Memorial Day Weekend 2014

It was a whirlwind weekend, Foronda style, with us hitting the road on Saturday for a family graduation party in Queeens, NYC.  Here's Bea with the mother of the graduate, Manang Celia:

 Katrine and 1-year old Lana were in town from LA for the event.  This branch of the family tree is very much worth a 3-hour drive!:

This is the first time I remember when Bea showed an interest in holding a baby, and a 1-year old at that! I can't believe how big MY baby looks here:

On Sunday we headed to Boston where we met Rachel and family at Franklin Park Zoo.  Neither the camera nor the photographer could keep up with the speed of these 6-year olds who raced around for 3+ hours together nearly nonstop.  One eye closed, both eyes closed, nose dripping, it's all good!

Forget the white tiger, anteater, giraffes, or lions.  They had an awesome playground!!!

Giddyup......cow?

Kitty cow?

Being with Rachel + blue ice cream + sunshine = perfect day:

Monkey see and monkey do:

On our way back to the car, we went into the bird house and Bea mustered up the courage to let a bird land on her:

Sunday night she transformed into "Africa girl" before bedtime.  Upside down goggles/bunny ears/princess shoes. Not sure where the "Africa" is in this getup, but she was very excited:

This morning the rain ended just in time for the local parade:

Beatrice made a laptop computer and an iPad out of paper and brought them along for the event:

She's helping Weezy "check her email:"

The green wristband, by the way, was from her field day at school last week and she hasn't had it off for more than a few hours ever since receiving it. (you can even see it in the NYC photos) Anthony calls her LeBron James.  She does dream of playing basketball some day, but I fear this accessory is the closest she'll ever get:

The forecasted heat finally arrived late afternoon, so we decided to visit the splash pad for its opening weekend.  The water was FREEZING but Bea had a blast running around:

Beatrice has weighed between 32-33 pounds for almost two years now.  The other night, out of the blue, we weighed her and the number shocked us...37.5!  I can really see this sturdier, stronger, taller, not-little-girl anymore-girl in these photos:

The countdown to summer is officially on.  Bea has 15 days of school, I have 21.  I think I can, I think I can.....

as Kindergarten nears its end....

I had fun at fun fest.  I likd the drt gam the bst.  Sam and I yt on the strobare rid.

After she was done, I wrote the word "went" on a piece of paper and asked her to read it which she did.  I asked her if she used this word in her writing, and she said yes.  She found it ("yt") and corrected it.  Apparently, she thinks vowels are overrated, but I was actually pretty impressed.

I had fun at FunFest. I liked the dart game the best.  Sam and I went on the strawberry ride.

Last week she wrote
 I like to et is crm on ym brthda. 
(I like to eat ice cream on my birthday.)

Her journal at school around Easter time:

Jesus did on the cos.
(Jesus died on the cross)


She got a bit of a trash mouth while writing birthday thank-yous:

Dear Sofe,

Fok uo for the gif and fok uo for komin to my barfd.

I've avoided talking much about Bea's academics in this blog for many reasons, and I'm not going to go too much into it now either, but I want to document where she's at because a)I'm so stinking proud of the progress she's made! and b) She's improving every day and I'm finally starting to believe she may not always spell "my" in reverse, and this confidence allows me to relax and enjoy this phase which, like all others I assume, will pass soon and then I'll miss it. Soon enough we won't be able to spell in front of her when we don't want her to know what we're saying, and won't be able to just drive by signs of places or events that she wants to go to.  Just today I was telling her how I thought she'd never pronounce the letters "s" or "f", and then one day each magically appeared.  She always does things in her own way, on her own time, but always does them.  I need to trust her more.  Trust in her more. This girl never ceases to amaze me.

Birthweek

Beatrice is now 6.0!  I still can't believe it.  Six years old.  Not a little girl anymore, but a school-aged child.  Just keep shaking my head in disbelief.  The celebration started last weekend when we had a "Mulan pool party" at Koinonia.  The pool was packed with classmates/friends:

Rowan was all smiles:

The 85- degree water was about the same as the air on this shockingly warm and humid day:

Bea's favorite school friend Samm came and they stuck together most of the afternoon:

Daddy enjoyed playing with the noodles:

After swimming, Bea changed into her Mulan dress:

The kids ran around after pizza,

and then we sang to the birthday girl in front of her dragon cake (which I very proudly made, and proudly reassembled the pieces from my car rug on the way to the place, but that's a whole other story...)

After that party, the Flotildes family came back to the house, along with some of my family members, and Bea & Jill had fun playing with some presents, especially these Mulan dolls:

Lolo and Lola were in town for almost a week and we had loads of fun.  The beautiful weather meant we visited the local ice cream place for the first time of the season on Mother's Day:

 On her actual birthday she wanted Chinese buffet and Froyo World.  Quite the combo, but we survived.

Here's a photo showing how she felt about saying goodbye to 5:

But once 6 actually arrived she was all smiles about it!

Up a Tree #6

The magnolia's in bloom so it was time for our annual photo:

I swear the sun was out all day up to this point and immediately after we returned inside.  Sigh....

This was the first year she threatened to eat the flowers,

and the first year I was able to put her up on a branch and leave her there unaided:

I imagine next year there'll be at least a couple adult teeth in that mouth.  Where is the time going?

and here's the scariest thing I've seen in a long time...

I know, blink my eyes and we'll be signing up for Driver's Ed!

SJS Talent Show

Star Spangled Banner, by a small group of grades K and 1: