(Thanksgiving and) Christmas (and New Year's) in July

No, we're not actually celebrating Christmas in July... I'm just finally posting about last holiday season this July! 

Nonna and Pa (my parents) came to spend Thanksgiving with us last year.

Family photos!  Missing Grant and Lindsey, though...

While they were here, we had some family photos taken, went to the movies -- to see Frozen on the day it opened, before it became THE (kids') movie of the year -- made a trip to the Museum of Science, and ate lots of wonderful Thanksgiving food, of course.  I'm sure we did more than that, but that's all I can remember.  Just one more reason why I really ought to post more regularly on here...

The girls had SO much fun with Nonna and Pa during Thanksgiving break!

Thanksgiving dinner, including the highlights, turkey and pumpkin pie

Nonna and Pa's visit also coincided with the Great Haircutting of 2013.  The what, you ask?

Well, Ramona, who had never had her hair cut at all, EVER, decided that she wanted to cut off pretty much all of her hair, so that she could donate it to Locks of Love.  Hair donation was something that had been mentioned to her offhand, probably six months prior.  Someone had commented on its length and said that it was almost long enough to donate (most places require 10-12 inches minimum).  Ramona of course wanted to know what that meant, and why people donate their hair, so we explained that you can cut your hair and send it away to be made into wigs for kids who don't have any hair because they're sick.  Well, Ramona was sold.  She wanted to donate her hair.  And so began her at-least-once-a-week inquiry as to whether her hair was long enough to donate yet.  By Thanksgiving, it definitely was.

Before, during, and after.  Such a difference!  Oh, and Amelia got a haircut, too.

Now, I'm not normally very sentimental about hair, and have been known to make fun of people who get emotional about getting their hair cut...  (I mean, it's just hair!  It grows back, geez.)  I was a little sad, though, to see Ramona's gorgeous golden spirals go.  After all, those baby curls will not grow back!  But any lingering doubt I may have had about chopping off all that beautiful hair was far outweighed by how proud I was of my sweet three-year-old, adamant about doing what she could to help another child in need.   

The four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas always seems to fly by, and last year was no exception.  What did we do?  Well...

...Louisa had her half-birthday...

18 months old!

...We took the girls to Stone Zoo for Zoolights...

At Zoolights, the girls met a reindeer and admired the lights...



...and visited with Santa, of course!

...We picked out a tree from the local Boys and Girls Club and decorated it...

It was Louisa's year to put the star on the tree

...Ramona went to a barnyard babies event at our neighborhood library...

Oh, this child loves animals... Just as enamored with the rooster and pig as she was with the puppies and kittens!

...The girls performed in their respective school concerts...

Poor Amelia, doomed to a lifetime of being relegated to the back row... and Ramona got to hold her class stuffed animal during their performance

...We enjoyed the first snowfall(s) of the season...

*S*N*O*W*

...We celebrated with friends at various holiday parties...

Holiday party animals

...And otherwise got into the Christmas spirit! 

December = lots of Christmas prep!

We were supposed to travel to Nashville to spend Christmas at Chad's sister's house with his side of the family, but between me being out of work and them prepping to put their house on the market, we decided the trip just wasn't in the cards for us, and so we prepared to spend Christmas in Boston for the first time since 2007, and for the first time EVER with just our little family.

Luckily, we didn't celebrate the holiday entirely alone, as Grandma and Grandpa (Chad's parents) very graciously changed their travel plans so that they could spend a few days with us before Christmas, before continuing on to Nashville on Christmas Eve. 

Aquarium fun with Grandma and Grandpa... The stingray touch tank was everyone's favorite part.

Top: Baking cookies and opening presents with Grandma and Grandpa
Bottom: Amelia and Ramona got scooters.  Louisa was upset she did not... But she was happy to borrow Ramona's until her newly-ordered scooter arrived a few days later!

And while we missed the extra catching-up with our extended family that we usually get at Christmastime, it was kind of nice to be in town for the holiday, seeing our neighbors at church on Christmas Eve and waking up in our own house on Christmas morning... I'm not saying that we'll skip the big family holiday again anytime soon, but it's nice to realize that Christmas is just as meaningful when the celebration is smaller and quieter. 

Christmas Eve: before church and after Santa's visit

 

Christmas morning!!!



Just the cutest little Christmas diaper and leg warmer set ever!

We wrapped up the holiday season -- and the year! -- with a little New Year's celebration at home.  We dressed up, ate cupcakes, and let the girls stay up late watching movies, waiting to see the ball drop midnight. 

New Year's Eve and naps on New Year's Day

Ramona was the only one who actually made it.  (Louisa was down for the count around 10, and poor Amelia just couldn't keep her eyes open after 11:30... so close!)

