tawbubby

Daphne went to VCU with me on Wednesday morning.  She had a field trip downtown that we went to after spending some time at my office.

She really liked my windows.  I like them too.  I have a great view of all the undergraduate shenanigans in a main pedestrian thoroughfare….hula hooping, skate boarding, burrito buying, protesting, and the daily 4pm car towing caravan from the 4-6pm no parking lane on Main Street.

She enjoyed putting my shades up and down.

Her field trip was to a play, The BFG, at Theater IV, a children’s theater.  We both really liked the play and our front row seats.  It was pretty thrilling to sit so close to the play.  Even when the scary giants were in the orchestra pit within arms reach!  She had a little play mobile figurine she’s been calling “Sophie”, after the heroine in The BFG.  She held Sophie inside her field trip tshirt to protect her in the scary parts.

This is what was on the curtain while people were being seated…a line from the first chapter of the book.

On the way back to her preschool, we stopped to eat lunch with Amelia at her elementary school!  That was a big treat for all of us.  The girls both had “snozzcumbers” in their lunches, the food The BFG eats.

Amelia gets to go with her daddy and her kindergarten class next week.

Daphne got new firefighter boots from her great Aunt Cheri.  What a happy girl she was tonight!  Well, she usually is, but she was yelping with excitement when she opened these.  She wore them for a while before her bath.  This picture is after her bath, in pajamas and fire fighter outfit, brushing her hair.  I love the contrast of the outfit and the fuzzy pink mirror.

This kid cracks me up.  I can’t stop watching the video in the link below the picture.

We visited our friend Chris.  He made the girls s’mores, and Daphne ended up at the head of the table to eat hers.  She talked for 15 minutes about being “The boss of the table”, and all of the responsibilities that come along with that post.

D: “I’m going to do a lot of very hard work tomorrow.  I’m the boss of the table.”

Me: What are you?

D: “The boss of the table”

Me: What’s that mean?

“The person who’s on the very top.  They’re the boss of the table.”

We reviewed all the jobs she had to do the next day, including the dishes, making all of our food, cleaning up Dozer’s poops in the back yard, taking us everywhere, reading to us…

Daphne is taking dance at her preschool.  Parents are invited to observe a class each winter.

She was really good at first position and plies, and moving to second position.

Here, she knew she was very funny!

They ended with a game of limbo, and got reallllly low.

Daphne is joining the competition with this colorful combination of stripes, flowers, and crazy tights!  She is getting to be Ms I Want To Pick Out My Clothes All By Myself, with great volume and flourish, on a daily basis.

The girls got real haircuts.  Not just a mom with a pair of scissors trim.  Ethan decided a few weeks ago that Daphne would look great with a bob.  He was right.  They probably cut 5 inches off her hair.

Amelia got 2 or 3 inches cut off, but hers got curlier so it is up to her shoulders, too.

Daphne’s class has a bake sale on Friday.  We made rice krispie treats with M&Ms.  She counted out 39 marshmallows from the bag, and the recipe asked for 40.  There was nothing we could do about that one marshmallow.  And she measured 5 cups of rice krispies and 3/4 cup of M&Ms.

She had so much fun buttering the pan! (I told her how I got tired of greasing the muffin pans as a kid.)  Some lucky snacker is going to enjoy these treats.

We spent Sunday morning playing with Amelia’s science kit from last Christmas.  You might remember The Cress Experiment and Static Electricity.  It’s a winner.   We re-did “static electricity”, and then looked at a bunch of small objects around the house with two little beakers and a magnifying glass.  Caught Daphne a few minutes later looking into the AC vent with some Arby’s binoculars!

This is what I love about the science kit.  It makes them play in new ways.

The coolest experiment? was this straw and styrofoam ball trick:

We called it Bernoulli effect, but I’m not sure wikipedia agrees.  Anyway, it is neat.  You cut the short end of a bendy straw into many slivers, open them, and blow through the straw to make the ball float.

Amelia played with water and magnets for a long time, also.  Making chains, watching pieces repel each other, and discovering plastic is not magnetic.

Ethan played this puzzle game with Daphne for a while tonight.  It has three cubes that you spin to get different shape/color combinations.  Then you have to weave the three correct pieces from the board into order underneath the cubes.  She is really good at it.  He enjoyed watching her problem solving.

She’s doing fantastic.  She’s had a burst of development this fall. She knows her whole alphabet, and probably her numbers 1-10.  She writes “DA” on the back of her projects at school- she thinks those are her initials. And she can write large versions of all the letters in her name. She recognizes some words and reading a digital clock.  Recently, she started asking us what words mean- that is really cool.  And she’s jumping all over the place.

I’m not really sure what she was doing, but it was an awesome set up.  If she could, Amelia would live in her pajamas 24/7.

On Friday, Amelia had to wear her halloween costume to school.  Here’s the Dalmation hugging her Fire Chief goodbye at the bus stop.

The kindergartners at Amelia’s school paraded for the rest of the kids.  Daphne and I went to watch and Daphne even got to join in! Daphne is the (Irish) fire chief – insisted on that tshirt for the parade.

Here they are standing in front of the kindergarten pumpkin patch.

Daphne had a parade at her preschool in the afternoon on Friday.