After months of inquiries as to when it would happen, the girls attended their spring dance recital earlier this month, for both tap and ballet. After Harper’s solo dance class last spring, Emerie and Reagan begged to join so they could perform on the big stage like Harper. Custom costumes for each routine made for some excited little girls, and the big evening happened on an already big day, the last day of school.
Attending another ballet school’s performance the weekend prior also amped up the excitement. The Alice in Wonderland theme was really fun and everyone dressed up for the occasion, including Papa Cliff! The girls kept saying I looked beautiful -just for wearing a skirt- and all wanted do pose for photos and wear crowns. Craig went all out and did temporary hair color for each kiddo and everyone was ready for an evening downtown.
To our surprise at the girls’ show, Emerie turned out as the crowd pleaser, waving constantly and ensuring she was in the front of the group. Harper attempted to stay close to Miss Jess just like last year; while Reagan was more shy and stayed toward the back, focusing on her footwork. It took a bit to figure out who was who from so far back in the auditorium, and even then I wasn’t completely sure I was right on Harper and Reagan. Doing the same hairstyle and costume and a significant distance equals difficulty!!
The girls were excited for “real” eyeshadow and my eyeliner, and did pretty well to not smear it everywhere. Harper ripped her tights after the first dance and although displeased, thankfully didn’t throw a fit over it. Also unlike last year, Craig didn’t have to carry a screaming, overtired toddler to the car; all three did great after the picture with their teachers and some much needed French fries; bedtime routine was smooth sailing after a long night.
Another fun event that week, arguably the best run kid event ever, was the annual Anchorage Fire Department’s spring open house, at the training station over by the hospital. It was seriously the most fun event, with an immediate stop at the free face painting, a hotdog snd hot chocolate lunch due to the cold temperatures, and tons of activities to try and things to climb on. Don’t forget the bouncy houses and shaved ice!
Everyone climbed in the fire trucks and asked the kind firefighter five thousand questions about all the buttons; I had to pry Reagan away as she kept thinking of new things to ask. Everyone tried drilling concrete (with ear protection of course!), smashing soda cans and crumpling wood piles with the cool power tools. All in all, it was a really well done event, even with the rain! We will definitely return next year.
While Papa Cliff was here for a quick visit, the girls were excited to build the girly Lego sets with him, and we were quickly reminded that building a set with three six year olds at the same time is impossible. Building with two is actually doable. All three definitely demanded turns and they are improving on putting them together.
With summer’s arrival and the ground completely thawed, we finally buried our sweet kitty Rory, who spent the past two months solidly frozen in the garage freezer (unbeknown to the girls!). About two years ago we did this with Rafi and impressively the girls remembered that and knew what to do. Everyone sprinkled rose petals on him from their dance bouquets from Craig and added a million dandelions atop the dirt. It’s never easy to bury a beloved pet, but as death is still a part of our lives, I believe it is good to share the experience and talk about it, and prepare them for something that is not enjoyable, but happens in real life. They did great; Reagan needed some hugs but otherwise all were satisfied decorating his resting spot and asking questions about him in heaven with Rafi. Yes, Emerie still verified that his head was indeed still attached to his body….just in case that changed since she last inquired.
Decorating Rory one last time!
Unrelated to the burial service, Craig convinced me and the girls that adopting a puppy was the logical next step for our household. While this is continuing topic in our lives, he managed to find a super calm, five month old lab mix to bring home to love. The best part…in my opinion? She chews EVERYTHING, so all toys and clothes have to stay off the floor. That’s an instant way to convince kids to clean up after themselves, don’t you think?? The poor little teether is finding all kinds of goodies to enjoy, including our feet, cat toys, real mice, and the handles off bags. Seems like we have another toddler in the house. Just like with Rosie, the girls unanimously agreed with Harper’s first name suggestion, Gemma, and insist she sparkles like a gem or diamond. Insightful, right?
So we ease into summer with an empty, cat less freezer, and a new, sweet pup. If we can potty train three toddlers at once, we should be able to train one pup…I think!
Life over the past month continues to stay very busy! I started writing small notes to myself of the latest with the girls, knowing I will forget what lovely life tidbits to include as I muse about our daily life. Since I last wrote a blog, 10 new Bluey episodes were released in the United States. This is clearly a worthy milestone to mention, since we marathoned them like an adult would for a new season of their own show, and within a few days the girls were already asking for episodes by name. No, we don’t watch television allll the time and yes, we love that the episodes are only a few minutes long and share good, family values.
