Nearly Christmas

To start off, here are some summer pictures.

And also some soccer pictures. Here are Makayla and Hayden at their soccer jamboree in August 2009.





Makayla is now 4 1/2 years old, and as of this morning, she measures 44 inches tall and weighs nearly 38 lbs. She is as tall as some 5 year olds and frequently gets mistaken for being in kindergarten already. She will be starting school in September 2010. The district has a whole year of pre-K activities for the kids to get ready to go to school. Clay and I attended the parent's meeting at the beginning of November, and then Makayla and I both went to the introduction to the school at the end of November. She loved participating in all of the activities. I think she will do well in school since she just loves to learn. She is starting to sound out words which impressed one of the teachers at the school when she said: "You really know how to sound out your letters well." She can also do some basic math addition and subtraction. If I tell her how many more bites of supper to take, she will start eating them and then tell me how many more bites she has left to take (subtraction). It catches people off-guard when she does this because it's just not expected at her age.



Makayla dressed up as Violet from the Incredibles for Halloween this year. She had no desire to be a princess or anything girly. She said right from the start that she wanted to be a superhero.
Makayla is back in tap dancing this year. Megan is her teacher and there are no boys in her class this year. They are going to be dancing to "Disco Duck" and "Cowboy Joe" which she insists on calling "Cowboy Joke". I am interested to see what kind of costume they get that will go with a country tune AND a disco dance.

Makayla is also taking some swimming lessons. The class is "Preschool 1" and the goal of this class is mainly to get the kids to trust their lifejackets. Makayla has been very afraid in the water and doesn't want to be let go even with a lifejacket on, so I thought this class would be good for her. I never dreamed how brave she would be by the end of the class. Her last (8th) session is this Sunday, and for the last couple of classes, she has been venturing out in the water doing the doggie paddle with her lifejacket on all by herself. She never liked water in her face, and now you can splash her, and she doesn't even flinch. She will hold her breath and put her whole face in the water. I told her teacher Tristan how impressed I was at what he had been able to teach her in such a short period of time. I intend to sign her up for "Preschool 2" after Christmas because I don't want her to lose this momentum. By next summer, she will be having a blast in the campground pool.

Makayla is also attending preschool again this year. There are 7 kids who are going: Makayla, Sabrina, Hayden, Jenna, Sienna, Marley and Ashton. They have been practising for the Christmas concert which takes place next week.

This is the first day of preschool 2009.
Here is a picture that the preschool teacher took of the kids playing with the parachute. They were bouncing "Purple Teddy" on it. Makayla carried "Purple Teddy" around with her for several weeks and since he was a FREX toy, he couldn't withstand all the abuse that he was exposed to. I convinced her to exchange "Purple Teddy" for another one, which she named "Yellow Teddy", and she continued to carry this guy around for a few more weeks. We've finally weaned her off of carrying these teddies around at all.
This was a field trip that the kids took to the apple orchard to pick apples.

I'm thinking that Makayla will be a lot more outgoing this year at the concert. She has been showing a more outgoing side to her personality lately. This summer, we had somewhat overcome her fear of my leaving her, and tried to get her to be more independent. In October, she went back to crying if I was leaving her. She tried this out at Tobi's one Monday morning, again at tap dancing that night, and then continued with it on Tuesday at preschool. I really didn't want to go through that whole phase again since it was awful the first time around, so I tried to nip it in the bud quickly. I tried to appease her on Monday at Tobi's and after half an hour of sobbing, I just had to leave. (Tobi told me that she quickly stopped within minutes of my leaving.) On Monday night at tap dancing, I drug her back to the car when she wouldn't stay in class and she knew I wasn't happy. She quickly changed her mind and said she would stay in class and dance. So we went back in, and she did wonderfully. On Tuesday morning at preschool, she didn't want me to leave her, so I promptly told her that she had a choice: it was either preschool or Tobi's, but being with me wasn't one of the options since I had to work. She decided that once I put it that way, she would stay at preschool. I had a couple more times that I had to be harsh with her, but it seemed to work and now she runs off into tap dancing class or swimming lessons on her own and doesn't even look back for me. I have to admit that it's a bit sad that she doesn't need me as much, but independence is a personality trait that I definitely want her to have. At this past week's tap dancing class, the parents were invited in to watch what the kids had learned so far, and she was one of the most outgoing kids by answering the teacher's questions and even hamming it up a bit. I was really proud at how far she had come.

