Welcome, Nichika!

Tonight we picked up our Japanese student who will be staying with us for the next 2.5 weeks! The girls remember our last student, Rikako, and are very excited to be hosting again.
I will keep this post updated with what we get up to with her. :)

Or maybe I will just leave this here: :)

Graduation

   Today was Rachel's last day of nursery school. And subsequently, our whole family's last day of nursery school. Ever. Laura attended this school for two years, and today marks the end of Rachel's second year. That's four years for our family, and if that isn't testament enough, I really cannot sing more praises about this program. The staff are above and beyond fantastic. The programming is fantastic. I feel like we are part of a big family there, where the staff support not just the children, but the parents inside and outside the school walls. I have been anticipating today as a "going to be rough" day, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I ugly cried while saying goodbye to the teachers. To say I will miss this place and these people is a gross understatement.

But enough about me! Our sweet little Rachie is now officially a preschool graduate! The concert was as cute as always, and although she was a little shy, she did a great job.

  I guess I am officially homeschooling two kiddos now! Yikes!

Bargain

Rachel is having a... challenging time developmentally lately. She has decided she does not like being told what to do, and has taken to using and sharpening her negotiating skills, accordingly.
For example, I will have told her that she cannot have candy before breakfast, and then a few minutes later I will ask her to get dressed. She replies that she wants to wear a weather-inappropriate sundress. I counter with a logical, "Maybe you should wear pants today because it is cold."
"WELL IF I CAN'T WEAR A DRESS THEN I HAVE TO HAVE CANDY!!"
 Sigh.
Rinse and repeat. All. Day. Long.

I'm glad she is asserting herself, and she is probably just looking for a little more freedom. But my, it is tiring!

Today's the Day the Teddy Bears Have Their Picnic

As I've mentioned before, I often choose birthday party themes an unreasonably long time in advance. Sometimes years. As was the case for this party. (I will probably stop doing that now that the kids are more opinionated about what themes they would like for their parties. ;) ) I have seen some pretty cute picnic-themed parties and really wanted to get on that train, so I thought I could convince Rachel to have a picnic-themed party if I included Pooh Bear. These were the invites:

I thought bringing in the Pooh Bear/ Teddy Bear Picnic aspect was a cute way to tie it all together. I also anticipated us possibly having our house on the market at this time, so I was keen to have the party somewhere else, and what better setting for a picnic than the park?

I wanted the party to have a vintage-y, classic, old school kind of vibe to it, so we decided on games and activities like sack races, egg & spoon races, etc. We also took lines from the song about the Teddy Bear's Picnic to include in the details, and, of course, included lots of honey and references to honey for good ol' Pooh Bear.

See them gaily gad about.
They love to play and shout,
they never have any cares!

The little Teddy Bears are having
A lovely time today.

Beneath the trees where nobody sees
They'll hide and seek as long as they please

Favours were hand-stitched teddy bears holding a jar of local honey in little picnic baskets

Lost Tooth!

      Tonight Laura's loose tooth was really wiggly. I had suggested earlier in the day we pull it out, but she wasn't sure about that idea. At bedtime she was wiggling it a lot and I told her she should just leave it until the morning because I thought Rachel would like to see it. I brushed her teeth and put her to bed around 9:30, but at about 10:00 she came downstairs with her very first baby tooth in her hand. She was sooo excited. We were slightly annoyed that she was still awake, but also excited for her. The Tooth Fairy had to get things in order and left her a pearl in a little sparkly pink box beside her pillow, with a note explaining that if she takes good care of her pearls like she does with her teeth, she can collect them and make a pretty necklace.

ETA: I kept my camera on my bedside table because I knew she would come into our room first thing in the morning to tell me. She couldn't fall asleep until almost 11:00, and woke up at 6:30 she was so excited! I have pictures and a video of her when she woke up and opened her present from the Tooth Fairy. She is a real big kid now!

Loose Tooth!!

We have been anticipating loose teeth for a while now, reading books, getting excited, etc.
Then tonight, I saw on facebook that one of our cousins whose kid is one day older than Laura lost his first tooth today, and I posted a commented how Laura still hasn't lost any and none are even loose...
Fast forward three hours to when I was getting Laura ready for bed, and while brushing her teeth I noticed this:

Her adult tooth has popped through the gum behind the baby tooth. I freaked out a bit because Josh had bad teeth when he was a kid and required a lot of orthodontic work, which I was really hoping to avoid with our kids, if possible. I took her downstairs to show Josh and he was just excited for her. I touched the baby tooth in front and it was loose, so she was really excited about that. I finished putting her to bed, and as we were talking about her favourite thing of the day, she said she was excited to finally have a loose tooth, but she was a little worried it was going to hurt when it falls out. I told her it might, but it might not. We'll have to wait and see. 

Then I came downstairs and Dr. Googled it. Apparently its a condition called lingually erupting mandibular incisors or shark tooth/ teeth, and occurs in about 10% of kids. It can be a problem, but apparently it resolves itself in a lot of cases. Let's hope we are the latter! I am relieved that the baby tooth is loose, so hopefully when it falls out, the adult tooth migrates forward to the spot it is supposed to be. Better get the tooth fairy on stand by!

Boyfriend!

Last night at dinner while the in-laws were here, Laura was counting the people at the table and adding and subtracting the numbers, etc. We were talking about how there were four girls and only two boys, and I jokingly said the girls would need to get boyfriends to even it out. Rachel piped up emphatically, "Well Duke is my boyfriend!" Welllllll okay then!

Laura and Duke's older sister went to nursery school together, so we have known their family since Rachel and Duke were babies. Laura and his sister were best little buds for a while, so Rachel and Duke sort of felt like they needed to be partners, I think. They go to nursery school together now, are in the same gymnastics class, and attend the same library program, so they see a lot of each other.  Anyway, their little romance has been blossoming for a while, I guess, and Rachel even stole a kiss from him one day at pick-up time from nursery school!

Today was his birthday party, and I was telling him mom about what Rachel had said at dinner, and she said, "That's so funny! This morning Porschea (Duke's sister) was talking about her 'boyfriend' and Duke said, 'Well, Rachel is my girlfriend!'"

So there you have it: its official from both of them. ;)

He is the sweetest little guy, and I think he would make a great boyfriend. They're so cute.