Posts in Category: Uncategorized

Twinkle, twinkle

Grace has been learning to play “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” on the piano. Just about every day she’ll go and sit down at the piano and play for a few minutes – it is wonderful that she has the opportunity and exposure, and the chance to start to hearing the music. I am sure it will help her to be able to sing the tune a bit better.

The terrible incident of the snail in the playroom

Grace adopted a pet snail from the garden, named it Cutie, and has walked around with the snail for the last day. Unfortunately Cutie was knocked from her bucket onto the playroom floor and then stood upon by one of Grace’s friend today. Cutie is now squishy.

There were some serious tears, but fortunately Grace was happy to move on once she had a replacement snail.

We’ll always remember you Cutie!

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Sleep pose #183

I would call this one, The Peaceful Ponderer

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Morning faces

A day can only start well when you have these faces to greet you

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Eli, on being modest

Donné and I were discussing Eli’s speech and we wanted to check if he could say “very,” so Donné asks him, “Eli, say, ‘I’m very cute.'” Eli says to her, “No, you not really cute, I really cute!”

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Feeding the garden

It is nice to have two helpers who can actually contribute to the task at hand. Whether it is gardening, or putting a cupboard together, there is usually lots of help at hand.

They first helped loosen up the ground, and now it is time to give the grass some food

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The grand finale!

Tonight was Grace’s last ballet show! These concerts have really gone brilliantly well and she has enjoyed them. I think it has been a wonderful growth experience for her – the practising, the commitment to the rehearsals and show, the fun the girls have together in the changing room, the experience of being on stage, and the joy of performing.

Huge kudos to Julie and Erika from Turning Steps dance studio for bringing it all together! And also to Donné who made sure Grace was ready for each show and managed our schedule to make sure Grace had lots of time to rest and take it easy between things.

As a surprise for the final show I also ended up looking after the girls backstage. When I arrived with Grace there were some nervous moms who were about to go and watch the show who told me there was no one to look after the girls tonight, so I volunteered and had a lot of fun with a lovely bunch of little ladies.

This is how we get ready….

Hair gel and buns

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Smiles…

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..and makeup

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Ready for the next step?

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More makeup!

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The pretty ballerina, all ready to go

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Tonight Grace was dancing in Rio, so wings and leotard, ready to go

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Market pizza

Taking time to enjoy some pizza at the Newberry entrepreneurs market day (thanks Céline for the photo!)

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Pet rock

Eli likes to collect things, and mainly put them in his pockets so that they can be discovered in the washing machine, or if we’re lucky found before they make it into the laundry basket. He found a chunk of cement at school and brought it back home happily saying, “Paint eyes…paint eyes.”

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So, after lunch he got stuck into painting his concrete chunk. Once it was all painted he wanted some stick on eyes (which apparently we have, but no one can find them) – it was time to make a plan. A few stickers later and his pet rock was born…

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Puzzle day

Eli is very into building puzzles at the moment, and every piece he gets in place on his own gives him loads and loads of joy. Today he built an aeroplane puzzle, a hospital puzzle, a construction puzzle and a farm puzzle. He spends time looking at the pictures and asking questions as he goes along, exploring all the little details of the picture he is working towards.

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