Christmas is coming in a couple of weeks. Makayla and I wrote up her letter to Santa together. She has been more influenced this year by the television commercials, so in her letter, she requested Hot Wheels, Twister Hopscotch, and a new DS game, along with some surprises. She is a huge fan of Spongebob Squarepants, so anything with him on it will be a hit. She helped me decorate our tree too. I have to say, it actually went quicker with the two of us working at it even though she can't reach any higher than 4 feet, and it was more fun than doing it alone.

Summer is here...I think

It has been forever again since I've updated this blog. Well, it is now mid-July and we've finally gotten some decent summer weather over the last week. We have had a very long spring and it has been extremely rainy around here this year.

I noticed in my last post that I mentioned that we were looking at new travel trailers. We did find one that we liked even better than the one I mentioned. It had a wonderful bunk room for Makayla that we just couldn't pass up. We moved it to our new lot along the river at the Hartt Island Campground on Mother's Day weekend. We got some lovely weather in May, but starting in June, the weather got rotten and rainy so we hadn't used the trailer a whole lot. Unfortunately, we found out that the trailers 2 slide-outs leak a whole lot. After a hard rain one Saturday night, I went to make Makayla's bed when I realized how wet her bedding was. She thought that maybe she had peed the bed, but I knew that wasn't the case. I peeled the mattress back and we saw how wet the wood underneath was, not to mention that the bunk above her was soaked even more. I felt underneath her bed and the carpet was soaking wet and the water had started to get the wood wet that made up the frame of her bed. The fortunate part of this story is that it is still under warranty and I'm glad we found out about this sooner rather than later. We called the dealership and told them about what happened and that we would be in to talk to them first thing Monday morning with the pictures we took of the mess. The sales manager was very apologetic when we arrived and he could hardly believe that not only did the trailer leave the manufacturer that way, but it also left his dealership. Quality control at the manufacturer should have caught the fact that the slide-outs were not sealed properly as it was very evident to Clay and me when we climbed up to see where the water was getting in. They offered us a trailer to use in the meanwhile while they figured out what they were going to do. We loaded our trailer up and brought it to the dealership and then we transferred everything over to the loaner trailer and brought it back to our campground lot.

Clay stopped into the dealership last Friday to get something for the loaner trailer, and the saleman that was still there gave Clay an update on our trailer. The dealership is definitely going to fix our trailer, but as of right now, the sales and service managers are trying to get the manufacturer to agree to give us a new one. Either way, he told us that we should probably get comfortable in the loaner trailer as this negotiation could take a while.

This is the water that soaked through the mattress to the bottom bunk where Makayla sleeps.
Her bunk beds are the part that slide out and the carpet and the foam underneath were just soaked. It's hard to show how wet the carpet was in a picture, but Clay's knees were getting wet just sitting there. And you sure could smell that the carpet had been wet on Monday when we brought it back to the dealership. You would have thought that there were a dozen cats living in there and used the carpet as their litter box.

This is underneath Makayla's bottom bunk. The wood frame is all wet (dark orange part) and the carpet is soaking wet. The wood was so swollen that the drawers you see wouldn't even pull out anymore.

This is the top bunk and how wet it was underneath the mattress.

This is a picture of the water drops seeping in from behind the trim and going down the wall. We just aren't sure how much water got in between the walls too.

The bottom of the curtain and one of the bench seats were wet. This is on the second slide-out.

This is the top of one of the slides. As you can see, the seal and tape are partially ripped off.

Another view of the seal on the slides.

We were very disappointed that this happened since we didn't even suspect that something like this was even a possibility since the trailer was new. We are going to be patient and hopeful that this issue gets sorted out in the best way possible.

Summer 2009

Let me fill you in on what Makayla has been up to over the last few months. She finished up her year at tap dancing and here is a photo of her with her costume on. She just loved her "tap dress"!

