McGruff Takes a BITE out of PLA :)

Last week McGruff the Crime Dog came to Ella's school, Premier Learning Academy (PLA) for safety day! They have a great program with lots of different options for how parents can safeguard their children.



He visited the preschool class for high fives, hugs, and a group photo! :) The preschool kids were great with McGruff.




Here is the pre-K/Kindergarten class excited to see McGruff walk in.



Surprisingly the pre-K/Kindergarten boys were the toughest on him. Trying to punch him in the nose and accusing him of not being real and just a costume, LOL.



The teachers and the staff were very patient as they asked the boys to be nice. The kids got hugs and high fives from McGruff also.



And another group photo with the Pre-K/Kindergarten class:



Later the kids watched safety videos and some of them got fingerprinted for child cards with their photo.



Overall it was a great visit!

School Picture Time!

Here it is... the official 2010/2011 year school photo:



...sigh... she is getting so big. :)

My Picasso

The other day I happened to be spying on Ella in class and saw Ms. Debby hold up her artwork and say "See Class. This is how it should look, like Ella's. It should look pretty so that people want to look at it, not all scribbled and messy." My little baby got a gold star and a lollipop too. Not bad for the only 3 yrd old in pre-K. :)

She asks for papers and markers everyday and creates masterpieces. It really is quite amazing. My Nana was an artist as is my twin sister, Aunt Lori. So I bet she gets it there. We have this huge pink container filled with all her artwork and drawings cause I cant seem to bring myself to throw any of them away.



But seriously? I can not be expected to keep all these, or else my house will look like a bad episode of hoarders before too long. ha ha. I have decided maybe I can transfer some of her drawings digitally and make it easy to share them with friends and family too? So here goes... Let me know what you think of this idea!



She also sometimes gives her drawings names like an artist would. It is hilarious. Here are a few she named along with their respective "titles".

Girl walking her dog


Big Kitty and Little Kitty


Zoo Lion


Two Animals at the Zoo


Girl with Raindrops Falling on Her Dress


She has been drawing people for a while now, but now knows to draw adults bigger than kids and kids bigger than babies etc. As you can see from above she has recently shocked me by moving on to drawing dogs, cats, lions, etc.She draws long hair on girls, short or no hair on boys. She even draws eyelashes and lipstick sometimes on the girls.



This one above is her literal interpretation of Rock-A-Bye-Baby (when the bow breaks and the cradle and baby fall). Cool huh?



I can't wait to see what she comes up with next. Oh and Ryen has been getting into drawing lately too. Always wants to be like big sis. Here are a few of her "masterpieces" ha ha:

2010 First Day of School and NEW SCHOOL

We had to switch Ella's school for this year cause the school she was at different offer longer than two hours a day. With Ella going to Kindergarten next year, I just thought it would be too hard on her to have her continue to go to school only 2 hours a day 2 or 3 days a week to 6 hours a day Monday- Friday next year. I felt like I wanted something in between that could be a transition to better prepare her for the longer days in Kindergarten.

Enter PLA (Premier Leaning Academy) in Chandler. I know FOUR Moms besides me who enrolled their children there, and ALL so far have told me they LOVE it. Two of the Moms just had their kids graduate and head off to Kindergarten this year. The other two Moms still have their kids in there (now classmates of Ella's). So with a good reputation, great pricing, very experienced teachers, great curriculum and nice facilities, we decided to go for it. You can learn more about them here.

Today was Ella's first day of her LAST year of Pre-K!! OMG! She was very excited to go out shopping yesterday with Daddy for her back to school outfit. He let her pick out ALL of it, down to the shoes! She was so excited to show me her outfit, and was telling me "cover your eyes" Mommy while she got it all laid out before me. How cute. Here she is all ready for school:



Daddy and Ryen came to see her off too!



It was a family affair:



She was quick to choose a cubby and shove in her new bag:



And she posed next to this cute sign...




...right before erasing the entire thing with her hand so she could write on it!!!! UGH! LOL

And poor Bunny... My Ryen stood outside defiant and refusing to leave. Screaming and crying "No I play with Ella!!" I felt so bad. So I gave her a lollipop at 9:15am and she forgot all about her big Sister... ha ha!



And I started a tradition of taking the same photos every year when it comes to the first day of school. So I can look back over the years and see how she changes each year. A simple photo of her walking towards school with her backpack on her back...



And this photo is the one that shocked me most of all tonight. The one from the front. I look at that photo of Ella from this time last year and she looks SO little. She still has some baby fat in her cheeks and knees and she looks so short and so young. And then I look at her today and think holy cow, where did my baby go? In just one year she goes from that to that????? I guess I didn't think it was gonna shock me as much to see it side by side. :'( (sniff sniff)

Ella's end of School Recital and a Q&A

Ella's last day of school at the end of May was marked by yet another recital. These are always hilarious and I just love listening to them scream... oops I mean sing. But for some reason this recital the kids weren't their usual selves. They would barely sing and the teachers kept making them start the song over and perform "better" for all the parents who were "so excited to hear them sing." It didn't really work. But A for effort. LOL.