Happy New Year, more than half a year late!  But hey, at least I'll be posting pictures taken this year from here on out.

School Days, Part Two

I promise to go back and post photos and updates from fall/winter/spring, but since I just posted about the beginning of the girls' school years, I thought it might make sense to post about their end-of-the-school-year events next.

Ramona's last day was June 6th.  At the annual moving-up ceremony, her class sang "This Little Light of Mine," and were super cute.

After the other classes sang their songs, the entire school sang the (preschool) song of the year: "Let It Go".  It was hysterical.  My apologies for the shakiness of the video, but I couldn't stop laughing!  I'm not sure which I liked best: the kids who were shouting the words at the tops of their lungs, or the kids who were covering their ears and cringing through the song.  It made for some darn good entertainment.

Oh, that little girl in the front middle making the exuberant arm gestures throughout the song is not Ramona, but another girl in the same dress!  Ramona is toward the back and the right. 

Ramona's last day of preschool -- June 6, 2014

The ceremony was followed-up with a lunch party back at school and lots of goodbye hugs. 




Ramona loves Miss Jessica!  We'll all miss her next year.

So glad that Ramona will be back there in the fall!

............................................................................................................................................................

At the other end of the date-of-the-last-day-of-school spectrum was Amelia, whose last day was just last Wednesday (June 25).  Don't feel too bad for her, though.  Her last two and a half weeks of school included: no homework and no spelling tests, not one but two field trips (one to the swan boats in the Public Garden and one to the zoo), field day, kindergarten graduation, a holiday (Bunker Hill Day), a school-wide talent show, a school dance (I am NOT kidding -- hers included the kindergarten through second grade students), and a couple of early dismissals. 

Field trip to Stone Zoo




Posing with some of her artwork and after her very first school dance!

Add a handful of birthday parties and other end-of-the-year get-togethers, and you've got yourself a pretty fun month of June!

I was happy that my start date for my new job was scheduled for the middle of June, because it allowed me to attend more of these activities than I might otherwise have been able to.  I had a great time chaperoning the field trip to the zoo -- it's so much fun to watch Amelia interact with her peers in situations I don't normally get to see -- and was very impressed by the kindergarten graduation program. 

Kindergarten graduation performance and ceremony

The kindergarten classes sang FOUR entire songs -- complete with hand gestures and including "Fifty Nifty United States" (which I remember 5th graders singing when I was in elementary school) -- and had worked very hard to learn them all.

I didn't get much of the last song... My phone ran out of storage, and I was frantically trying to delete things during the first part!  But here's the end:

The singing was followed by the distribution of their "diplomas," and then cake for all. 

So proud of our little kindergarten grad! 

Last day of kindergarten!  Where did the year go???

With her teachers, Mrs. K and Mrs. Quigg, and a picture she drew of them  :)

Or, as she likes to call herself now, our first-grader.  :)

School Days, Part One

As we wrap up the 2013-14 school year (Ramona has been on break for over two weeks, but Amelia's last day was yesterday -- ah, the difference between private and public school!), here are some pictures from the girls' respective first days of school...

 

All ready for KINDERGARTEN!

This was a BIG year for Amelia.  Kindergarten is so much more structured and academic than preschool is -- or than kindergarten used to be, for that matter.  They actually had weekly spelling tests during the second half of the year! 

Photo with her sisters, who seem less than thrilled...

At the beginning of the year, Amelia could identify all letters, and could write all of the uppercase letters, and most of the lowercase letters.  She could spell her name and a handful of common short words, and knew what sounds most of the letters made, but was just beginning to sound out simple three- and four-letter words.  She could identify most numbers between 1 and 20, but could only write a couple of them. 

On the long (two-and-a-half-block) walk to her new school

And now?

The girl can straight-up READ, and has been able to for at least six months.  She is undaunted by the length of words and the length of books, sounding out four- and five-syllable words with a speed that amazes me and tackling (picture) books of all lengths, from 20 pages to 60 pages.  And she WANTS to read.  All.  The.  Time.  (It's awesome.)    

Finding her nametag and meeting her teacher

She knows dozens of "sight words," and can indeed identify them instantly.  She can write complete sentences, including proper capitalization and correct punctuation (most of the time).  She knows the difference between long and short vowel sounds, and understands the role of the silent "e".   

Getting settled in her new classroom... with some old friends!

And her math skills!  Amelia can now count past one hundred -- by ones, by tens, by fives -- and can write out all of the numbers.  She can read a math problem and then solve it using pictures and numbers.  She can add one-digit numbers to one-digit numbers, to make either more one-digit numbers or (small) two-digit numbers.  She can also subtract one-digit numbers from other one-digit numbers and (small) two-digit numbers. 