It took me a couple rewatches to realize one game in our house emerged from a new episode. One night the girls were running wild -literally, as kids do in January in the winter- and circling the living room over and over again, full on running and screaming. Occasionally one would plop down on the ground randomly and pause a moment, until another caught up and yelled flush! and imitated the flushing of a toilet, and said still child would jump up and return to a sprint. I watched this occur for a few minutes and finally asked what they were playing. All three responded with we are playing toilet tag! and explained when someone stopped, you had to flush them to bring them back in the game. Like what? I’m not sure if I’m impressed at the creativity, or mortified, but now it is a standard kid game in our household. Toilet tag. Yep.
We are now in the age of toy cleanup that all three now understand cleaning up does not mean shoving everything under the bed, or in one toy bin, but to try to put things away correctly. I should probably credit Grandma Sue for this transition, and it’s noticeable when we ask them to put things away where they go. I will often randomly fine one cleaning up a room (never all three at once), looking for a reward treat of course, and putting doll accessories or barbies or stuffed animals in the correct bins. Score!! Now, if we can only convince these kids to change their clothes and put anything removed in a laundry bin or by the washer, instead of everywhere. Baby steps!
School continues to go smoothly and all three claim to enjoy it, likely due to the love for their teacher and seeing her each day. I now respond to being called Miss Tawni in the afternoons, especially from Harper, and wonder how many times a day the three actually call her name. It must be about in the millions. Take a look at the picture above. Being mom makes me biased, but I am seriously impressed at how well and creatively all three copied those pictures. Is it just me and this is normal five year old drawing? I am pretty sure all three are already better than I am at drawing. Look at the enhanced detail on Reagan’s cup, or the fingers on Emerie’s hand, or Harper’s color coordinated bear. I can’t help but be impressed!
In January Craig and I took all three to a mid-year reading assessment at our home-school (it’s in addition to their normal daytime curriculum). Each kiddo went back with the teacher for the same assessment, and all three were evaluated right where they should be. She noted everyone understands the difference between the letter name and the sound of a letter, which is the first step toward reading comprehension. All three are still stumped on combined letter sounds creating words, but she assured us they seem close to getting it. We’ve tried a few different ways to explain the concept and so far the light bulb for all three hasn’t clicked on quite yet. I believe Reagan will be the first to catch on; not sure who will be second! By the end of the kindergarten year, I’m betting all three will have it down and we will be working through level one reading books.
Kindergarten classSome of the girlsFrozen Yogurt!
In January we continued to practice counting by fives and counting to 100. You can see their brains trying to figure out what comes next in the sequence after a 9 (like 39 to 40), and improvement continues. The end of January also prompted the 100 Days in school party, occurring on January 31st, and I swear the girls were more excited the night before than for Christmas. It took forever to calm them down at bedtime, and everyone happily put on their matching t-shirts (with friends) and let me do fancy hair for the occasion. We counted down the last few days until this milestone- or should I say we counted UP- and everyone excitedly yelled it was day 100 the moment eyes opened that morning. When asked their favorite part of the day, because I know several activities were planned, they all answered the same: the fruit loop necklaces! We might have to make some of those at home one of these days. We finished their fun filled day with a trip to frozen yogurt to commemorate, and I can’t believe everyone is so grown up!
Everyone received mid-year report cards in January, with great marks and then need to practice reading and comprehension more, which Craig and I both agree we need to commit more time to at home in the evenings. I hope all three grow up to love books and reading; so far Emerie seems most inclined to grab a book and hang out by herself while looking through pages. Harper prefers stories relating to princesses or ballerinas and asks someone to read to her on those; Reagan loves to carry books around and add notes and drawings in them, rotating through her favorite book each week or so.
As we all wait for spring to arrive, we maintain indoor entertainment through tons of birthday parties (not an exaggeration!); swimming at the nearby YMCA or Alaska Club, build days, hitting up the indoor climbing playground at a local rec center or running at the jump park, and other at-home activities like kid yoga, makeup and hair styling, playing with dolls or legos, making paper crafts and coloring, and can’t forget toilet tag (haha). The girls discovered yoga at school and asked to watch kid videos everyday one week. I came downstairs to find all three actively participating in the activity, yelling Mom we are exercising! They are surprisingly limber and thrilled to check out different yoga themes (Frozen was a particular favorite, not surprisingly!).
