Happy 6th Birthday Annabelle!!

More like six, going on sixteen. Still wondering where that time went. In the words of Annabelle, "six year olds are sassy." And she ain't kiddin'. Annabelle has become quite sassy in her old age!

This past year has been a very busy one for Annabelle. A few weeks ago, she lost her first tooth and then lost a second one on her birthday! In September she started Kindergarten at the "big kid school" where she has been doing really well. She is learning all sorts of new things and has made a slew of new friends. She absolutely loves school, mostly for the social aspect, I think.

Annabelle is so independent, she has always wanted to do things for herself but all of a sudden I feel like she has her own life. She constantly wants to be with her friends; every day when I pick her up from school, the first words that come out of her mouth are, "can I have a play date?" Often she and her little friends will make plans to get together, unbeknownst to the parents, and get very upset if things don't go according to plan... It can be very tiring at times!

Annabelle likes to keep busy with activities. She is always up for trying new things and signing up for groups. Currently, she plays soccer in the Spring and Fall, takes ice skating lessons, swimming lessons, belongs to Daisy's (girl scouts) and takes an after school art class once a week. If we let her, she would sign up for everything!

Not only is she keen to do everything, she is also very good at most everything she tries! She has a bizarre natural sporty ability- she is very good at soccer, she mastered riding her bike without training wheels over a year ago, she can ice skate, ride her scooter, skate board and roller blade pretty well and is now swimming in the 10ft. side of the pool. Now she wants to try snow boarding and play baseball and take dance lessons and karate and everything else under the sun.

Although she is a very, very busy little lady, she also enjoys her down time too. She loves to draw/color/paint and do anything crafty. She loves books, especially being read to, but is also learning to read for herself. Although she is desperate to read and often gets frustrated when she can't work out certain words, she is trying very hard and making great progress.

At six years of age, Annabelle still cannot sleep without "blanky", her ducky blanket which she has had since birth. She is still completely obsessed with puppies and can't wait to get one of her own. For the past two years, we have been promising Annabelle that she could get a puppy when she turned six. Well, six is here and we have had to put getting the puppy on hold for a year; instead of a puppy, she will be getting a new little brother soon! In the meantime, she has been collecting stuffed puppies and, at the moment, probably has over 200 of them!

Currently, Annabelle's favorite color is blue. Her favorite flavor of ice cream is chocolate. Her favorite food is macaroni and cheese. At her six year check up she passed all the tests with flying colors. She measured 46.5 inches tall and weighed in at 46 lbs.

Happy Birthday my big girl! I love you!!

Status Update From Jack:

"Hey, guess what! BOO HOO, the groundhog saw his shadow- six more weeks until my birthday. That's boring and rubbish. Wah."

...He learned about Groundhog Day at school today

Kindergarten Concert

Annabelle has been looking forward to the Kindergarten concert for weeks. It's been completely maddening because she has been talking a lot about it but never really giving any details! Every time I would ask her a question about the show, she would tell me, "it's a big surprise" and nothing more. Once, she mentioned that they got to practice on stage but when I asked what they had practiced, I got the usual brush off. Who knew she was so good at keeping secrets? I did find out, however, (from her friend) that they were performing several songs, including jingle bells.

Well, the big day finally arrived and Annabelle was very excited. The show was made up of all 4 kindergarten classes so there were about 100 kids on stage. The music teacher did a phenomenal job of keeping all the children in sync! The concert was adorable and the kids did a great job... and they did indeed perform jingles bells, amongst a few others that they had been learning in music class. But the BIG SURPRISE was that Annabelle had been one of the few chosen to play an instrument- I had absolutely no idea she would be playing the maracas for one of the songs!

Here are a few pictures from concert day:

Annabelle's class- before the show (photo stolen from one of the other moms)

On stage, waiting for the concert to start!

Patiently waiting for her big debut!

Showing off her maraca skills!

Oh Boy!

That little waving hand cracks me up... It's like the baby is trying to say hello!

So we had another ultrasound yesterday and everything looks great- phew! Baby is right on track for growth, etc. Oh, and if it wasn't obvious from the post title, it's a BOY! He is expected around June 10.

The kids were very excited to find out what we are having. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, Jack wanted a boy, Annabelle a girl. Jack was pretty thrilled when I told him we are having a boy, Annabelle, not so much. Her initial reaction was less than favorable... She immediately started screaming, "NO!" "I WANTED A GIRL!!" "I WANTED A GIRL!" then she proceeded to push Jack, who was trying to make her feel better, and punch him in the nose! I was so pleased I told her directly after school, whilst still in the schoolyard, so everyone could see how happy she was to have a new brother. Not.

By the time we got home, she realized how ridiculous she was being and apologized for acting crazy. She also told me, several times, that she is happy that the baby is a boy. I'm guessing that she became upset initially because Jack got what he wanted and she didn't... Everything is a competition with her and apparently, he won this one!