It's seriously incredible.  Thank goodness for awesome teachers! 

Ramona has had a great school year, too. 

SO happy to be going to school!

At not quite four, she has another year of preschool after this one, so for this pre-pre-kindergarten year, we had her in school just three mornings a week.  She may have been happier going four or five mornings a week, though, since she was always bummed on the days that Amelia got to go to school but she didn't!  Next year.  :)

Note that everyone seems more cheerful for Ramona's first day than they were for Amelia's.

She has grown up so much this year.  Where she might have had difficulty transitioning between activities at the beginning of the year (read: moving from an activity she was enjoying to one that she was less enthusiastic about), by the end of the year she was cheerfully picking up with her friends and getting ready for the next task. 

 

Walking the Freedom Trail to school... and peeking in the window upon arrival

Ramona has also made some "academic" advances this year, moving from circling her name upon arriving at class, to filling in two or three missing letters in her name, to writing out her whole name.  She can also now identify most letters, write about half of her uppercase letters pretty successfully, and tell you what sounds most letters make.  She can count past 20, can identify several numbers, and can even write a few of them, but still needs help with identifying and writing most numbers.   

All signed in and ready to begin her day!

Ramona will be returning to the same preschool next year, moving up to the (pre-kindergarten) Sea Turtle class, along with a handful of her current classmates, to join several kids from other classrooms.  And she'll have the same teachers that Amelia had last year, which we are thrilled about because they are so wonderful. 

Looking at these pictures from their respective first days of school reminds me of just how different these two girls are...

Amelia was super excited about her first day of kindergarten, but she was also REALLY nervous, and cried a little bit as we were dropping her off.  (You'll notice that she's not really smiling in the pictures of her in her classroom.)  To be fair, it was kind of a zoo.  There were 22 kids in her class, plus 2 parents apiece for most of them, and many youngers siblings... Add in two teachers she didn't know and a new school, and it was just a little bit too much for my sensitive little girl!  After we got her set up with some familiar faces at her table and gave her a couple of hugs, she was completely fine -- in fact, at bedtime that night, she whispered to me that she couldn't wait to go back to school the next day -- but it's a pretty accurate depiction of how Amelia often reacts to something new: reserved, a bit cautious, and in need of gentle coaxing and reassurances.

Ramona, on the other hand... I don't think that shy will ever be a word used to describe her!  She trotted all the way to school on her first day, giggling the whole time, so pleased both to reconnect with old friends and to make new ones.  After she got all signed in, she hugged us goodbye, but never gave us a second glance as we left.  Again, to be fair, Ramona had attended the same school for a semester last year, and even had one of her old teachers again, but even so...  She has no problem asserting herself in a roomful of people she doesn't know, and will chat up anyone -- the crossing guard, the guy ahead of us in line at Dunkin Donuts, the kid on the neighboring swing at the playground -- about anything -- her current favorite toy, the book she read last night, what she ate for breakfast, her cats...  The possibilities are endless. 

They are definitely different kids, but they do share the same attitude toward school: both LOVE it, and I hope they continue to enjoy it for a long, long time... Though hopefully not on our dime after college!  :)

One, two... THREE!

I promise to get back to our summer soon, but before I backtrack through July, allow me to jump ahead to the present momentarily... Because tomorrow (which actually arrives in half an hour) Ramona will be three years old!  That's right, my middle child, my mini me, is turning THREE.

Ramona at three DAYS old...

Having been through age three with one kiddo already, I am somewhat wary of what this year will bring... Terrible twos?  Nah, three is so much worse!  Precocious child that she is, Ramona seems to have hit this difficult phase a couple of months early: more fit-throwing, more defiance, more just plain disagreeable-ness (if that's a word).  On the other hand, age three is also bringing more independence, more reasoning, and more active imagining.

And Ramona really is such a fun little girl.  She's goofy and generous and loving and creative, and I can't wait to see how she grows and changes over the next year.

...and at about a week shy of three YEARS old.  How time flies!

 

Happy birthday, Ramona Florence!  We love you oh so very much.  (Even when you're sobbing that you don't want to go to bed because you're just NOT tired...) 

How Did It Get So Late So Soon? (The Rest of June)

The above poem by the good doctor captures exactly how I feel about this summer so far.  I can't believe that it's already August!  That means birthdays are around the corner, the days are getting shorter, and Amelia and Ramona will be back in school in just over a month...  I really wish time would slow down just a little bit.  I also wish that I could catch this poor blog back up to the present!  In order to do so, I am going to have to include a couple of miscellany posts.

So here's the rest of our June!