She and her group danced to "I'm a Little Teapot" as well as to a version of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". Here is a YouTube link that another parent posted. Makayla is on the left of most of the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rEUCzhyyEo

There were 2 tap dance shows that were to last approximately 90 minutes and the kids were to stay backstage with the daycare personnel they had there. The ladies told me that Makayla struggled a bit being backstage without Mommy the first night (cried most of the time although it didn't appear that way when she was onstage dancing), and they suggested that I stay with her the following night. Makayla had been going through a phase where she seemed to dislike me leaving her anywhere even if she used to love to go, like preschool, tap dancing and even her sitter's house. So I stayed with her and kept trying to see if she was comfortable enough for me to leave, but we never got to that point. Since I knew when her dances were because I had watched the show the previous night, I brought her to my seat with me and we watched the show until it was time for her to go back to get ready to dance. She had no problem with me dropping her off so long as she knew that I was going to be there to get her once her dance was finished. I did go back and she came and watched the rest of the show with me and her father.

Here is our family shot after the show was finished. Makayla received flowers and a CD from Nana.

This is Makayla with her friend Tharen from her dance class. Tharen was born at 24 weeks as a twin, but his twin didn't make it. He is a great kid. His mother enrolled him in tap dancing to try to help his stability on his feet improve. He sure has come a long way from the beginning of the year.

We were already enjoying the campground by mid-May and here is Makayla doing one of her favourite things there - playing basketball. It's amazing how much she isn't nearly as scared of the ball as she was last summer. She was always a bit timid when she would try to get the ball in the net last year, but this year, she has no fear.

On June 4th, Makayla had her last day at preschool for this year. Here she is at the house before we left that morning.

Makayla went to preschool with 5 other children. The ones in black hats will be starting kindergarten in the fall while those in white hats will be going back to preschool in September. Here she is receiving her diploma.

Makayla had a very proud mother and 2 grandmothers to see her at the graduation.

Makayla's birthday is June 6th and originally I had told her that she could have a Nintendo DS when she turned 5, since that is how old her chum at the sitter's was when he got his. However, she has REALLY wanted one since last September and after she had proven to me this winter that she knew how to use one (she showed me how it worked!), I decided that she was able to handle one for her 4th birthday. Not to mention that when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she replied with "I would REALLY like to have a real DS." So here she is the morning of her birthday playing her "real DS". She was very excited to finally have her own.

Here is the river view from our trailer on the morning of Makayla's birthday.

And here is the birthday girl!

Makayla wanted a minigolf party at the campground, so we invited all of her preschool friends, her cousins and some other kids we know to come have a game. It was so much fun to watch the kids running around the minigolf course, which they had all to themselves since the party was at 11am. I have to say that this birthday party was by far the most relaxing and enjoyable one that I have planned for Makayla.

This is Makayla with all of her preschool buddies - Makayla, Emma, Hayden, Macy, Sabrina and Connor.

This is a picture of all of the kids who attended the party - Hayden, Jessi, Makayla, Emma, Sabrina, Macy, Gracie, Paige and Connor.

Here are the kids sitting on the hill behind our trailer.

This is the golf-themed cake that I ordered from Sobeys. Not your usual cake for a birthday party, but it seemed very appropriate.

This was Makayla's other favourite gift from her birthday - her scooter from Grammie.

Here is a picture of Makayla trying on Daddy's hard hat.

Just after Makayla's birthday, soccer started. She is playing with kids aged 3 and 4, although this is her first year playing soccer. She loved it the first practice, but I had a problem getting her to play the second week. She started crying and wouldn't go out on the field even if I came with her. I was at a loss about what to do. If she hadn't liked it so well the first night, I would have thought that maybe soccer just wasn't for her. During the week before the third practice, I tried to entice her with some rewards she would get IF she played, but if she didn't play, then we were going straight home. Once we got to the field, she was doing well before the coach arrived, then once the organized part started (as organized as you can get with 72 preschoolers and their parents crammed into 3 small soccer fields), she came back to me and wanted to go home. I knew that my rewards weren't working, so we marched back to the car, all the while I'm thinking "How am I going to handle this so that she will go play?" When I got her to the car I warned her that once we got home, she would be going into "time out". Well, she didn't like the sound of that at all. I told her that she had one more chance to get up to that field and play soccer. She ran all the way back and had a wonderful time playing the rest of the practice. And we haven't had a problem since. I think she was a bit intimidated by how physical soccer can be and she was nervous of her coach. Once she realized that her coach is a really nice guy and she just has to push right back when she's trying to get near the ball, this whole experience has become much more enjoyable.

This is another of Makayla's favourite activites - riding her bicycle. She isn't as nervous on her bike as she was last summer. We have taken some great bike rides on the trail right by our campground.