Concentration

Good old Santa brought these Vtech computers for Annabelle and Jack. They haven't had much use until today- I guess it took them this long to burn through all their other loot- but they sure are making up for lost time! Both kids started playing this morning before school and have been sat here since retuning home from school, almost 2 hours ago! I wonder how long this will last...

Also, random thing: today Jack told me that he wants the new baby to be a girl! I'm pretty shocked about that- he was holding strong, wishing for a boy, for weeks and now this sudden change... I'm guessing Annabelle might be behind this.

Something is Missing?

Looks like the tooth fairy will be making a visit to our house... Annabelle lost her first tooth today!

The Sweetest Boy

Jack came into my room this morning and handed me this post it note:


I am one lucky Mama!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2009!

This year we had the family over on Christmas eve for the usual Chinese food/present extravaganza. In the hours leading up to the big Xmas eve event, Annabelle and Jack were extremely annoying excited. We spent most of the morning getting the house in a presentable state and making Christmas cookies... or should I say, I spent most of the morning picking up after them and trying to keep them from eating all the cookies!

Once the guests started to arrive the kids seemed to be a little less crazy... Still off the wall with excitement, only they had other people to entertain them!

Despite going to bed well after 9pm, they still both woke pretty early on Christmas morning. Once Nick and I dragged ourselves downstairs, we let them open their presents from Santa...

They both received TONS of presents! Jack spent the morning trying out various new toys and Annabelle spent most of Christmas morning on her new Rollerblades:

Later on in the day we headed over to Nana and Papa's house for Christmas dinner.

Jack was really mad because I made him wear that sweater. He kept complaining that it was itchy (which it was not) and also that it was choking him (even though the neck was never zipped)... He took the sweater off the second he got to my parents' house!

The Santa Picture

December 2, 2009

Big News!

Hello blog, it's been a while. I have been feeling very tired and slightly sick so I have been ignoring you... But with good reason; as it turns out, there may be another Monkey appearing in a few months!

If all goes well, little "Squish", as it's been called, should be making it's way into this world early June, 2010.

So far everything has been pretty routine. There's been a bit of morning sickness, and afternoon sickness, oh, and night sickness too, but it has not been too bad. Definitely no where in the league of sickness I suffered whilst pregnant with Annabelle. These days I am feeling better, no where near as tired and much less nauseous. Hopefully the worst in over.

We recently told Annabelle & Jack about the big news and they are both VERY excited. They had completely different reactions: Annabelle started jumping up and down in excitement and Jack started asking technical questions like, "if you eat food will it hit the baby in the head" & "is the baby made of metal?" (he thought the ultrasound picture looked like metal). But once I explained that we will not be having a robotic baby, he seemed pretty happy to become a big brother... So excited in fact, that he then asked for 2 babies, one boy and one girl! When I told him that we will only be having one baby he decided he wants a boy. Annabelle, of course, wants a girl. She also wants to be there when I deliver the baby so she can see how it comes out... Um, I don't think so! The next ultrasound is scheduled on my birthday, January 12th- hopefully all goes well!

Girls Are Mean

Five year old girls are MEAN! Annabelle has a friend over for a play date and they are completely TORMENTING Jack. At the moment, he is upset and they are both chanting:
~girls go to college to get more knowledge
~boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider

I've never heard that one before- it's kind of a catchy little song...

Look Mom!

Jack FINALLY learns to pump!

Being Creative

This morning I found Jack playing golf in the living room. Everyone else was still in bed when I heard someone shuffling around downstairs. I went to investigate: Jack had set up his own little mini golf course! He had taken an empty toilet paper roll, using it as a tee, stood it on it's side and placed a golf ball on top. He had found a toy golf club and he was using an orange soccer cone as the hole. A funny site to stumble upon!

Doing Great!

Annabelle, being Annabelle, was completely unfazed by the school switch. She took the transition in stride and has happily adjusted to her new surroundings... I think she enjoyed all the attention of being "the new kid."

She ended up in the same class as her neighbor friend, Lila, so she was very happy about that. She also knows a bunch of kids from preschool, the daycare at the gym and soccer... It is only a matter of time before she stages a coup!

Kindergarten

Phew, we survived the first 2 weeks of kindergarten... Glad that's over!

Annabelle was so excited about going to kindergarten at her new "big kid" school, she had been counting down the days since the beginning of August! Because of the Labor Day holiday, first day of school was not until Tuesday the 7th and by then, she was VERY ready.

But because Annabelle's new school does this thing called, "exploratory", where, for the first 3 days, they shuffle the kids around to try and find the best class mix, she ended up having one teacher on the first day and a different teacher the next. It was all a bit disjointed and nerve wracking, I must say. I just wanted her settled with a class already!

