Pony Party!

 Amelie is 11! 

She had a long list of books that she wanted for a gift, which I'll go ahead and list here for posterity: 
(Warriors Broken Code Series): Last Stars, The Silent Thaw, Veil of Shadows, Darkness Within, and The Place of No Stars, (Warriors Super Editions) Crookedstar's Promise, Mothflight's Vision, Squirrelflight's Hope,  and Crowfeather's Trial, (Manga) Into the Woods, A Shadow in River Clan, Ravenpaw's Path, (Wings of Fire) The Dangerous Gift, and Matilda. Between us and Grandma Mary Beth, we got everything on the list, and then Nana Jana took her to Barnes and Noble where she managed to find a couple more books she wanted. 

She also had Opinions about her cake, which was to be a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake decorated as Moonwatcher (from Wings of Fire). I made the ice cream cake and ordered the sugar decal from a fan artist on the internet. 

Here's the cake in action - it might have melted some during transport: 

As for the party, though, she was noncommittal. (I think due to just how crazy everything has been this year - and that her first suggestion of a big sleepover was shot down. Here's the link to last year's pandemic birthday party.) I suggested horseback riding and she agreed. The weather was not great, but they were able to ride in the big indoor riding area out at Columbia Equestrian Center. Her good friend Kaitlin and Kaitlin's younger sister (who's in James's grade) were able to come, too. They all got to ride several times, and painted horseshoes as a craft, and enjoyed gigantic pieces of ice cream cake, since there was no way it was going to survive the rest of the party and the 20 minute drive home. (The stable staff also stepped up to take care of some cake.)

They got to meet the horses first: 

The big girls curried and brushed one of the horses and watched as they picked out its hooves and saddled it. Leah and James wandered the stable and exclaimed at and pointed out all the mice. 

Someone was waiting very patiently for her turn. Notice her horse-appropriate attire. 

The smaller horse's name is Dragon - quite convenient as Leah's favorite animals are horses and dragons (as she told the girl leading them). 

Amelie was quite pleased with herself as well: 

You can see Amelie rode both of them (Everyone rode both horses, except Leah, I think, who wanted to stick with Dragon.) The bigger horse's name is Storm. 

James: 

Maybe not the best form, here, but he was having fun: 

Kaitlin liked Storm the best: 

And Shawna's already as tall as Amelie. Everyone was just thrilled. 

They did a craft: 

And we sang "Happy Birthday" and gobbled up some rapidly-melting cake. Eleven candles!

The facility was so pretty as we drove in!

A tradition I picked up from my friend Amanda is letting the birthday kiddo choose all her favorite foods for her birthday. The menu Amelie chose was chicken chili & sour cream and onion chips for dinner on her actual birthday (Friday),  Dutch baby pancake for breakfast Saturday (of course), microwave fettuccini alfredo for lunch (easy enough), broccoli cheddar soup from Panera for our take-out night Saturday, sweet tea, and chocolate covered pretzels. She opted for episodes of She-Ra instead of a movie for her pick for movie night. 

It's been a minute since I posted a gif, but there were too many of these to choose from: 

Preschool Screening (take 2)

Leah went for preschool screening this morning. We'd gone when she was 3, but then the "peer" preschool program for 3-year-olds was cancelled this year. I thought from the email we'd gotten about the cancellation that we'd just be put on the list for preschool the next year, but I never heard anything, and here it is toward the end of May. One of the women who works in the Center for Early Learning came into the library and said just to come in again, so we did. 

I think it might have been the same exact test as last time, though they weren't doing the hearing/vision/height/weight due to COVID. Leah was VERY excited about making friends with another 4 year old girl in a dress who came into the waiting room at the same time. She was also (mostly) excited about the tasks, though she told the screener "We'll do it tomorrow" about something and also that she didn't know her ABC's! 

She counted to 20, gave me 3 and then 11 blocks, stood on each foot, threw a beanbag against the wall, cut a paper, copied a line, circle, plus, and square, sorted by size, color, and shape, and made a tall tower and a pyramid from blocks. She wrote an "E" with about 10 horizontal lines. She spelled her name out loud, and then when she was supposed to write it on the paper, she wrote a very neat capital L on the far left side of the page/line and a neat capital H at the far right side with the whole middle of the line blank. 

She was scored at 60th percentile with motor skills (I think those darn right-handed scissors are a disadvantage), 84th with "concepts" and 71st with "language." The screener seemed confident that we'd get a spot, if not at the start of the program, at a mid-year opening. 