A couple of weeks after school let out for the summer, the girls' swim classes ended, as well.  (The Y actually runs a summer session now, which it didn't in previous years, but we find it better not to commit to -- and pay for -- things like that on summer weekends.)  I got quite a few pictures of our little fish during one of the last classes.

Loving swim class at the Y!

Amelia hit a major milestone during this session: She can REALLY swim!  All on her own, without any flotation devices.  SO proud of her. 

Louisa's first session of swim lessons started out a little on the shaky side, but ended in success! 

Another fun thing we did in June was spend a day at Six Flags New England, courtesy of my office.  You'd think that we would have been theme-parked-out after four days at Disney and one at Universal just a week earlier, but we were game for one more day of long lines and kiddie rides.  Turns out, we didn't really have to contend with the former!  Lines were extremely short to non-existent, which was a welcome change.  The girls had a blast.

Amelia and Ramona rode on the skyway, in a "hot air balloon," in cars, in teacups, in a boat... and Louisa rode in the stroller!

In addition to the rides, we also got to meet a few characters.  That part was a little anti-climactic for the girls, especially compared to Disney, since they had NO idea who the Looney Tunes characters were.  But they wanted to see them, anyway!  No fear of people in mascot-type costumes for our kids.

Meeting Tweety, Sylvester, and Bugs (after I explained who they were... )

The middle of the month brought one of my favorite days of the year: Bunker Hill Day.

Not every town gets to celebrate its own personal holiday, but Charlestown does!  To commemorate the Battle of Bunker Hill (which, yes, actually took place on Breed's Hill), the town runs a road race in the morning of the Sunday following June 17 (which is actual Bunker Hill Day), and then holds a parade in afternoon. 

We typically watch the parade down on Bunker Hill Street, and then walk a block up and watch the whole thing again as it turns onto Bartlett.  When you live a stone's throw away, why not, right?  My favorites are always the fife and drum corps and the bagpipers.  So very Boston/Charlestown!

Does YOUR hometown have its own holiday and parade?  So grateful that ours does!

June also included a couple of birthday parties for Amelia's buddies: One at a local park with a soccer class and another at Jump On In, a nearby "inflatable playground."  The girls had a great time at both!


Birthday party fun was had by all!

Chad took the girls strawberry-picking at the end of the month.  I was sad to miss it this year, but we just couldn't squeeze it in on the weekend, so it was either have Chad and the girls go without me or skip strawberry season altogether!  I still got to enjoy multiple servings of strawberry shortcake, so I'd say it was the right decision.  

Did they eat more than they brought home?  Maybe...

 Throw in a rainbow and a bathtub photo shoot, and that was our June!

Gorgeous rainbow over the Monument and a cute little belly

Next up: July!

Preschool Graduation!

At the beginning of June, Amelia "graduated" from preschool. 

Is it really necessary to have a ceremony to celebrate moving from preschool to kindergarten, complete with caps and gowns?  Probably not...  But it certainly was darn cute!  Each of the four classes at the girls' school performed a song (which they had been practicing for months), and the kids were all so proud of themselves.  Really, super cute. 

See for yourself!

Amelia's class getting ready

Ramona and the rest of the Manatee Class

Ramona's class sang "This is the Day."  She's a bit difficult to find in the video, as she was standing a little bit behind a friend of hers.  She's the one holding Mandy, the (stuffed) class mascot! 

There!  She finally saw us!  :)

Our little neighbor wasn't terribly impressed with one of the songs... I won't tell you which one.

After the other classes were finished with their songs, Amelia's got to "march" up to their seats on the stage.  Just a little pomp and circumstance

We have NO idea what possessed Amelia to cross her legs in such a ladylike manner!  Very uncharacteristic of her...

Amelia's class singing

Seriously, how cute are they?!

Amelia's class sang "Seasons of Love."  (Because what Catholic preschool doesn't want to include a song from the musical Rent in its graduation ceremony?)  Seriously, though, they did a great job.  I was very impressed that they learned multiple verses of a song with a lot of words, and just about died when they put their arms around each other toward the end... So sweet!

The Sea Turtle class with Miss Sarah and Miss Jessica

Our little preschool graduate!

Just a few of Amelia's buddies.  Preschoolers are so funny!

After the ceremony, the school threw a celebratory lunch party for all of the kiddos.  One last chance to run around with their friends and thank their teachers before the beginning of summer vacation! 

Hugs for Miss Nicole and Miss Jessica

From Amelia's classroom.  The best answers to the favorite part of school question are definitely Emma's and Colin's.

 

Amelia just loved Miss Sarah and Miss Jessica, and will miss them so much next year when she's in KINDERGARTEN!

 

We're so glad that Ramona will be back at Good Shepherd for preschool again next year, and hope that we're in the neighborhood long enough for Louisa to attend this wonderful school, too!