The whole process seemed to take forever but soon enough she was settled and loving school. She was very pleased with her teacher and was even in the same class as her little buddy from preschool, Tore. All was going swimmingly well until...

Yesterday I received a phone call from the parent center informing me that a space had opened up at another school, one which we had requested her to attend months ago.

Faced with the dilemma of what to do, Nick and I weighed the pros & cons and, of course consulting Annabelle about it, have decided to move her over to the other school. Annabelle will be starting kindergarten AGAIN on Tuesday, at her NEW, new school!

Even though she loves the current school and is a little bit sad to be leaving all of her new friends, she is looking forward to the switch. Several of her friends that live on our street, as well as many friends from preschool, also attend this new school. Hopefully she will be as happy there as she was in her first kindergarten!!

First Day Back To School

Still smiling... Looks like he had a good first Day!

The Interview

This morning I had to take Annabelle to her new school for a screening- I guess it is a mandatory thing for all incoming kindergarten students. At the screening, the teacher was asking a series of questions to test basic comprehension skills: things like, GIRL is to SHE as BOY is to ___? (fill in the blank), as well as administering different tasks to test motor development; jump on one foot, stack some blocks, blah blah blah.

During the screening Jack and I were sitting across the room, filling out some paperwork, and I could hear little snip-its of the conversation. Every time the teacher would ask Annabelle a question, she would answer (correctly) and then go on to tell a lengthy, but relevant, story... And then ask 10,000 questions.

When the teacher announced that they were finished, Annabelle stood up, brushed herself off, then said, "I'm ready to meet the other teachers now. I think I want to be in this class, because they are going to make puppets this year, but I will have to see what the other teachers have planned before I know for sure."

Um, yeah.

From what I heard, it seemed like Annabelle was the one conductiong the screening!

Aqua Boy

Jack has been scaring the living daylights out of me lately! He has become completely FEARLESS in the water: all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he started going under water and staying there for extended lengths of time. He has been doing underwater flips, and also this crazy face down floating thing... The first time I saw his "deadman's float", he just about gave me a heart attack!

Camp

The Monkeys started another week of day camp on Monday- and yes, Annabelle's little friend, the one who was "kissing on her" last time, is there, lips ready. What are the odds? Annabelle is very pleased to have another week with Santiago and is already asking to have him over for tea. I'm keeping a close eye on this one!

Jack is very excited to be back at camp as well, mainly because his good friend (or girlfriend), Sophia, is there, but also because he gets to play in water and draw for hours.

At camp, they have been giving out printed pictures to be colored in, or coloring pages. Very rarely does Jack actually color in the pictures- nine out of ten times he will flip over the coloring page and draw on the back... He has been coming home with some really great drawings!

Jack brought this one home on Monday: it is a picture of him walking a dog down our street. The large blue building is our house, with my car out front. He said the other blue structure is the ice cream store. I love his fancy signature!

Pathetic Blogger

I have not been blogging at all lately... I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because the kids are out of school for the summer, demanding every ounce of attention they can possibly get and I have not had a chance to think straight. It's like they hear me typing and start babbling at me!! Right now Jack is asleep on the love seat and Annabelle is watching "Martha Speaks"- a show about a talking dog. Apart from the periodic barks she emits, Annabelle has been relatively quiet... Although, now the show has gone to commercial and the non stop chatter has begun.

Team Monkey has been keeping pretty busy lately: this week we are watching my sister's dog, Homer. The kids love having a dog in the house. In fact, they love it so much, they are plotting to steal him by hiding him, and all of his belongings, away in the attic when they come to collect him, shhhhh.

Homer has been a most excellent house guest- apart from being incredibly cute, he has been very low maintenance and has succeeded in keeping the Monkeys pretty well entertained... Can't complain about that!

Completely random thoughts:

I've been noticing more and more how grown up the kids are becoming. Last week we were at Cape Cod for a little beach vacation. On a day we were walking in the road to the beach, I took Jack's hand and I remember thinking how HUGE it felt- he is getting so big. I can't stand it.

Also, while we were at the Cape the kids wanted to share a room. Every morning they would wake up and drag all of their pillows and blankets into the living room for a little "camping trip" then they would get up and make themselves breakfast.

Every night before bed Jack wants to read "Mrs. McTats and Her Houseful of Cats." Annabelle gets very frustrated at this because she is "SOOOO SICK of Mrs. McCATS" that she "can't stand it anymore" and it "makes her want to rip her head off"- she is still so very dramatic!

A couple of weeks ago, Annabelle made a new little friend at day camp named Santiago. On the last day of camp she told me that, "Santiago was kissing on her." She is starting a new week of camp soon and is hoping that Santiago will be there... I'm secretly hoping that he is not!