Build days continue to be a fun activity, some kits harder than others. We really like that Lowe’s provides stickers instead of paint, although I’m guessing the girls prefer the Home Depot mess because it’s more fun. They are all getting better at hitting nails and I am getting better at building some of the sets…otherwise I just copy however Craig builds it! I often find the girls at home during quiet times, playing salon with their dolls or each other, making a huge makeuppy mess but haven’t fun while doing it. Harper’s doll Babela continue to look like she’s had a rough night and quite the hangover, and then about 20 hair clips to seal the deal. Reagan finally named her doll Moriah, and constantly reminds me she has a name and is beautiful. During much of these events I will find Emerie in the bathroom, giving her doll or stuffed animal a bath, rather than adding to their makeup. Such girlie girls!
After a handful of swimming birthday parties in the past few weeks, one party highlight is certainly the Taylor Swift themed one, which was about as girly as possible and all three were thrilled. Is that Craig in a pink cowgirl hat? Why yes it is, and he definitely bedazzled those hats for the girls while at the party. I found him hanging out upstairs, bedazzling them with TS music in the background and the kids running around, having fun. He’s definitely a girl dad!
In addition to the usual birthday shenanigans, the crafts were on point. Everyone bedazzled a microphone (yes, they were working and charged…it wasn’t loud in there at all…), Emerie opting for all black while Reagan snagged a teal and Harper a light pink. The girls also added gems to their sunglasses and humored me for a couple cute shots. It was quite the afternoon!
And lastly, since this blog is getting a bit long, I have to mention all the Valentine’s day fun. This time last year we were down in Juneau working and harassing family, and I’m really glad this year we stayed for the girls to participate in their school activities. One day after school everyone wrote out their own Valentine’s Day cards; something I did quickly the night before last year! Some grumbling occurred until we got in the groove; overall they did great writing all classmates names and their own. I overbought options, since last year valentines sold out well before the holiday and couldn’t be found, with Reagan selecting Trolls (Band Together), Emerie choosing Frozen over the Bluey option, and Harper claiming Peppa Pig. I always enjoy watching them to a school type activity at home, such as writing classmates names down, and seeing how they react. Emerie struggled a bit fitting the letters into the small cards, writing bottom to top to finish names, but was able to get over that frustration and actually finished first! Harper and Reagan continued fighting over the pen used to cross completely names off the list; Harper also demanded to only use a yellow marker for all the writing, and Reagan took her time writing out the names. Somehow we made it through and were done by the time Craig came home from work!
Before school on V-DayMaking valentinesCuties after dance class
Excluding the winter season we are currently in, it feels though time is passing really quickly and my babies are growing up quickly before my eyes. The girls are growing like weeds and I’m internally struggling a bit at how big and independent they are becoming- it really goes by quick! Life has gotten a lot easier for sure, and we can fit so many more activities and outings into a single day, but I certainly have my moments of missing my little tiny humans. I am learning to enjoy them spreading their wings and learning new things.
Somehow we are already creeping toward the end of December and fully into Christmas season. After a nice Thanksgiving dinner at cousins house in November- where the kids mildly grazed and pretty much ate cucumbers and carrots for dinner- the girls were thrilled to put the Christmas tree up on Black Friday and even more excited to hang ornaments on the tree. Quite a few ornament accidents occurred over the first weekend; mostly random bulbs that somehow walked themselves into their bedroom, became dollhouse ornaments, or managed to become decorations in a variety of less than amenable locations; didn’t cause too much bodily damage. In case you were wondering, stepping on a broken ornament hurts like a Lego, except it slices your foot open. And yes, we had to explain that sleeping in bed with your breakable ornaments is not allowed. That was not the popular opinion in our household, believe me!
We dove right into Christmas season with family photos. The first try was canceled as we were parking downtown, with the girls’ hair fixed and outfits ready. They were less than pleased on the lack of follow through, but it all worked out a couple days later. It is SO much easier to get ready and the need for less game planning is welcomed. In fact, everyone was on board with the idea and it didn’t take much forcing or demands (let’s be realistic- bribes!). After a 20 minute session with lots of smiles and insistence to have a turn in the middle (we had to do extra shots so each kiddo had a turn as the center of the sister sandwich), we walked a block over and explored the Christmas bazaar at the Captain Cook Hotel and everyone had a chocolately treat for cooperative behavior. And can I just say, aren’t these holiday sweater dresses are pretty much the cutest thing you’ve ever seen? I can’t even handle the cuteness and they are seasonally appropriate, all warm and cozy for the cold temperatures.
