5.26.2008

Missy loves babies

So it has been a baby season in our lives lately... and will continue here for the next few months as it seems so many people are expecting! Melissa has shown a keen interest in some of the recent arrivals. A real live baby is much more fun than her doll :)

Melissa and two of her new baby friends. 
(left 1 month old Amadora & right 3 month old Hailey)

Melissa loves being a little mommy to Amadora. 
Putting in her soother when she fusses...

Feeding her a bottle and burping her...

and just holding her!

Our recent trip to the park, Melissa was very tentative to Amadora's needs...

5.21.2008

Crazy Hat Day

Today at preschool it was crazy hat day! Melissa borrowed Carmen's Anne of Green Gable's straw hat & braided red hair. 

The traditional Anne...

My little Anne...
Riding the roller coaster ride...
Kiera chasing....
Melissa's turn to chase while Kiera rides... hanging on to those braids!

5.16.2008

Lil' Gardener

This spring Melissa & I have thoroughly enjoyed the 'Lil' Gardener' class offered by the AgRec. I started documenting some of her more interesting plant crafts weekly and have compiled them here for your viewing!

Week

Flower seeds in a painted pot:


Grass Guy: 
(You can note at week three the grass was having a really hard time pushing through the reinforced toe of the nylon stocking. I ended up having to provide it with some much needed relief by trimming off the top. I'm not sure how much further his face could have stretched!)

Melissa has enjoyed practicing her hairdresser skills on her Grass Guy. She is very cautious and doesn't take many risks when it comes to his hair maintenance. She is more concerned about keeping it all pretty much even. Maybe one day she will be good enough to do my hair!?


Week 2 

A terrarium of sorts: 

Sunflower seeds:


Week 3 

Vegetables:
(Carrots, tomatoes & peas. On the walk home from class two of the cups tipped over and seeing I hadn't watered the dirt, they spilled everywhere. I did my best to put them back together, but the tomato plant never did sprout. We had a later casualty with the carrots, I transplanted them outdoors and one morning we went to look at them and saw the slug that had eaten all of them for lunch. Grrrr.) 

Week 4

This week I brought my camera to class and took some photos of her in action. Here Melissa is decorating a little pot...
and filling it with dirt...
Flower seeds:

Week 5 

Cedar saplings:

Week 6

Hand-print garden stepping stone:


There were quite a few more projects we made, but these were the more interesting ones. It has been a blast for both Melissa and I to enjoy watching plant-life grow from seeds. Now most of her plants have now moved on outdoors and she takes great pride watering them with the big garden hose! I have such a great little helper ;)

5.10.2008

Cars & Babes

They sure do grow up fast... 
Next thing you know they are driving... isn't that how it goes? 

Melissa got to drive her own sweet ride this week...

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... that is drive an immobile sports car in the shopping centre!
(and I didn't even stick any money in... I'm pretty sure that would have made it a bit too 'thrilling')

I got a chuckle out of her using the stick shift for the gas pedal! I guess she wouldn't know what to do with one as our vehicle is an automatic.

Some gentleman in the mall saw me taking photos of Melissa in the car, and told me to get in and he would take our picture together. I must say the car was uncomfortably compact!

Backyard Fun

Earlier this week Kiera came over to play with Melissa. It was a nice enough day to be outside, so the girls played in the backyard. Melissa was excited to get to use her gazillion bubble machine again...

The girls enjoyed PB & J at their little patio table...
Then played some more in the sandbox. In this photo Kiera is offering Melissa some "sand soup"... yum-yum!  (I couldn't talk Melissa into pretending to try some... she was firm when she said she didn't want any!)
The girls also worked on their gardening skills and did a very thorough job of watering all the backyard plants... which I appreciated :)

5.06.2008

The Little Gym

Melissa was kindly invited to join Kiera for 'bring a friend day' at The Little Gym in Langley. Melissa has joined her once before and LOVED it, so she was very excited to be going again! 

This time a little added treat was that we drove together in Kiera's van. The girls were very thrilled and for the first few minutes they laughed (their phony laughs) together as loud as they could. It was amazing that baby Riley managed to sleep through this racket!
Things settled down (thankfully!) and the two girls sat hand-in-hand...
First at The Little Gym they sit around in a circle with the teacher. The teacher encouraged them to do different things, like a donkey kick or summersault. 
Then they ran (hopped, skipped, jumped) around in a circle.
Next they jumped on this large air-filled trampoline thing.

Then they lined up and continued on to the different gymnastic stations...
Here they followed instructions for each mini circuit style gymnastic course. It is amazing what these little kids can do given the right-sized equipment and instruction... for example I never would have encouraged Melissa to scale the parallel bars, and here she was doing it.

The balance beam...
The high-bar...
Parachute time...

After class we had a nice lunch in Fort Langley and a little walk through the shops. Thanks for nice day Farha & Kiera :)

5.04.2008

Lola-Leela

Today while gardening with me Melissa found a new little friend... a ladybug she named Lola-Leela.
The two of them got pretty closely acquainted...
and so comfortable she let me put it on her nose for this photo!
She played with Lola-Leela for a very long time. I noted that Lola-Leela wasn't walking so fast near the end!
I guess walking endlessly between hands, and being dropped and picked up over and over can be very tiring and I'm sure discouraging :)


I went inside to make dinner, and Daddy went to meet Missy's new friend. Just as she was going to show Daddy, she dropped Lola-Leela and stepped on her! Ooops! So Lola-Leela is now taking a nap in my flowers ;)