Here's the link to last year: http://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2020/03/dr-visit.html

Big Toe

 James lost his big toenail somehow. He was picking at it last night and I made him quit, but I didn’t get a good look at it til today when I saw that it was about to fall off. We made some use out of my foot spa and soaked it and cleaned it up well. He wasn’t confident in my abilities, especially when I got out the nail scissors (“scissors should NOT be used against a human body!!”) so Sam took him to the doctor to have it removed (with scissors) and bandaged up. 

James would like for the record to show that he did not cry. He tried to tell me that he should get unlimited iPad today because “I had MY TOE removed,” and I had to remind him that it was just his toe NAIL, at which he conceded the point. 

Amelie's Birthday Interview

 Birthday Interview

Amelie opened one gift this morning, and then wanted to take those bags of mini chips ahoy to her classmates for her birthday (a good thing, since they're only supposed to do prepackaged stuff this year anyway). 

4 leaf clover necklace from Ann across the street: 

We did the birthday interview when she got home from school & will have chicken chili (her choice) and a homemade ice cream cake for dessert. I'll post more later about the rest of the celebrations! We might need to change up the questions some next year, though I do like comparing one year to the next. 

1. How old are you? 11
2. What is your favorite color? Turquoise.
3. What is your favorite toy? Um. What's your favorite things you have in your room? My iPad.
4. What is your favorite game? Ummm. Either Mafia or Scatter Tag. What about favorite video game? That I have played? (Watching other people play games is still so strange to me!) ARK Aberration Expansion. 
5. What is your favorite song? Hmmmm. Don't write down my stutters! Did you type that? Okay, I'll stop. Not sure. Songs from The Descendants. 
6. What is your favorite animal? Do you still have a favorite animal? Gray Wolf. 
7. What is your favorite book? (long pause) Wings of Fire: Dragonslayer
8. What is your favorite movie? No favorite movie. 
9. What is your favorite TV show? Maybe She-Ra.
10. What is your favorite thing to eat? Panera broccoli cheddar soup. 
11. Where is your favorite place to go? Grandma Mary's house. 
12. Who is your best friend? It's kind of complicated. Juni is my favorite person in my class. And I'm really close friends with Hattie, but I haven't seen her in a long time. And then I want to be best friends with Kaitlin but she's in middle school. And I mean, Ellie's my cousin, but family doesn't really count as best friend. 
13. What is something you learned last year in the 5th grade? That multiplying fractions is technically dividing them, and dividing fractions is technically multiplying. 
14. What is something you'll learn now that you're 11 (or next year in middle school)? Maybe Algebra? I'm pretty sure that subject is introduced in Middle School. 
15. What is your favorite part of school? Recess.
16. Who is your favorite teacher of all time in Elementary School? Either Ms. Hanney or Ms. Malloy.
17. What is hard for you to do? Spell correctly.
18. What is your favorite thing to do? Read.
19. What is your favorite thing to do with friends? Jump rope at recess. 
20. What do you like about Me (Mom)? Well, you're my mom, and you're also very good at reading. 
21. What do you like about Dad? That he is fair with what it takes to earn YouTube. 
22. What do you like about James? That I can talk with him about Gravity Falls references. (I started laughing.) Like, this is off the top of my head. I mean, there are other things! 
23. What do you like about Leah? She does not throw temper tantrums. 
24. What do you like about yourself?  I'm a very fast reader and have a very big vocabulary. 
25. What do you want to be when you grow up? I don't know. Flight attendant or farmer. 

Here's the link to last year's: http://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2020/05/birthday-interview.html

Flowers in the Yard

I was supposed to take photos of the kids with flowers for a slideshow for church. As our tulip has died off for the year, I was thankful that my mom had planted these marigolds with Leah the day before. 

Look at that face!

Oh, man, just look at all of those faces! I couldn't narrow it down: 

I forgot about this after work Monday, so I had to catch the big kids after school on Tuesday.  Amelie is skeptical. 

There's a smile!

As you can see, I couldn't narrow these down either. 

The looks on James's face are A-Plus. 

And there's Leah again, this time in her hoodie with chocolate ice cream drips all over it. 

Bubble Machine

 I went to Walgreens last night with the intention of getting ketchup and shampoo and I somehow wound up at the counter with $40 worth of stuff. "Did you find everything?" the clerk asked. Obviously yes, as I put the bubble machine down. 

It was decent outside at 7:45am, so Leah played a bit with it then, but then it started to turn cold and I let her bring it inside. The big kids left for school in shorts & I'm afraid they'll have to spend recess indoors. (Always a bummer but especially during COVID when they're wearing masks at school.) 

At first, she wanted to carry it around and shoot the bubbles out but I was afraid that would slosh the soap into the motor and break it.