As the midway point to the school year nears, we continue to practice all the sounds the letters make, recognizing numbers in order forward and backwards, and a lot of different shapes. The girls are about to have their school assessments to see progression from the start of the year and it’s quite easy to see the change when you are around it each day. Even since my last blog, they already write words verbally spelled out to them better than a month ago and ask which letter is that less often. I still see some frustration when one sister answers questions faster than the other two and still working out a solution that solves that and ensures all three are learning individually and not relying on a sibling to answer a question when they don’t know it.
Night times with solid darkness seem to create very hyper five year olds. In fact, without sugar or even finishing their dinner plates, we’ve seen a number of wild nights the past few weeks, with screaming, fighting, running up and down all the stairs easily a dozen or more times, and all around chaos to burn off that energy. The garage has seen better days and while the mess isn’t mortar (thank heavens!), we’ve discovered a lot of ground up chalk water, a box of depleted apple cause pouches, and my car getting “washed” by makeup brushes.
At some point the wildness ends with crying and whining, and parents very ready for bedtime. I can’t imagine we are the only household in town dealing with that fun and guess it stems from the extensive darkness, cold temperatures, and excited for Christmas! The other night Emerie came up to me after some form of five-year-old bodily injury by a sister, and noted you told me not to do that and I should of listened. Yep. But when each kiddo finds an activity to do solo, things are far more calm. This happens every few days without any parent push. One decent night Reagan was in her room “playing Christmas” in her dollhouse, Emerie was in the garage building a train track around my car, and Harper was making a baby bed out of a black Friday shipping box in the living room. All things were quiet until one wandered away from their activity to check out what someone else was up to.
In addition to the chaotic and energetic nights- for the kids, not the adults mind you- we are seeing a few more emotional fits than in prior months. Harper is really taking it full throttle, and will stomp off to her room in a huff when she disagrees with a solution, and really milk it, peeking out to see if anyone is paying attention to her woes and then continuing at higher volumes. Craig and I are both ready to see Grandma Sue’s reaction to this new attitude. Emerie has her moments too, as does Reagan occasionally, but Harper really takes the cake on this one. Her strong willed insistence will be great for other things as she gets older; but yes, we need to break this before it gets too out of hand and hoping it’s just the latest phase. The constant bickering really inspires the fits too.
In addition to Christmas focused activities, we have hit up three build days over the past 3 weeks, one making wooden gingerbread houses at Home Depot and two at Lowes, for wooden turkey picture frames and Christmas delivery trucks. Harper really impressed me at Home Depot, free hand painting green garland across her roof and adding sticker ornaments on it. Reagan, being the practical girl she is on art projects, insisted to paint her already wooden house brown, because it’s a gingerbread. Emerie also jumped on that bandwagon. Everyone insisted on writing first, middle and last names on their delivery trucks; and of course using permanent marker…
We entered into the movie season, something rarely done during warmer months. I don’t know if it’s just me or something I learned growing up here, but I feel terrible seeing a movie when it’s warm outside, and definitely won’t step foot in one if it’s warm AND sunny (especially after our last two overly miserable summers!). After seeing Trolls Band Together the first time and downloading the soundtrack, everyone wanted to see it again after constant singing in the car. The girls enjoy almost all the songs and have picked them up pretty well, each having a specific favorite and request for it every time we get in the car. Not going to lie- I quite enjoy most of them too and that’s a bonus! Now that the band *Nsync is now back in “style,” we are jamming out to their new single. About a year or two ago I tried pushing some of the late nineties or early 2000’s pop music at the tiny humans and they insisted imminent death if it continued to play (tad dramatic maybe) and that was that. Now the game has changed and at our second showing of the movie, everyone was singing the song in their seats!
A Peppa Pig obsession also emerged this fall. I’m not sure how we avoided that one for so long, since I’m sure the girls learned what it was from friends at school. One sick day Harper conned me into watching it so I could conduct interviews without interruption (Peppa Pig and an oreo = quietness for about an hour!), and now it’s a constant request. There are about 1000 other shows that I’d prefer to hear in the background, so we try to limit our time; although not incredibly successfully.
