, we went to her school for a little orientation. I've been telling her that school would start in the fall, and she was excited to show me a yellow leaf she saw outside - proof to her that it was time to start school!See the yellow leaf?

Oh, this girl makes me smile. ;)

We got to go see her classroom, meet her teacher (again), drop off supplies, fill out paperwork, etc. Katelee loved it and couldn't WAIT for her first official day of school which was the very next day. We went home and painted her fingernails pretty for her first day. At bedtime, Katelee was so excited she had a hard time falling asleep - you would have thought it was Christmas Eve!

Katelee woke up extra early on her first day of kindergarten. She couldn't wait for school to begin. She looked very grown-up and absolutely adorable.

Katelee & Gerald, August 11, 2011
Katelee's First Day of Kindergarten!

Katelee & Jennifer, August 11, 2011

Katelee's First Day of Kindergarten!

At school! (Finally!)

Katelee says she LOVED her first day of school. She enjoyed swinging at recess, her teacher read a story, she met some new friends (though she couldn't remember anyone's name:), and when asked what she learned she replied, "That I don't have any homework yet!" She came home with homework the next day, however. Don't worry - she was excited to have homework. Hopefully that lasts a long time!

After school was over, we picked her up and went to McDonald's to celebrate her first day of school.

What a big girl and a happy day!

Mmmmm....

We enjoyed a yummy, yummy breakfast this morning.

And it was quick and easy to make.

Click here for the recipe. You won't be sorry!

Preparations for School

Katelee started her first day of kindergarten last Thursday!!!!!

Before I write about her first day of school, I wanted to post about our back-to-school traditions and preparations.

Last year we started the fun tradition of a date out with mom to enjoy a meal and choose a new outfit for the first day of school. This is a tradition that I plan to continue every year individually with each of my children. Here we are ready to leave for our date out!

Katelee chose to go to Chick-Fil-A to eat and then we headed over to Target. We found a dress that we both LOVED. Perfect for school.

Mission Accomplished.

The only other thing that Katelee needed was shoes. She has grown out of ALL of her shoes this summer. One Saturday, Gerald needed to go downtown to campus for an hour or two and so Katelee and I went along and walked over to the 16th Street Mall. The 16th Street Mall is a huge outdoor mall in downtown Denver. I really love to walk around the 16th Street Mall; it has such an urban feel that I love. There are street musicians and performers, booths selling bags or jewelry, and old men playing chess or checkers along the road. No cars are allowed on 16th Street, but there are free buses traveling up and down the street that you can jump on anywhere. I really love the atmosphere.

There are plenty of things to see, including fountains . . .the hordes of life-sized bulls that are all painted differently...

and the dozens of brightly painted pianos that are set up all along the street. These pianos have signs on them that invite anyone to sit and play. Katelee couldn't resist giving a concert to any lucky passers-by.

And I couldn't resist joining her.

We found a Payless and the needed shoes, and we had a great time.

Katelee's hair hadn't been trimmed for a year, and I knew it was high time to get those ends trimmed before school started. Our usually stylist was taking a leave after having a baby, and I decided I didn't want to spend the money. So I got up the courage to trim her hair myself, something I've NEVER attempted before. My sister gave me some great over-the-phone instructions that helped me a lot.

So, the snipping began! It went . . . alright . . . :) I meant to only trim the very ends, but in my attempts to make her hair even it got shorter than I intended. When her hair is perfectly straight, you can tell the right-hand side is a bit longer than the left-hand side. Oops. But it's not bad enough that I'm going to mess with it for now. And I may attempt trimming her hair someday again - ha ha ha!

Here's a picture of her new cut - in curls to help hide the flaws! :)So, now our preparations for the first day of school were complete, and there was nothing left to do but wait!
And Katelee could hardly wait!!

The Wildlife Experience

About a month ago I took the girls to a local museum called the Wildlife Experience. The girls had earned free passes to the museum through the summer reading program at the library. It was a lot of fun, but I'm glad we had the free passes as this place is definitely overpriced in my opinion. Here are some of the fun pics we took of our adventures that day! Aaaaah! Don't eat us!
Katelee roaring like a lion.

Digging for dinosaur bones.

Kassandra teaching Katelee about cartwheels on the grass out front. I decided to do a cartwheel myself - it's been a long time since I've done one. It made me feel old - lol!

Camping at Wellington Lake

We had some friends tell us about a great place to camp called Wellington Lake.

We went camping last weekend there, and we LOVED it. It was a beautiful place, and we spent one of our most wonderful weekends ever enjoying the beauty of nature and having some much-needed relaxing fun time together. We cooked in our dutch oven and over the campfire, and ate plenty of s'mores.
We took a nearby hike to see a waterfall.

We enjoyed the beautiful scenery, wildflowers, and many butterflies. Can you spot the butterflies in the next two pictures?

It really was a gorgeous place. The moon looked HUGE as it rose over that mountain.

Can you see the double rainbows in this picture? Doesn't it look like a place out of a fairy tale?Katelee collected lots of treasures, including this awesome "K" stick!

We camped right on the lake, and enjoyed lots of time playing in the water. Katelee practically lived in her swimming suit and loved to splash around in the lake and catch guppies.

She 'rescued' this ladybug from the lake. Her name is "Orangey."

Overall, we just thoroughly enjoyed relaxing and spending time with one another. There were lots of large boulders to climb, and we pretended we were exploring Mars and riding dinosaurs. We searched for fairy homes and played card games.

It was a great weekend of time together, and I didn't want to leave. In fact, we are already planning our next trip to Wellington Lake.