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.

January 2009

Makayla with my sister, her Aunt Christy.

Makayla is growing up so quickly. I just know she is going to be starting school before I know it. Makayla is fascinated with the way people pronounce words. She has corrected me several times on the way I pronounce "garage". I sometimes say it like "garadge" and Makayla will correct me by saying "Mommy, you said garadge, but it's garaaaage." One day when I told Makayla that Grammie was going to keep her for a Saturday, she was so excited because Grammie usually takes her to lunch. Grammie pronounces "lunch" by emphasizing the "ch" at the end. Makayla told me how Grammie pronounces lunch and also proceeded to tell Grammie when she was with her that Saturday. So funny!!

Makayla still hasn't picked which hand she wants to write with. She is equally comfortable using either hand and writes legibly with both. She will switch hands before you even know she has. She loves to write on her white board. She can spell and write out her name as well as some of her friends' names (Amber, Connor, Hayden). She spells CAT and DOG. She recognizes MOM and DAD. When I write them on the board, she knows that MOM is me and DAD is her dad.

She has been practising her math skills too. She can count by 2's all the way to 10. She is able to do some simple addition and subtraction.

She loves to play games. She got the Candyland game for Christmas and we played it all the time after that. I got Chutes and Ladders just to change things up a bit for me. She didn't quite understand how to get around the board the first time we played, but she was a pro by the second time. And just last weekend, we taught her to play the card game "Go Fish". She knows her letters and numbers so it wasn't too much of a stretch for her. We call the aces A's and the queens Q's, etc. She is a bit clumsy trying to hold the cards, but that will improve.

Makayla has a 3 1/2 year old screening that the Public Health department conducts scheduled for the end of February. There is a list of things that the kids are supposed to be able to do by this age so they will test them on those things, plus there are free eye and hearing exams. My neighbour and her son went this week and she wasn't overly impressed with the way they conducted the testing. I'm not too concerned about it and I am certain that Makayla will make it through the testing just fine.

Christmas season

Christmas was a blast this year. Makayla was so into it. She wrote her letter to Santa and was so excited to see his reply come in the mail for her. In her letter she asked for a Thomas the Train game and some cars. Once the letter was sent, she became a bit more specific in that she wanted a race car game. I wasn't entirely sure what she meant by this, but it was evident that it was important to her because that is what she told everybody when they asked what she wanted for Christmas.

The season started off with Makayla's dance class. Usually the parents are not allowed into the room to watch the kids, but we were allowed on the last class before Christmas. I thoroughly enjoyed watching them. I was impressed at how well Makayla follows the teachers. She is really interested in this class. I also took some videos of the dances and when I put them on our TV, Makayla will actually dance to them. We've struggled to get her to show us some of the things she's learned, so this was also a nice treat for us.
Later on in the week, her preschool class had their Christmas party. I wasn't aware that we were supposed to invite grandparents and such (I went alone). I just figured it would be kind of like the tap dancing thing and the parents were allowed in to see how the kids were doing. They got up on stage to perform the Christmas songs they had learned, and this is how they were positioned when they first got up on stage. Makayla has the 2 boys from the class glued to her sides. The teachers wanted to fill in the gap so they asked Hayden, the boy on the left to move into the middle. He said "No, I want to stand beside Makayla." Then they asked Connor, the boy in the middle to move down a bit. He also said no, that he wanted to stand beside Makayla. So from the audience, I ask Makayla to move down a bit.

And the boys stuck right with her. They performed their songs, or I should say, the teacher performed the songs while the kids stood and looked at her.

Here is Makayla having a snack with her best buds Connor and Hayden. Even the teachers told me that she is their little tomboy.

One of the highlights of our Christmas tradition is the trek out to the Christmas tree farm to cut down our tree. Unfortunately it was freezing cold this year so Makayla didn't want to stay out there long. We cut down the first nice tree we found. Clay made an attempt to look for another nice one, but with Makayla practically crying to get back in the truck, we decided to just stick with the first one. It turns out that this was a wise decision because the tree was absolutely the most beautiful one we've had in our 10 years of marriage.

Here is Makayla before she was completely frozen.

We cheat and use a chainsaw to cut our tree down.

Now we just had to load it on the truck.

On Christmas Eve, Makayla's sitter had a Christmas party for the kids. I was already off work but we did make a point to attend since I knew that she had invited Santa to come. Here are all the kids at the party.

I hesitated to take Makayla to the mall to sit on Santa's knee since I didn't think that would go very well. Once I knew that Santa was coming to this party, I decided to avoid the mall altogether. She was fine with sitting on his lap, but I really think it was because her pals Hayden and Josh jumped up on his lap without any trouble and she was going to follow suit.

The funniest part of her seeing Santa was when my mom asked Makayla if she'd seen Santa at the party. Makayla answered yes. Then Nana asked her whether Santa gave her anything. Makayla said yes. Nana asked her what he gave her. Makayla's response was "Not a race car game" which she said with a little pout. I reminded her that Santa was coming to our house that night and he may be planning to leave the race car game here.

Makayla being cute on the floor.

Makayla, Daddy and Snoopy on Christmas Eve.

Makayla and Mommy in front of the beautiful tree.

Makayla standing in front of the new electric fireplace. Cookies and chocolate milk (as Makayla requested for Santa) on the mantle.