Winter brings out more daily crafting and coloring than the summer months, something I enjoyed growing up and am happy to share with the girls. All three recently discovered the magic of our home printer and daily requests to color princess photos now occur. Emerie wakes up each morning and instead of her adorable good morning Momma she starts the day off with I told you I wanted a -insert princess here- photo to color. We are working on getting back to the good mornings and delaying future requests until formalities are said. Everyone will hover in front of the printer waiting for random requests to print; it’s pretty funny and results in a lot of fun pictures to display. Craig purchased a very nice pen set that they are putting to good use, like in the photo below of Reagan. We also receive instructions and requests for tape so specific drawings can be hung up on the correct walls in the house. Very specific!
Custom drawings continue to emerge. I’m really enjoying this phase of creativity, which involves more self and family portraits and freehand drawings. Reagan is into panda families, although that only extends to her, parents and grandparents, even after requests to include her sisters. Eventually I was able to convince her to include Emerie and Harper and she begrudgingly made one and taped it to the door. Harper’s stick figures are adorable and always involve crazy hair. She insists she can’t draw shirts so everyone is wearing a tutu of sorts in most creations, but insistence they are shirts! Emerie free hands the least of the three and really focuses on princess coloring. She is getting more creative on her color choices instead of everything purple and will make multiple colors for a dress or hair. She will yell at you if your eyes happen to go across her in-progress creation, and harshly remind you no looking until she is done and ready to showcase it.
This year’s school Christmas show was with the elementary and upper class grades, meaning we are no longer part of the pre-K adorableness. The two kindergarten classes sang four songs total, three at the beginning and the finale of Jingle Bell Rock with the entire school. All three were split up, which helped with behavior (I think!), and Harper and Emerie couldn’t help but share their goofiness in front of the crowd. Harper made multiple antler hands and kept sticking out her tongue and making direct eye contact with me. Clearly she does not know what stage fright is, as her silly side excels off being in front of a crowd and she never appears nervous when people are looking her direction. Reagan, on the other hand, focused on singing her songs and doing the hand motions, and is all around more shy on stage than her siblings. Emerie….oh Emerie, kept pulling her fancy dress up and purposefully flashing us her red tights, and thinking it was absolutely hilarious as we told her to stop. Two out of three threw their headbands on the ground for the final song, because apparently taking them off and holding them was an unacceptable option while singing. So funny.
Overall this is one of my favorite nights of the year; not sure why but it makes me really feel like a grown up and “real” parent, seeing my offspring singing on a big stage, all dressed up and excited to be there, and getting to enjoy the moment. Being able to sit and enjoy without fussing over misbehaving kids (because they are onstage) is a nice perk for the parents. The girls were all snazzy in their Christmas dresses, black boots and headbands and did great.
With Miss Mary and Miss Jess
The following day was the end of the fall dance session, where the girls did a tap and ballet routine and a quick bar routine to show the parents their new skills. Harper was not having it and stared straight at the floor the entire tap routine, finally cooperating a bit for the ballet part. She had a grumpy day and her love for dance class and her teacher was not emanating today, but overall her teacher noted she has learned a lot in the last year! Emerie quietly watched her teacher and followed the moves from the back, and Reagan was all smiles at the front and happy to smooch the camera videoing. So far this session went well overall with all three together, and far better than previous years according to the teacher. We have decided to keep them together in dance for the winter session and everyone is extremely excited about the spring extravaganza show at the end. We shall see how they do with three hours of performances, since we carried an overly tired, screaming Harper all the way to the car after it last year.
Later in the day after dance we went ice skating at the mall with a bunch of friends from school. The activity reinforced the thought of doing ice skating lessons again, something we did during COVID when they were much younger. Emerie likes it the least of the three, but claimed to have fun, even after multiple demands to go side on the side. Harper and Reagan both ventured out toward the middle without holding any hands after a bit, and have already asked to go again. Craig, being a more articulate skater than me (I need more practice to remember my skills!), took our kids, random Anchor kids, and some of their friends into twirls and speed skating, much to everyone’s delight (to everyone but Craig’s knees haha). We also had the pleasure to watch him chase the Brinkman twins across the ice as they tried to escape him. The girls only took me down once and I relearned that I can maintain balance holding one kid’s hand, but definitely not two. Each jerked a different direction and that was that, and they were less than thrilled that I pulled them down after me. Other than that snafu and a few falls from each, everyone did fantastic.
