Where a kid can be a kid...

Grandma took me to Chuck E. Cheese. I had to show her how to play all the games. The penguin game (seen here), the bowling game, the monkey game, and the water game. This is where you can win an ice cream or cotton candy. When I went with Mommy I won some dinosaur money!
Look at all my tickets! Sometimes I use them to get special prizes for Zachy too.

I won an ice cream and didn't have to share with Grandma. We had lots of fun because it's fun there!

Love, Elena

New Swimming Lessons

Elena took public swim lessons with Molly at the pool in Bothell.She practiced front and back floats, side breathing, diving, and the backstroke. After a little bit of hesitation, her favorite swim lesson activity became donning a life jacket and going to the deep end for jumps off the diving platforms.
The kid loves jumps though and has fun even when they are in the shallower area of the pool. Elena finished her swim session and passed level P-3. She isn't signed up for another session though, she's going back to lessons with Teacher Patty.

Buca Di Beppo!

Nana and PopPop came to visit and we went out to dinner at Buca Di Beppo. Elena had crunchies, bread, and hot fudge sundae for dessert! Ah, heaven! Zachy got his first taste of ice cream and chocolate too. Elena was willing to share since it was GIGANTIC, and they both really enjoyed it. Delicious!
Who won the game of tic-tac-toe? Probably Elena.

Country Village, Bothell

At least this year they didn't swarm us at the car... We were too early to see any babies, good thing we saved some bread for next time. Elena emptied her bag of bread pieces in 5 minutes. Take pictures fast, Mom!
She still loves riding the playground horses. There is a new pirate ship play structure so she had fun pretending Tinkerbell and Peter Pan were there.

Then we went to the tea shop for some hot cocoa. And to admire their tea and pastry selection. Note to self: take Grandma!

Easter 2009

Hippity hop, here comes the Easter Bunny! This year the Easter Bunny filled the eggs with... necklaces? Actually, Elena practiced being the Easter Bunny and filled some eggs with necklaces and candy. The Easter Bunny was too lazy to empty those out, but he did hide them! And lots of other eggs too! The eggs were filled with candy, dinosaurs, itty bitty ponies, and stickers.
Elena's Easter basket filled up fast, so she used her bike basket to collect eggs in. When that filled up, she used the shopping cart. Soooo many eggs! But boy were they fun to find and open!

The Easter Bunny brought Nana and PopPop too! Those must have been some giant eggs...

Hoppy Easter!

Rehabbing Rainey!

Auntie and Elena took Rainey to Mega-Dogs in Woodinville on several occasions to try and get her to use her leg after her crazy tendon-slicing-in-a-splint-for-almost-four-weeks injury by making her use it in the water first. (Check out a healthy Rainey competing in agility at Mega-Dogs June 17, June 24 and July 1, if you're in the area.)

Elena became an old hand at removing the cover from the pool. By the last trip she was yelling out instructions while Auntie did all the work!

Well, she helped at the beginning of the swim time so she could get in the pool faster and then oversaw the closing of the pool. I see management in the making!

So, who is getting the most swimming practice out of this session? Rainey or Elena? (Luckily it turned out to be Rainey and she is fully recovered from her freak injury.) But, Elena got a special shower each time Rainey swam by.

At the end of each session Rainey was given her freedom (to rest) and Elena had free reign to practice some of her best moves!

Planting time!

Elena started her own garden! She planted carrot seeds and various flower seeds.
We are all very excited to see what comes of her seeds. Especially since she isn't remembering to water them...

Elena helped Auntie Terry get the tomoatoes seedlings ready for the plant sale. She helped separate the plants and put them in individual pots. It was also fun to plant rocks!

Different ways to drive

Elena loves driving! She loves the driving and winning at the Wii game, Mario Kart, and will race with anyone who will join her or by herself. Her knowledge of racing is evident in the real world now too. She sits in the back seat telling the driver what place they are in and that they should drive faster and pass x-amount of cars to be first. Hopefully she'll understand that the real road isn't a race by the time she's 16... Now that it's spring, Elena will have more opportunities to drive her bicycle around the neighborhood. Even when she falls down, she climbs back on and is ready to continue. It's fun! Maybe she'll be on 2 wheels by the end of the summer.

Star Bag

On March 24th Elena brought the star bag home from school. She was very excited to go outside and see what was in the sky - stars? the moon? maybe a satellite? After bundling up (it was cold), she put on the binoculars and headed outside to look at the sky. Not much to see, just gray clouds. It wasn't late/dark enough and the sky was overcast. We kept the star bag an extra day and went out at a later time the following night. It was dark enough to see all sorts of stars and a couple of airplanes.
Elena's favorite part of the star bag experience was writing in the journal and drawing a picture of her observations. She got to share her entries during circle time in class.