On her 4th birthday, Makayla was 42.5" tall and weighed 36 lbs.

She recently had her first sleepover with her cousin Gracie, which Daddy supervised since Mommy was out of town.

I asked Makayla if she wanted some strawberries, and her response to me was "I'm allergic to red food." When I reminded her that ketchup and licorice are red (2 of her favourites), she was confused as to how to resond. Now she will say that she is allergic to red food, but not to ketchup and licorice.

When I told her that her soccer team was called the Jays, she thought that I meant the letter J, so she figured her friend Josh's team must be the K's or the L's.

When she was showing her sitter how to play one of her DS games, she got frustrated when the sitter couldn't get it, so Makayla says "Oh, just let me do it!"

Her friend Josh got his hands dirty while they were playing outside, so he wiped them on the back of Makayla's shirt. She turned around and said to him "I'm not a wipe, you know!"

When asked to spell her dad's name, Makayla spells out CLAY. When asked to spell my name, she writes MOM.

She has started to try to sound out words. She nearly spelled Snoopy with very little help from me, just by sounding out the letters.

Makayla is extremely observant. I put up new curtains in the living room while she was at her sitter's and didn't tell her, and she noticed immediately, even before she got into the living room.

Makayla has been telling me that I am always right. I wonder how long that will last!

Winter update

This winter has been a long one. The weather is finally starting to improve, so hopefully it will be over soon. We have been enjoying ourselves this winter by doing some snowmobiling. Here is Makayla waiting patiently for Daddy to take her for a ride.
Makayla and her cousin Gracie had some pictures done in March. Grammie wanted to have some updated ones of the girls and I think they turned out very nicely.

I took Makayla to see the Doodlebops when they were in town. What a great show they put on. I have to say it was one of the better ones that I've taken Makayla to. It was a kids concert and there was no story to try and follow.

Here are Makayla and Hayden doing the "Bounce" out in the aisle. They had a blast.

Makayla has been asking for a Nintendo DS since last fall. I thought that she was far too young for one, so at Christmas, we picked up a Leapster for her in hopes that she would be satisfied. She was....for awhile. Now she has started asking for a DS again. I have watched her use other kids' DS's and she can get around one really well. She probably could handle one, but I just feel like I have to draw the line somewhere. She is our only child and I don't want to spoil her too much. One day when I picked her up at her sitter's, she was holding this blue piece of construction paper in the picture below. I asked her what it was and she showed me and told me it was her DS. As you can see the arrow pad and buttons are all drawn on there. Then she found the lovely purse in the playroom at her sitter's and asked if it could be her DS case. So now she amuses herself with this piece of paper and the purse. I'm not sure how long this will hold her off for, but I have a feeling she is going to be asking for a DS for her birthday coming up in June.

In the last week, Makayla has learned to snap her fingers and she can recite our telephone number. It amazes me how quickly she picks this stuff up. On the other hand, she calls popcorn - "corn pops" and she calls the cereal Corn Pops - "porn cops". No matter how many times I explain it, she still says it the same way. I think she likes the way I laugh at her every time.

The tap dancing costumes arrived this week so we got to bring it home. It is very cute. It is a black bodysuit with a green tutu. The other class of kids the same age have the same costume with a purple tutu. They start rehearsals in April to get the kids ready to dance on the stage for the show in May.

I took Makayla to her 3 1/2 year old screening this week. She did a wonderful job. She spoke with the nurse who was doing the testing and wasn't at all shy. She passed the eye test with flying colours. She could see every row on that letter chart. During the hearing test, there was one tone that she couldn't hear in her left ear. I have been a bit concerned lately about her hearing. But I wasn't convinced that this "hearing problem" wasn't just that she had selective hearing. The nurse told me not to be too concerned, that it was probably just a bit of fluid in her ear that would sort itself out. Their instrument to look in the ears was broken, so she couldn't be sure what the issue was. Makayla has her annual appointment with her doctor in June, so I will bring it up then.

We're looking at upgrading our travel trailer for this summer. We've been looking around and doing some price comparisons. There was a used one that we looked through and loved last summer, but we didn't love the price. When we were back in the market this year, I thought I would look up this RV place's website to see if they still had that unit, and they did. And for a much better price this year. They have discounted it by 33%. The price is much more in our comfortable range and if we still like it as well when we look at it next week, then we will probably try to hammer out a deal.