To sum up our weekend Christmas activities, we did a quick visit to Santa after breakfast at our favorite family spot. The girls have no fear of the jolly red man now and all went right up to ask him questions and explain what they’d like for Christmas. Reagan is still asking for a talking panda- and I reminded Santa that we can’t have a live panda live with us in Alaska. Ha! We also did our annual gingerbread cookies with Auntie Megan, Kaden and Oaki; this was the cleanest year so far and I can finely share the beautiful goodies with other people, without feeling so bad about impending kid germs. I also have to mention that Emerie decorated so much more this year than in the past, and everyone took a turn helping me roll out the dough into their chosen shapes. Reagan excelled at that part and by next year she probably won’t need adult supervision to fill the cookie sheet up. Pretty cool.
I can’t end this festive blog without mentioning the fantastic girls night Craig hosted solo last week. While I attended a Christmas dinner with the bestie, he did school pickup and took them on a fun filled evening, first stopping at Benihana for a fire filled dinner, then hitting up the library and returning books and getting new, AND ended the adventure with an ice cream treat. I clearly need to step up my charcuterie girls nights after all that activity! And I returned home that night and everyone was in pajamas and happily watching Bluey on the couch together. Impressive I tell you, it’s still not easy taking all three out solo and not looking like a crazy person handling a bunch of wild animals, let along three places in a row!
Somehow in the blink of an eye, a quarter of the way through the kindergarten school year i complete! How it passed so quickly I am unsure, and definitely not mentally prepared to be on the way to halfway through the school year. The past month was an unpleasant health roller coaster for me, meaning while I was down, driving to and from school, cooking and really doing anything was on Craig to handle. He took the girls to dance, other activities and birthday parties, and let me rest and try to feel better. While that isn’t nearly as hard to do as a couple years back (thank heavens I didn’t catch this when they were toddlers!), it is still quite exhausting, expending energy and mental stamina to solo parent for a time. I’m happy to report I am mostly on the mend and the cracked ribs aren’t as painful and healing up. I will be glad to have this month over!
This week Craig and I attended our first parent teacher conference with three kids in tow, and somehow managed to convince them to sit and color while we chatted with their wonderful teacher. It’s always fun to watch Craig sit in a 5-year-old’s chair and fit his legs against the tiny table!
Miss Tawni showed us each kiddo’s portfolio, including their self portraits, custom colored hand prints (Reagan’s even had nail polish drawn on it!), and paper collages that spelled out their names. All three self portraits boasted blonde hair and each kiddo’s color integrated into the drawing somewhere, which is pretty cute.
Overall nothing crazy to report on the first eight weeks of school; all three are progressing normally for their age and learning and developing on target for their age. As expected, penmanship in the last two months has improved dramatically for all three. While this is a great sign, I very much enjoyed seeing the custom lettering interpretation from each and will miss that short phase. I admit I saved an unreasonable amount of papers boasting their primitive penmanship as it morphed over time, and I’m okay with that. With a name full of letter “e’s”, Emerie made curly cues instead of an actual letter, but it was so cute and understandable to read! Reagan easily wrote her name by the time school started and truly enjoys writing, so her name continues to become clearer and neater each week and her capital “R’s” improving. At home she often carries a notebook and constantly writes notes and pictures. Harper often adds extra vowels in her name and is now spelling it correctly more often. All in all, I’m pretty please with their progress.
Emerie continues to patch most mornings- so half her school day- and Miss Tawni noted she doesn’t see any added frustration or limits from doing it each day. This is GREAT news, as we were unsure if patching would effect the school day and preferred to not patch after a long school day to get the time in. I assume the daily habit helps and she doesn’t question it anymore; Harper and Reagan still occasionally ask why they don’t have to do it. The kindergartners don’t have assigned seating in the classroom- at least not yet- and it sounds like the girls don’t always sit together and spread out, which is good. I can also tell they often sit by a fellow classmate, Nichole, because we see coloring almost every day with everyone’s names side by side and they tell me their favorite part of the day and it often involves her.
School pictures turned out really cute on the first try, and kudos to Craig for the cute outfit selection and pigtails since I was still sick in bed that morning. They all promised to smile big and did just that! And look, no eye patch stuck to a shirt this year- hahaha!
