Amelie Says / James Says

Amelie, to James: "I'm trying to be kind to you!"

We saw some holes that might have been made by snakes and Amelie said it was a "snake neighborhood."

She learned about the difference between fiction and non-fiction at school and I can't convince her that the comic we got in our cheerios isn't non-fiction. "It's what REALLY HAPPENED in the movie!" she tells me.

Amelie, defending chewing her backpack strap: "It exercises my teeth."

Speaking of teeth, about 20 minutes after bedtime, Amelie rushes out of the room and stops in front of me and Sam sitting on the couch. "FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE I have a loose tooth!!" We laugh, and then she goes back to bed.

~

James, at 6:30am: "Mama, do you know what zero is? It's NUFFINK. It's a FAKE number."

A little later, he was also telling me about this important difference. "It didn't happen in real life. It happened in FAKE life."

For her birthday, Amelie got a 100-piece Shopkins puzzle that came in a Shopkins lunchbox (just a tin one to store the puzzle) and James declared, a little disappointed: "This is a lunchbox! But it doesn't have any lunch in it."

I finally got my eye-fi card to work and we were watching old videos of the kids on my computer. James says, "Where am I in this video? Am I not borned yet?"

When we had some folks over to eat barbeque and try out the fire pit, James asked Stephan who his favorite Star Wars character was (he's now seen the movie). Stephan said Luke Skywalker and James said, "Well, your character got his hand chopped off."

Also, we discovered that James can spell the names of all of the kids in his class (verbally) - they must be really working on it! It was so funny the first time he did "H - U - D - S - O - N."

He was also telling me about how Caitlin got a bloody nose and she was "very, very brave."

James's new favorite word is "actually," but then whatever he tells me is usually wrong. In the car yesterday, we were saying something about Amelie's birthday. "How many did she turn?" he asked me. I told him 6, but then he said, "Actually, it was 7."

Fire Pit

We built a fire pit in the backyard on Saturday in preparation for having a few folks over for Memorial Day. Sam dreamed up the plan and did the heavy lifting, but I provided support in the execution of the plan :) It turned out super awesome, and only took about 1/2 an hour and only cost about $40. DIY for the win!

The true inspiration for the fire pit was when Aunt Holly came over when Nana Jana was here and built a fire on the patch of gravel we have so the kids could roast S'mores.

Look at that good girl scout technique!

Amelie and James seem to prefer the catch-it-on-fire method.

I don't think we took any pictures of the inaugural use of the fire pit, though! Here it is right after we built it:

Sam got an extra bag of gravel in case these mysteriously go missing.

And a shout-out to Stephan for maintaining the fire through several rounds of S'mores.

Hole in the Ground

We are having work done on our basement, and we had to take out a part of our fence (which Sam replaced) so the machines could get in the backyard. The kids enjoyed the hole in the ground.

Last Day of Kindergarten

Amelie's last day of Kindergarten was yesterday. They got their yearbooks and Amelie says they spent "HOURS" passing them around & signing them - it's pretty cool, everyone in her class and it looks like kids from other classes all signed it.

I was looking in her closet and asked what she'd like to wear and she shouted, "MY HAMBURGER SHIRT!" even though she hasn't worn it all year.

We got her report card, and the note from the teacher at the end said, "Amelie has had a great year! I have enjoyed getting to know her and watching her grow. She has met all end of year goals. I look forward to another year of learning with her. In math class this trimester, we have worked on composing and decomposing numbers to 20, subtraction, and using data. Please continue to help Amelie practice counting independently to 100 and identifying numbers through 31. On her most recent assessment, she accurately counted to 59 and identified 21 out of 31 numbers. I have really enjoyed her in math class this year."

She'll have Ms. Hanney as her teacher next year and will stick with the same group of 11 kids who came in with her, and they'll add in a new bunch of 11 Kindergarteners to the class :)

Here is a link to her first day of Kindergarten.

Happy Birthday!

Amelie turned 6 on Saturday!

She requested a dutch baby pancake for breakfast (she wanted one today for breakfast, too). She requested Chef Boyardee for dinner (I didn't stick a candle in that, but I thought about it).

We celebrated with a party at a gymnastics place in town. Here the kids are listening to the rules. Don't they look thrilled?

Jumping was more fun.

There were cupcakes - and we managed to fit 6 candles on one.

There were also balloons (only slightly droopy)

She had a big day with me, going to the party store to get the balloons and then Sam's club to get the juice boxes and veggie tray for the party. We made cupcakes and she got to lick the beater. Her boyfriend from school got her a Captain Underpants book, Nana Jana sent water balloons and temporary tattoos (which were a big hit), and she got to open cards from Grandma Doris and Aunt Tara.

Birthday Interview: Amelie is 6

I think this is our third year running with the birthday interview. We did it today right before her party and I was surprised by a few of the answers. 

1. How old are you? Six
2. What is your favorite color? Pink 
3. What is your favorite toy? Ummm, let's see - all toys. Okay, which toys do you like? All of them
4. What is your favorite game? Hyenas
5. What is your favorite song? Ummm, I don't know. I like a whole group of songs that we get to do from Art. Basically they're videos of singing
6. What is your favorite animal? Unicorn
7. What is your favorite book? I don't have favorite books. What are some books that you like? Captain Underpants
8. What is your favorite movie? The Circle of Life from Lion King 
9. What is your favorite thing to eat? Mac and Cheese and Chef Boyardee 
10. Where is your favorite place to go? Let's see - the movie theater 
11. Who is your best friend? Kaitlin and Cormac
12. What is something you learned last year when you were 5? Let's see, that I'm not supposed to hit 
13. What is something you'll learn now that you're 6? More math! 
14. What is hard for you to do? Hmmm. Hard for me to do? Ride my bike 
15. What is your favorite thing to do? Play games. Like what? Hyena You can't see it, but I added a lot to it. I even changed the name. I even changed the name. What's the name? Cartoon Mountain. Since I added all of the cartoon characters and a base that's a mountain. It was too hard to play just hyenas because that's basically a two-person game
16. What do you like about Me (Mama)? You let me do more stuff than Dad. Like what? Go to the park when we have popsicles that are about to melt. 
17. What do you like about Dada? When he gets angry, he doesn't get mad like you do. 
18. What do you like about James? Nothing. Is it ever nice or fun to be with James? Never. 
19. What do you like about yourself? I'm nice to almost everyone. I think that's basically it. But it is a very good characteristic. (I should have asked, "What about James?" !!) 
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? Dancer or a singer