Meet my little friend Natalie. She was feeling sad one day as she wanted to keep up with the bigger kids, but couldn’t. She asked for help to climb the play structure. I took pity on her and climbed in the structure to help her get past the tough part. She followed a climbing tip and found out that she could climb the levels all by herself. Thanks Natalie for the grin and letting me help you discover something new about yourself.

Emily was fascinated by the swirl Mama put on the "y" in writing Emily’s name one day. She sat and immediately started practicing her own "y" swirls. 

Check out what we found in our yard . . . a pumpkin plant. This little guy is a self-plant from our discarded fall pumpkins of last year. Pretty cool find. The girls have enjoyed checking on the plant every day or so. The general reason gardening isn’t done at our home though is the wildlife enjoys the plants too much. As soon as we cleared away some of the plant congestion around the pumpkin plant the deer found it too. While the plant has continued to survive, none of the blooms have. Just after they finish blooming something eats the bloom away. So we are enjoying the beautiful flowers and will purchase our pumpkins elsewhere.

If there is a morning person at our house it is Julia, but everyone else seems to be a bit slow getting going in the morning. We are grateful that Julia gets up and gets her routine completed and breakfast eaten without any complaint and minimal trouble.

Emily is not inclined to get up and get busy in the morning. The correlation between not wanting to fall asleep at bedtime and morning tiredness hasn’t sunk in for her yet. Not sure if it has for her Mama either. To help with each morning, we have two routines in place. One is pre-selecting clothes for the week and labeling each outfit. Maybe, we will learn how to spell the days of the week while we’re at it. The second routine is nifty routine cards Mama found online. They seem to work well to remind the girls what is expected without so much interaction from Mama. While all the morning excitement is going on Mama is making breakfast and lunch. As long as the girls have gotten their responsibilities done on time they get a few minutes of play and TV time before going to school.

This is the summer to learn to swim at our house. To this end the girls have just completed four of six weeks of swim classes for the summer. They are doing so well and loving it. A mix that makes Mama very happy!

For the first two week session Julia was in Level 1 with Ms. Kate and Emily in Level 2 with Ms. Lauren. By the end of the class Julia was ready to advance to Level 2. Emily was one skill away from advancing to Level 3. When the second session started the mix of kids and Emily’s skill level allowed her to go ahead and move to Level 3 with Ms. Lynn. Both girls have enjoyed the other kids in the class and loved their teachers. They have been willing to try new things and be challenged to improve on what is hard. The biggest improvement is just their confidence in the water is increasing!

Emily –

• can swim the pool length with her kickboard confidently,
• is swimming about eight feet without assistance,
• is able to jump in the pool and swim back to the edge without assistance,
• is learning to dive,
• is practice her strokes and breathing,
• was brave enough to jump into the pool from the diving board.

Julia –

• is learning to float on her back and can do it when she has assistance to get started, 
• can kick laying on a board the length of the pool,
• loves to jump into the water,
• is gliding thru the water

For our third session the girls should remain in their respective levels. Mama is SO proud of them and their new skills.

Spring is here and the strawberries are ready to pick. Good thing we had some kids ready to pick some strawberries. It was a warm morning, but not too hot. We started in a shady spot where we got wet strawberries and wet hands from our work. It didn’t take too long to work our way back out to the sunny part and as we went the smell from the field was very sweet and warm. There are just some things that can only be experienced and the smell of a field is one of them.

The girls enjoyed playing with their friends. We have some unusual symptoms from allergies (maybe) so the Edwards girls had to remain on their own row just in case. This was not a popular decision. The mud wasn’t so bad in the field this year and most of the scrubbing after picking was to get strawberry juice off of cheeks and fingers. Julia was a strawberry eating machine. Emily picked and ate and sometimes put them in my tray. We were joined by the usual suspects – Ashley, Elena, Maeve, Ariaun, Aiden, Natalie, and a newbie Hazel.

Maybe we will eat these berries quickly and have to go back for more. 

Aiden is showing off what the strawberry patch is for!

One of Elena’s bounty – I wonder if it went into her bucket or her mouth.

Who know what this grin is for? I think she was mid-strawberry-bite. But then again she is five and gives lots of silly faces.

Another five-year-old grin.

Hazel is quiet and seems kind of serious, but that might just be because she was just getting familiar with the situation. She seemed pretty busy in the field herself.

Julia was a serious picker. One day when she learns to put them in the tray she might be the fastest. Instead she shovels them into her mouth about as fast as she can find them.

Maeve is also serious about her strawberries. Fruit being her favorite food I suspect the strawberry field was as close to heaven as she can get.

The girls with our family bounty. Some for jam, some to freeze for later, and the rest for just eating. Yeah!