HarperReaganEmerie
The basic report cards for this age contain a scale from one to ten, with the majority of numbers under 7 since it’s their year one of grade school. This first quarter marks show music the highest for Reagan, followed by PE; Harper the highest for music and PE class; and Emerie highest in music as well. All three reports note continued improvement on writing and understanding their letters and an average rating for all other curriculum. We still need improvement on letter sounds, recognition, and word spelling, and need to actively practice more at home than we have recently. Now that my month long plague is easing up and energy is slowly returning, we will focus on the sounds of each letter and continuing to recognize them. When questioned, Harper claims her favorite subject is writing, Emerie likes gym class with Mr. Ivan the most, and unsurprisingly, Reagan’s choice is coloring, i.e. art class. They all sing the praises of their teacher too, as do us parents.
A few more days until Halloween and the girls are excitedly waiting for a real snowfall. I think they’ve forgotten with snow brings the cold and darkness, but either way they are excited for it.
For a second weekend in row we headed down to the Kenai Peninsula for a much needed life break, from work and the busy, everyday life we lead in Anchorage. It’s been a solid year since I took a week off from my day job; unsuspecting the tough events at work last year were right around the corner of that trip.
With no gil net fishing allowed this year by Fish and Game, we decided getting out of town remained worth it for some much needed family fun. I still revel at the ease of traveling now compared to last year, and with Grandma Sue in tow, it’s about as close to a vacation as you can get (with kids!). The first two nights spent at the same place as last week meant the girls were already comfortable and familiar and very excited to show Craig around. Everyone slept both nights in their temporary bedroom, which is a feat in itself, and did a great job staying at our other house.
A family photo on the riverbank.
With no daily plan or planned places to be, we adventured and explored as we felt like it. We dilly dallied in the mornings and the kids played, much less structured mornings than when we are at home and getting things done. We popped into the Kenai jump park to burn some energy and strolled the farmers market in Soldotna, playing at the playground behind it and trying out a couple tasty treats. The girls fearlessly slid down the extremely old, metal slide- probably installed when Craig and I were kids and now seen as more dangerous- and checked out the old-school monkey bars. At the market one vendor displayed a beautiful wooden bench with a fishing pole sealed into it; the girls all checked that out with interest at how it would come out for use. So funny!
We walked along the boardwalk of the Kenai River, the opposite direction we explored last year after the car broke down. The chanting of kids don’t float! followed our brigade, since life jackets weren’t on and the adults were carefully paying attention. Dandelions, well really any type of flower, were collected into kid bouquets and carried in hands and pockets for the entire excursion. Little did we know this direction took us right to an warm, open (Alaskan standards) beach area with lots of climbing rocks along the riverbank. The girls tossed rocks and sticks into the water with enthusiasm and explored. With the sun finally showing its face, it became surprisingly warm out and almost like summer was upon us! The girls asked to climb out to the farthest rock and in true grandma style, Sue removed her socks and shoes and walked out barefoot to assist them to it.
Kenai River fun in the sunshine
At one point a random lady and her toddler approached us, asking if we had seen misplaced keys. Craig and I helped her look around and eventually I luckily saw their reflection underwater, just enough to notice them. So random and glad we could help out a fellow mom that wasn’t having as good of a day as us!
At this point the girls’ “pollen coughs,” as I now call them, were in full swing from the warmer temperatures and our time outside, so after an amazing Thai noodle lunch and a lot of ice water to cool down, we drove around a bit so everyone could settle. This followed our plan to be unplanned, and we drove in a few circles trying to find a random flower shop that potentially sold poppies for Sue.
The one planned event toward the beginning of the trip was to barbecue at cousin Jamie’s house and hangout with almost all the cousins on that side of the family. Even with the mosquito club meeting that swarmed around the yard, the evening was wonderful. Savaya, Jaren and Chatum stopped in for a while and it was nice to see everyone. The girls were all on decent behavior, especially after a busy day of adventuring around a new place, at least until Hayden came home from work. Then like they do with Uncle Will…let the torturous games begin! Maddie shared a stuffed animal from her collection with each kiddo, Harper selecting a pink bunny, Emerie a Stitch, and Reagan a cheetah (or tiger?). Since returning home, all three get snuggles each night at bedtime. The pony coloring books from cousins were also a hit and colored while at the barbecue and for the rest of our trip.
After some delicious grilling by Steve, out came the marshmallows. The girls have tried this activity only a couple of times, so it was interesting to see their response to it for the first time this summer. In the past we just made a point to avoid fire situations, since three tiny running toddlers are hard to keep track of to avoid injury! Ultimately they all just wanted to eat the chocolate bars, which they did, and Emerie gave us a hilarious display of slow cooking hers, flipping it over and rubbing it into the fire pit grossness, and making everybody laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Jaren tried to show her a better method and she was not about to listen. By the end of the day they were all exhausted and immediately crashed after we made it home for the night.
