So much to blog...

I hate when I get behind in blogging. This is the most I've been behind in months. I have all of Aunt Rachel's visit to talk about and then our time with Ann & Alan in Santa Fe. But in the meantime, Katie and I are off to see Oma tomorrow. She could use our visit and we need to see her.

Aunt Rachel visits!

Aunt Rachel came to visit for a few days while Katie was on spring break! It's so nice to hang out with my sister and have time with her that I wouldn't have if we lived near her. Above Katie and Rachel are making mosaics. Katie made a K and we figure that we can make the rest of the letters in her name as an activity in the future.

On the phone with Ania

Katie isn't a particularly chatty child on the phone. Sometimes she'll chat, but most of the time she says hi and then goes back to what she's doing. Ania called last week and Katie was very chatty. She told Ania all about her day, that Jennifer cooked eggs for her class for snack. Katie found it so impressive that her teacher cooked for the class that she had to report it to everyone she spoke to that day.

This is a pretty typical Katie picture. It was just after a late dinner (hence the pajamas, she usually puts those on after dinner) and snuggling puppy. I feel like her puppy addiction has gotten a little more significant.

Chag Purim

After much debate (or parental prodding), Katie decided to be Tinkerbell for Purim. Unfortunately, I cannot report about Purim because I wasn't there. Strep again! This time with only a 102 fever. Katie was very sweet and gave me "Big Puppy" to snuggle with and said, "that's okay Mommy, you can go to Purim next year." Peter took Katie to the carnival and dinner and met Nana & Papa at the Purim Shpiel. Not too many pictures to share, but happy that Katie enjoyed herself and played with her friends.

Aunt Lesley

Above Katie is playing possibly her favorite game with Aunt Lesley - airplane! I don't remember when it started but Katie asks to play that every time she sees her. The travel to different places of Katie's choice and have fun.

Aunt Lesley came in with Matt and Katie had fun hanging out with them. On Sunday night, we went to Ann & Alan's house and even brought Meadow. Meadow was very good and didn't sample any of the steak that Ann grilled.

Family playdate with Brian

We spent a wonderful Sunday at Brian's house. This pic shows the kids outside playing with moonsand. They soon moved on to finger painting which became foot painting and a complete mess. Katie and Brian play really nicely together. They played for hours without a single squabble. We all had a really nice time.

Sammy Spider Purim!

All the classes dressed up for Purim on Friday (Purim was actually Tuesday). The Sammy Spider Class made costumes with crowns and capes and necklaces. I loved that Katie's class made their costumes. And they made groggers to shake when Haman's name was said. All of the kids at preschool dressed up, and there was a preponderance of princess among the girls. Queens are part of the Purim story, so I do get why there could be princesses, but I think it has more to do with the fact that these girls haven't left the princess stage yet.
Nana came to the Purim Shabbat and walked in the parade. Katie said that was the best part of the day.
The Sammy Spiders about to do a craft project.

Friday night we went to Tot Shabbat. A lot of Katie's friends were there and she had the best time running around and playing with them. She seems to have such ownership of our temple and I think that is great that there is such a conjunction between her school and her temple - it's really only in preschool that she can have this. But hopefully she'll feel at home there - the place is huge.

Tea Party

Sunday morning, the weekend before last, Peter was in bed and Katie and I had a tea party. I had to admire Katie's creativity. Although she has an actual table she could use for a tea party, she took her dress up clothes box and turned it upside down for a tea table. Then she gathered chairs around for me and Panda and Baby Katie. She made the food and poured tea for all of us. I had blueberry tea. It was delicious!

I love this little girly girl. She was attentive to her guests and made sure to feed Panda and Baby Katie.
giving Baby Katie some strawberry tea

Playdate with Noah and family

Catching up with the blog. It's a balance - sometimes there are more pictures than things to say and sometimes more things to say than pictures. And then sometimes, like today, I just have to catch up.

We had Noah and his family over 2 weekends ago. It was actually a cool weekend so our playdate was confined indoors. Noah actually told his parents that he wanted to be dropped off and not have them come with him. We thought that was funny.

Katie had fun, as she usually does when someone comes to her house. But she also did something we thought was puzzling. Katie kept playing with all her "girl" toys. Now you know me, I've tried very hard to keep a house full of gender neutral toys and even some more "boy type" toys. But Katie is girly. She loves dress up and dolls and putting her puppies to bed. I find that she usually makes an effort to play with things her friends want to play with, but it wasn't like that this time. She wanted to play with her Barbie (Katie's small Barbie collection comes from Nana's house. My objection to Barbie isn't the cliche feminist rant, but rather that her clothes and accessories are a little too difficult for a preschooler to do alone. Barbie is designed for older girls).

At one point Noah was playing with Katie's Weebel Treehouse and Katie and Noah's mom were brushing Barbie's hair. I had to take a picture because it was funny when Katie would rather play "girl" with her friend's mom than gender-neutral things with her friend.

Happy Birthday Ania!

Ania is one of the most loyal readers of Urban Meadow, so I have to send her a special happy birthday wish! Happy Birthday! Wishing you all the beautiful things you deserve in the coming year. We love you and miss you!

Katie and I went to pick out a birthday present for Ania yesterday. First Katie wasn't too happy with the idea of going shopping. But we went to this great store where the owners know us (Nana has shopped there for years) and they are so friendly and played with Katie and gave her pretzels. Very good tactics because the store is filled with wonderfully breakable art glass.

This is the first picture of Katie and Ania, taken in December 2005. Notice there is a puppy in the picture and she's still bright pink!

Playdate with Ellie

Katie has two friends named Ellie. Here is Katie and school Ellie playing in our backyard last Friday. Yes, our backyard in February. It was actually one of the cooler days, it had been 87 the day before and I took Katie and Julia to the playground where Nana met us for a little while to enjoy the weather.

Ellie is playing with the My Little Pony collection and Katie is playing animal doctor. She lined up some puppies and Tulip the pig (thanks Aunt Lesley!) and put on her doctor's outfit.

Here she is examining Tulip's eyes. Tulip, by the way, is a character in one of our new favorite shows "Toot and Puddle."

And here are the girls "painting" together.