Christmas in Dallas

Grace with her cousin Sophia

Sophia, Ally, and Grace with their Bisabuelo, Mario.

Sonya with Christelle and Stephanie with Sophia

Sophia and Ally playing

A Montessori Birthday Celebration

Today was Grace's birthday celebration at school, and the Montessori birthday ceremony is very special. The children normally start their day with "circle time." But, on a birthday, at the center of the circle is a wooden sun and at the end of the sun's rays are 12 pieces that fit, like a puzzle, onto the end of these rays. There are 12 pieces with the names of a month on each one. Grace sat in the middle of the circle, next to the sun.  She then put each month in its chronological order as the children all repeated the name of the month. The teacher placed a lit candle in the center of the sun. Grace then walked around the sun while holding a small globe representing the Earth. This "walk" represents the earth revolving around the sun. Grace walked around the sun four times, one for each year of her life, stopping each time on the month on which she was born. We provided one picture for each year of Grace's life and wrote a couple of things she did during a particular year i.e., first word, first train ride, etc. The teacher then read, for each year, what events took place in Grace's life that year. The photos of Grace through the years were left in the classroom for the remainder of the day.

Of course, the kids' favorite part of it all is they got to share a snack Grace picked out just for this occasion: chocolate pudding.

I thought the celebration at Grace's school was a fun way to introduce the concepts of months, the earth, the sun, and how the earth revolves around the sun. The kids really enjoyed it. As did I. Grace was really happy to be celebrating her special day (for the third time)! I'm sure going to miss this school/environment when we move. I've been reading books about Maria Montessori and her methods for teaching, as well as, slowly changing out the girls' current toys for more educational toys. My sister, Daphne, bought Grace a couple of really neat puzzles. Grace especially loves the fractions puzzle and Ally is enjoying trying to figure out if the  narrow to wide puzzle is edible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday, Grace!

Grace celebrated her fourth birthday at Gymkhana Gymnastics this weekend with  her good friends from school and the neighborhood. Two of her babysitters, Jenn and Colleen, attended as well. I don't think we could've asked for more fun packed into 90 minutes! We are all taking naps today. Thanks to all of you for making this such a special day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grace is turning four

I can hardly believe this lovely child we call Grace is going to be four years old already. I guess I knew this  day would come, but so soon? The day in question, of course, is the day when she tells us what to put on her cake! The bakery at our local grocery store really wanted to accommodate Grace's request to have Diego, Dora, Curious George, AND Super Why on her cake but due to copyright/infringement laws, she's only allowed one character per cake. I would've made the cake myself but in addition to her birthday party there's another celebration, requiring treats, at her school on Monday. Have I ever posted about my culinary  prowess or lack thereof? A store bought cake it had to be. 

For being almost four, Grace has some pretty definite ideas/opinions (hello every four year old) that she shares with me while she's getting ready for bed. For example, she is not a "waster" (her term for being a litter bug) but a "picker-upper" (as opposed to Ally who is a pick-her upper all day long) and she would like to be a trash woman one day. See not being a waster. She's very good about picking up other people's litter and just yesterday she left the local IKEA store looking pristine. I attribute this to her preschool program. They are very good about teaching the children how to respect their environment and each other.

Her knowledge about life continues with the origins of starfish. Did you know that "they fall from the sky into water?" And lazy people are folks who do not return their shopping carts to their proper place. I guess the most important declaration Grace has made lately is that she plans on living with us "forever and ever." If only. That and stay three.

Quilts

I saw this map quilt by Abby Clawson Low a time back and had to make it. The cover is made by sewing four city map handkerchiefs together. Most of the work was done on my sewing machine which made this project very easy and very fast. It took me less than 5 days to complete including the hand sewn binding.  Since I won't be able to take my Baby Lock - Anna sewing machine with me to Zurich, I've decided to try hand sewing and piecing new quilts together. I find the following two quilts so beautiful. The first quilt is by Klas Herbert and the second is from artist Ian Hundley. Breathtaking, right?

image via Hi+Low

image via anthology mag

We're Home

(image: i.anton)

We made it back to Pittsburgh yesterday and are already trying to figure out how to see everyone again. The weather in Dallas was spectacular and the girls ate up every minute with their cousin Sophia. There was Christmas, round two, and so many toys that we had to ship two boxes back to Pittsburgh. Rob was able to spend some quality time with his Grandfather, Mario, who is always the highlight of our trips to Dallas!

After several days, we headed to Seattle to spend some quality time with my sister, Daphne and her beautiful family. My niece, Lizzie, turned one on Thanksgiving but acts as if she's a teenager. She's very precocious. We loved watching the girls interact and you can tell how much little kids enjoy having someone around who's younger! Getting to be the (toy) pit boss is so important to a wee one's self-esteem. Ally tried her best to keep up with the girls and she's that much closer to walking. She now lets go and balances for a few second before carefully lowering herself to safety. All new teeth (4) are still intact. 

On our return flight home, Grace was invited up to the cockpit where she got to meet Captain Molly and send a message over the paging system. She gave a shout out to her Papa. It was an all female crew from the Captain on down and Grace earned her wings which she promptly took to school the next day for show and tell.

It's nice to be back home but things are about to get a little hectic. We're putting the house back on the market in a couple of weeks. Also, as part of the process for obtaining visas for Switzerland, we're required to get FBI criminal background checks so we had our fingerprints taken this morning by our local police. Grace asked to see the jail...and Swiper.