Sophia the artist

Sophia is really into art lately. She got a big pad of paper in her stocking at Christmas and her favorite thing to do is draw picture after picture after picture. Her favorite class at school is definitely art and she will be very sad next year when there is no more art class. The schools here alternate music for a year and art for a year, and I am sure she will love music, but she will really miss her art class.

Dress-up funCrazy Hair Day

Her teacher selected her artwork for an Elementary Art Exhibit on display locally. Each elementary school selects two art pieces per grade and displays them. Sophia was very proud, although a little surprised about which piece of her artwork was selected. She was expecting another piece, but agreed that this one was also good.

She also has been taking Drama classes after school. I signed her up because her favorite part of ballet was always the recitals, so I figured drama would be perfect for her. She did love the classes, but was very disappointed when they choose her favorite play to perform (Lion King) and then her teacher gave her her last favorite part to play (Pumbaa). He explained that she is really funny and would do well playing Pumbaa, but it took a bit of convincing since she really wanted to be a lion!

She painted her face one day at drama club. She is a ladybug with a blue sky, and she did it all by herself!

The performance was cute and well done considering they only had a few weeks to work on it and there were only five kids, all second grade-kindergarten.

Here is a portion of their play.

And here is when they sang Hakuna Matata. Sophia emphatically shakes her head, "no," when we try to get her to sing along. She still did not want to be a wart hog, even after the play was finished.

They also showed us some of the games they play during drama club, such as

The Three Headed Monster.

Tessa, Tessa, Tessa!

There aren't really three of her, but sometimes it seems like it!

Grape tomatoes are one of her most favorite foods!

Hot cocoa is definitely the drink of choice.

And she is happy to share, even if it is her favorite drink.

She also loves posing for a picture.

Though she may make a funny face.

She goes to preschool two mornings a week and loves her friends there.

She really loved it when her class had a special Big Bug Museum.They pretended to be all kinds of bugs and did fun things.Tessa was in buggy heaven. She wears plastic lady bugs in her hair whenever she gets the chance. Sometimes she just clutches them in her hand.Being a bumblebee was fun and I was able to help her dress up, try honey snacks,and "polinate" the flowers with her friends. They were all pretty tired after that!

Tessa also loves playing around the house, her play house that is!She likes peeking in the windows! And I find her hiding behind the house all the time.

Did I mention she likes to pose?
And is super cute?!




She also likes singing a lot, but you better not try to help her out! I was mouthing the words along with her while taking this video, so she had to stop her song and tell me not to do that. She explains that she is singing to the camera, because it really likes this song.

Well, I didn't tell a lot about her, but we can leave out things like fighting with her sister over which one of them is the girl in a picture (because clearly then the other one must be the boy), making messes faster than you can put dishes in the dishwasher, and waking up before everyone else and very quietly getting into things like nail polish or grabbing the tooth paste and hiding in the closet to suck on it, or getting dressed in three of her sister's shirts and two pairs of her underwear! That last one happened this morning, but we weren't going to mention those things, right?

I was just talking with another Mom the other day and we decided that toddlers are so super cute and do such funny, adorable things, so that you won't actually give them away when they are driving you crazy!

And she does do and say some adorable things...like when she gave her Daddy a funny look and he asked why she was looking at him, so she said, "I look at you because I LOVE you!"

And when I swaddled a baby doll the wrong way and she told me, "I'm going to tell Sophia and she is NOT going to be happy."

And when Sophia cries because she has been scolded about hitting Tessa, and Tessa comes over to hug and comfort Sophia, even though Tessa was the one that got hurt.

The way she likes to be a helper and will do almost any job if you tell her that you need a helper, but would probably refuse to do it otherwise.

And the way she talks just cracks us all up, even though we do try to help her say things the right way, but how can you tell her its not really a "popcusel" or that Oscar isn't really the "trash can grouch" or a hundred other funny, cute things.

She also is obsessed with birthday parties and talks about who is coming to hers (Tutu, Enya, sometimes Uncle Toby, but once she said he can't come and Auntie Allie can come, so Uncle Toby will cry), and what it will be (baby Sesame Street, currently) and what she wants (a bike, currently, but it could be any item, even something she already has or something she couldn't have, like a neighbor's dog).

She keeps us laughing and smiling so much that all those "drive you crazy" moments aren't enough to make us want to actually give her away. Yet.

Catch-up time!

So I haven't blogged in a really long time, partly due to having 1800 pictures from our Australia trip that I need to organize somehow and partly due to being really busy! I now teach water aerobics 3 nights a week, in addition to being the committee chair for Math Masters at Sophia's school, volunteering at the library every Monday, driving Sophia back and forth to school (20 minutes each way), getting my Master's degree, and trying to enjoy my children while they are young enough to still want to play with me!

All excuses aside, we had a fabulous time in Melbourne and I have put my pictures on kodak gallery but they are in desperate need of organization, so I am just going to catch up on what we have been doing since then!

Way back in January

we relaxed from our trip, took a trip to the indoor pool, which Tessa was really excited about and had her life jacket on before her swimsuit, made peanut butter cookies, Chuckolate got a new truck because his car was getting really bad and could not be driven any more, and Sophia got footie pajamas from Tutu, which she has been wanting for a long time!

Oh, and Tessa painted her cheeks, with green nail polish! It taught me that nothing is safe from her, not even in a medicine cabinet with a hard to screw open lid. And it taught her that nail polish is "only for finger nails and only with Mommy!" These pictures were actually taken after I scrubbed her cheeks with a wash cloth until she was more red in the face than green...but then I took pity on her and decided that it would eventually go away and in a few days, it did.