This time they were wearing safari jackets made out of paperbags and carrying crafted binoculars. This came in handy for their "Lion sleeps tonight performance."





And Ryen always loves Ella's recitals too cause she gets to eat yummy cupcakes and goodies that all the parents bring to celebrate.



Since Ella will be switching to a new school when the kids go back on July 26th, we made sure to get a photo of her and her teacher Miss Priscilla. :)



And it seemed only fitting at the end of the school year to finish something I have wanted to do with Ella for a long time. We got this from her friend Kassidy's family blog and I thought it was so cute. I was so curious to see what her answers were, and here they are! This was so much fun and so cute! I recommend it. It will be fun to look back later on and see how her answers change. :)

Favorite Color: Purple

Favorite Number: 17

Favorite Drink: Lemonade

Favorite Food: Cake

Favorite Game: Tic Tac Toe

Favorite Animal: Pandas

Favorite TV Show: Hannah Montana

I feel sad when: When someone takes a toy away from me without asking

I feel mad when: A friend hits me

I like it when my friends: Play with me

I like it when my teacher: Lets me outside for recess

I like it when I: bake cookies with Rachel

I am good at: games

I wish I could: play with everyone in the world

Who is your best friend? Rachel (from next door) & Hannah Montana

What makes you laugh? when someone tickles me

What is your favorite movie? Toy Story 3

What are you most afraid of? being in the dark like a cave

What is your favorite song? Bah Bah Black Sheep

What makes you really angry? Someone takes a book I am reading

What is your favorite activity? Play Princess in a castle

What do you want to be when you grow up? An ice skater

Do you think it would be hard to be a mom Yes

Why? Because I don't know what I am doing

If you could have a magical power, what would you choose? Make rainbows

What three things are you are good at? Games, Swimming, Dancing

What is the best thing about being three? Eating food and then drinking milk and then putting them in the fridge

I am special because: I have a lot of friends

Ice Skating Week 4 and 5!

Ice skating in week 4 was not great at all. Ella was saying I want to go home or I want to get off the ice the entire time. Her problem is she wants to have fun and enjoy skating and the teacher was having her walk back and forth on the ice for 30 minutes picking things up off the ice and carrying them across the rink to a bucket. 30 minutes of just that over and over bored me too.

So I told her teacher Ella really needs to have some fun during the lesson in order to hold her attention. It cant all be drills. Take her for a spin on the ice or let her practice actual skating instead of just drills. She is 3! Hello??? Her response was if she is bored why isn't she telling me that? I am like... Hello???? She is 3!!! She probably doesn't even realize she is bored. She just knows this is NOT fun and her first EVER ice skating class should be FUN! SO that she wants to do more and more of it. Anyhow here are the photos from week 4!


Week 5 was much better. I promised Ella whether the teacher wanted to or not, we were gonna have some fun during this lesson. And we did! I took her all around the ice, showed her how to spin around, took her for rides. Every 5-10 minutes when she started getting bored I gave her some fun time on the ice. It worked like magic. She was focused and ready to play some more. She was for the first time willing to skate without me as long as I was making a game out of it. I had her race me and let her win every time. I also told the teacher she was ready to move on to new things. This throwing things across the ice and picking them up and putting them in buckets was getting old and she was too good at it to keep wasting time. So we got to try some new skills. I would be lying if I didn't say that it does annoy me that this women doesn't seem to know how to teach 3 yr olds or keep them engaged or make a class fun for them. I want Ella to enjoy Ice Skating and want to keep going but am worried this woman is going to mess it up. Ahh well. We will see what happens. Here is the photos from week 5. Not too many! PS I also told her she could wear a tutu over her sweat pants today so that she could look like one of the older skater girls but still have protection on her legs if she falls. She got lots of compliments. :)


Only three more weeks of classes left. Then we will see if she wants to continue skating or try something new.

Ella's end of Winter Recital!

So Ella's school has 4 sessions year round (spring summer fall winter). At the end of each session they hold a musical recital and the kids perform for parents and siblings. It is really cute and each one has a different theme. Well Winter session officially ended today so my beauty and her classmates all dressed in their tie dye shirts that they made with their teachers last week, and took to the stage for some songs. Ella is always back row cause she is so tall and my camera sucks from a distance. But here are a few we snapped of her being announced on the way in and sitting down and then the rest is video. There is a video montage of the performance below and you can see Ella singing her little heart out. After every song she looked for me and her face lit up when she saw me and she would wave like crazy. Everyone celebrated with some sweets afterwards! It was too cute...







This video is about 6.5 minutes long but SO cute! I just love little kids singing and dancing. Ella is HILARIOUS in this video. She just loves singing, and she always knows all the words. Parents are always commenting to me "your daughter knows all the words."