On Christmas morning Makayla woke up to find that Santa did bring her a race car game (one of those tracks with the cars that go around using the remotes). She was ecstatic! She also loved her Leapster (which she began calling her DS) and her absolute favourite thing has to be the Candyland game my sister gave her. I can't even count how many times we've played that game since Christmas day.

We went to a pot luck party on Boxing Day for all of our close friends and their kids. It's an annual event and so much fun. This was the first year when I didn't really have to hover around the kids since Makayla was good to go on her own. The hosts' daughter is a few months younger than Makayla and totally into Polly Pockets, My Little Ponies, Littlest Pet Shop, etc. Makayla doesn't enjoy playing with these toys at all. Give Makayla a toy car and she's good to go. So the girls got out the Polly Pockets and such to play with. They handed one of the dolls to Makayla while they all played. Makayla held it for a second and then laid it down on the table and said "My girl is sleeping" and walked away. She spent most of the evening playing with the 5-year old son of one of our friends. They alternated between drawing on the Magnadoodle and playing the kids laptop.

We visited some of my extended family in Campbellton just before New Years. My grandparents still live there. My uncle and some of his family traveled from Ontario while those of us in the province drove up to see them. It is a 4-hour drive which I wasn't looking forward to but Makayla was a trooper and never complained during the whole drive up and back.

We spent New Years with our neighbours and had Chinese food. We were going to let the kids stay up until midnight, but Makayla fell asleep on the couch around 11. Our neighbours' son made it to midnight though. We had a great time.

Completed rec room

Our rec room was completed just shortly before Christmas. We are so happy with how it turned out. The two things we wanted for the room were an electric fireplace to warm it up a bit since it is in the basement, and a new TV. With the generosity of our parents who gave us money for Christmas, we were able to get both.

Such a long time since my last Makayla update

I guess I left off my last Makayla update post saying that we had gone to the Thomas the Train show. Here are some pictures from that show.
Here Makayla is with our neighbour's son Hayden at the Thomas show.

Makayla had 2 costumes to pick from this Halloween. I got her the Princess Fiona costume which she wore to her preschool Halloween party, but she chose to wear her Jojo the Clown costume when she was out trick or treating. Here she is with her friend Jessi.

We got home Halloween night and only got Makayla to bed around 10pm. By 4:30am she had woken up with the stomach flu. Here she is feeling very sick the next day. She is the best sick kid in the world since she never complains. Her dad could take some lessons from her!!

Since we missed out on our fall pictures that I intended to have done, we settled for some homemade Christmas pictures. This is one that I took to use on our Christmas cards.

At the last minute, I bought Makayla and me some tickets to go see the Franklin Christmas show. She was pretty excited to see it. She should be thrilled with the Doodlebops tickets that she is getting in her stocking this year.

She loves to colour and write her letters and numbers. She can now count as high as 50.

We wrote her letter to Santa last week so we could give it the letter carriers during the Santa Claus parade. I asked her what she wanted Santa to bring for her and she decided that she wanted a computer game and some cars. This girl is definitely not much into dolls. She has an advent calendar that she gets into every night before bed. She loves to find the chocolate that she is allowed to eat that night. She knows that when she gets to 24, that is the night that Santa will come.

She is hardly shy at all. Since the renovations have been going on, she understood that some people would be coming into the house. Well didn't she surprise me when the painter arrived on Saturday morning and I was in the shower, she went downstairs to chat with him. I would have thought that she would barricade herself in the bathroom with me, but that wasn't the case at all.

I think preschool and tap dancing have helped with her shyness. She is still loving both activities. They have learned their first dance for the tap show - "I'm a little teapot". They have been measured for their costumes, now we will have to wait and see what cute outfits they pick out for the kids. There are about 12 kids in her tap dancing class and she is one of about 5 that pay close attention to the teachers. Some of the other kids dance for a bit and then like to do their own thing. Some just stand there and watch. But Makayla is taking it all in.

I'm excited for Christmas this year since she is going to be so much fun to watch. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures.

Renovations in progress

We are right in the middle of more renovations. We had taken a break after the furnace was installed but we wanted to get some more stuff done before Christmas was upon us. We decided to hire a crackfiller/painter to do some minor wall repair and major painting, as well as a carpenter to put up some new drywall in the basement where the wallpaper refused to come off easily. We also picked out some new laminate flooring for the carpenter to install.

Here is our living room before. The walls were a light grey colour that was long overdue for a paint job.
Here is the living room after with it's warmer beige walls that match the dining room and kitchen.

This is the hallway with the light grey again.

Now with beige.

Here is the before picture of the foyer. You can't really tell because of the lighting in the picture but the top part is light grey while the bottom part under the chair rail is where I removed pink wallpaper.

Now the foyer is completely painted in beige.

Here is the basement family room. The brownish bottom part is wallpaper which was put right on after one coat of primer. It pulled off the sheetrock paper as I tried to remove it. No crackfiller would have been able to smooth that wall out properly.

You can see the job on the wallpaper removal that I did.

The is the family room with the new sheetrock installed and the carpet removed.

The flooring will be installed today and the painter should be able to get back in there by Tuesday.

We also had our bedroom painted. I guess I didn't take any before or after pictures of that but it looks very nice now.