Golden Gardens park

No more wiggling

Remember Miss Wiggles from this weekend? Kenzie and Emilie built a house for her and coddled her all weekend. On Monday Mason came inside saying, "SOMEBODY stepped on the caterpillar."

I said, "is it dead?"

He replied, "yes, it's squished."

Kenzie was slightly horrified, but more annoyed, saying, "WHAT? MASON!? You squished the caterpillar?!?!?!"

He said, "no, it wasn't me."

I tried to clarify, "did you step on it?"

He denied it.

So I asked, "well who do you think did it?"

He looked around the room. Cindy and Kenzie were settled in, so they couldn't be suspects, so he pointed at me!

"Me? Mason, you think I stepped on it?"

He cautiously nodded his head.

"Mason, is it possible that YOU stepped on it? Was it an accident?"

He confessed, "yes, it was an accident. I didn't see my foot accidentally squish it."

Duo

Goof

Mothers Tea

Cindy and I were invited to mother's tea party at Mason's school today. It was very sweet. First they got ready with a poem.


Then each kid got up to the microphone for either a duet or a solo. Here Mason is with his friend Hayden.


Then they sang the Little Teapot song...so cute.


Finally they had closing circle. In order to not share germs they put their hand on their neighbor's knee instead of holding hands. Mason struggled finding Arden's knee, but she corrected him.

Hiking Tiger with Jackie and other wildlife

Jackie, Kenzie and I hiked Tiger Mountain this weekend. Weather was incredible. We heard a bear that stopped Jackie and me in our tracks so we tried to keep Kenzie between us, but in the end the only scary thing we saw was a garter snake sunbathing on the path. Kenzie wanted to pick it up, but Jackie scared it away before she could reach it. Yeekes.

Miss Wiggles

Yet another critter. Kenzie corrected me...it's an insect. A caterpillar is an insect? "Because it's the life cycle of a butterfly and butterfly is an insect." I did consult Wikipedia which states, "A butterfly is an insect of the order Lepidoptera." But we call her Miss Wiggles...because she wiggles.

Mas-communication

Mason is at the stage where he can talk about stuff, but he doesn't quite yet have the context to fully understand everything. He's trying to piece it all together, but gets confused with more adult topics or humor. Last weekend our friend Terri gave him an ice cream maker from the "free" pile leftover from her garage sale. She told him that she had found it useful by filling with all her credit cards, covering with water and ice cubes, then freezing. Then she knew she was in trouble when she got the chisel out!! Fast forward a week. Grandma June asks us, "why does Mason keep asking me for all his credit cards to make ice cream?" He is fully convinced that the recipe for ice cream is credit cards, water and ice cubes.

Yesterday he came home from school and told me that school was cancelled because the bad guys were coming. June overheard him and said he had been saying that all day. The bad guys were coming so they had to cancel school. He said, "yeah, they have guns and they're coming to school." I had no idea what he was talking about. I called his school, leaving a rather confused message asking for any perspective they might be able to give. Finally Cindy came home and put the pieces together for us: Memorial Day is this Monday, we're recognizing people who have fought in wars. We tried to explain it to him and he said, "yeah, there's a war coming on Monday." I think he gets it...we'll see...

Spring athletics

Kids are busy (as is Cabbie Cindy).

With gymnastics every Monday, Kenz can now *almost* do a cartwheel.


She's winding up basketball on Thursdays, which she is now starting to like after learning it's competitive, and hitting the rim under tough defense! And, notice that she thinks about clothes lining the other guy, but restrains herself...now that's progress.


And, Tuesdays allow Dude to swing the bat at T-Ball. Are you tired of seeing video of him batting? I go with the material I'm given...

Punk

Lauren has been teaching Mason how to style his hair. And a group of firefighters gave him a tattoo. He's so proud.

Snail

Mason found a snail stuck to a wall, yanked it off, then we learned that if you hum to a slug it'll come out of its shell. No kidding, it worked. Kenzie and her friend Aaliyah hummed it out.

Kenzie loves all critters, no matter the slime or how much it makes me cringe (that might even enhance it for her). The snake made me jump, but didn't give me the heebie jeebies. This is a nice picture though because she has the snail on a leaf. In reality it climbed all over her hand for most of the time.



She and Aaliyah have been emailing progress reports. Here's Kenzie's computer drawing of their new friend. (P.S., she informed me that snails have four eyes as depicted here. I have no idea if this is true or not, but until typing this realized that I don't even doubt her anymore.)

Yes, she washed her hands before we left.

Duet

Kenz and her best bud Olivia at the concert.

1st Grade Concert

Kenzie's first grade concert was tonight. She's in the gold dress in the third row, behind the kid with the really big head. The theme was The Three Little Pigs.



And the finished the night on a softer note.