The second half of the trip was spent in one of our favorite spots, Homer. We only spent about six hours in the town last year and I have been looking forward to a longer visit to spend more time exploring and hanging out at the beach. The weather took a turn toward beautiful for two of the three days, so even with the blustering wind, the beach adventures each day were fun. After the drive down that morning we headed straight to Bishop’s Beach. The wind made the girls instantly cold in their light sundresses, coats and shorts, asking right away to go back to the car. But by the time we walked to the water’s edge and looked for shells, they were more excited to find things than complain about the temperature. Well, I should say Harper and Reagan; it took Emerie a bit more convincing but she got there! By the end of that first afternoon, Harper and Reagan were down to bare feet and no coats and creating forts and “kitchens” out of the driftwood; Emerie kept hilariously laying on the ground underneath her coat, trying to take a nap, and wouldn’t take her socks off but abandoned her boots.
HarperEmerieReagan
The second day the beach was just as gorgeous but the wind was blowing harder. The tide was pretty far out and we were able to walk a good distance and see some larger shells that weren’t visible the first day. Grandma Sue explained other small sea creatures and goodies as she found them, even finding two (dead) crabs at one point, that the girls glanced at and then refused to carry around with them. Buckets filled up pretty quickly with treasures and we rinsed them off in a shallow pool closer to the shoreline, that Harper ended up falling backwards into. This was after her walloping trek across the water a few moments earlier, which filled her boots with water and soaked her lower half, not that it bothered her (that time!)! While I wish we could have spent more time out there, the wind was so strong it was making my ears ache, and eventually we headed off to explore other spots in town.
This rental was a beautiful three bedroom house, so the girls took turns sharing beds. The first night Emerie won the lottery to sleep next to Grandma Sue and the second night it was Harper’s turn. I may have snapped a couple of nighttime photos of them unknowingly snuggling with one another as they lightly snored. When asleep and wearing the same pajamas, they look SO alike! All three did quite well entertaining themselves while we briefly got to relax, or cook, or enjoy the beautiful view of the water and the spit. Everyone spent a good amount of time playing on the front porch and creating forts with the furniture cover and, you know, fighting over it.
While of course we visited some of the touristy spots, which are boring to elaborate on here, one cute adventure was spent out on the Homer Spit, walking around the pier and looking at the boats. Personally I enjoy reading all the creative boat names, but since the girls can’t read yet, they enjoyed looking at the colors, fish in the water, and activity happening before them. When asked one thing they remember from the trip, it is pretty likely to be seeing the rainbow boat out in the water. It caused quite the stir of excitement and we HAD to walk over and see it up close and personal. Grandma convinced them the “dock police” would come and haul them away if they weren’t on good behavior, which included no running and goofing off because kids don’t float! A few passerby’s joined in on that humor and acted like they might be those enforcers. It was great. We also witnessed a random boat tour loading up and asked Captain Bob twenty questions about his boat. Bob was good sport and joined in on the fun.
As we rounded the turn back to the car we spotted several fishermen filleting catches from the day, one a good sized halibut and the other was cleaning salmon heads for a restaurant here in Anchorage that makes soup. The intrigue intensified and all three asked a lot of questions, wanting to get back in there and check it all out. The salmon fisherman was also a good sport, in general everyone we spoke to was so friendly, and brought one head around to show the girls. All three touched the eyeballs, because why not, and Reagan might have licked her fingers after and then wiped them on her dress. Gross! This picture accurately depicts the reactions; I trend toward the same feeling as Reagan when it comes to fish eyeballs. You could definitely tell they were bummed we didn’t get to do gil netting and we received a few questions why we didn’t go.
I am sure I’m forgetting some other cute and memorable things, but I didn’t write them down in the moment and don’t remember now. It was a nice trip, with tired kids each night, lots of treats and candy from different stores and restaurants, lots of coloring and driving and cute kiddo moments. The coveted candy rings from Grandma inspired Reagan to explain to her all knowingly, well you said we could have the candy rings tomorrow and today is tomorrow so we can have them! Such wisdom for first thing in the morning. The drive home was solid fog for the first hour and everyone snuggled in their blankets, ate their full lunches and snacks and finally watched a movie until we made it home.
The Douglets 