another bday celebration, Life Lab, Happy Hollow, phew!

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life lab work day
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Last Saturday, Dylan, Chloe, and I started our morning with a work session at the school’s life lab. Cameron couldn’t make it because, quite simply, she was just too grumpy to start her day that early!!


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getting mulch
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We weeded and Dylan covered over the area with mulch. He worked hard!


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Chloe with garden tool
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Life Lab had a nice Chloe-friendly “pitchfork,” but Chloe wasn’t quite certain what to do with it.


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happy hollow
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

After we were done, we reconvened with the rest of the fam and then headed over to SJ for an afternoon at Happy Hollow and an evening with the family!


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carousel
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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granny bugs
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

It is clear that Dylan has outgrown the rides here, but he rode Granny Bugs with the girls. Incidentally, this was Chloe’s first time on these rides!!


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happy camper
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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our big guy
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Clearly, we waited too long to take Dylan back!! He looked so bored on this ride! Time flies so quickly.


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Chloe!
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Chloe liked it, though!


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Dylan rode a big trike around a track…
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

and I did, too, with Chloe right behind me. I thought it was pretty fun! I couldn’t see her, but I was happy to see (in the picture) that she thought it was fun, too!


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and here’s Dylan!
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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he looks so grown up
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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Cameron on Frog Hopper
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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at the play structure
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Next up, was the playground there.


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on a log
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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jumpin’
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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dylan looking like a pretty big kid
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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cameron
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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chloe with Tom
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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another action shot
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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head-on
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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curiouser
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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bday candles
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

After Happy Hollow, we met the family at Bucca di Beppo for dinner. We hadn’t acutally celebrated Chloe’s bday with them, so suddenly, it was a bday dinner for the little gal. The Bucca di Beppo servers sang and brought those big ol’ candles.


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got some help!
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

It ended up being a very late night! But it was good because we think the kids slept soundly and we needed them to wake up early for the She.is.Beautiful run the next morning! As always, it was great to see family. They are very at-home at Lola’s house. They actually got worried that we weren’t going there when we headed for the restaurant first!

Once there, they ran around as if they owned the place!


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blueberries are coming!

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blueberry picking
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We are excited to see that our blueberry bushes (purchased last year) are bearing fruit!! Cameron and I first discovered them this morning. She wanted to go check (for some reason) right before we left for ballet.

She was kind enough to just pick one of the very few ripe ones and she happily left the rest to pick with Dylan and Chloe later.

I knew there wouldn’t be enough to satisfy everyone’s appetites for “bloobs,” so I shelled out a whopping $16 for 4 pints of the stuff…!

After work and school-pick-up, we all went outside to pick the remaining ripe ones. Chloe LOVES “bloobs.” It was tough to pull her away from the bushes (the one she has in her hand could have used more time!) and we could only get her away by enticing her with our big ol’ strainer filled with store-bought blueberries!!

Hopefully, our little bushes will produce more than once! I’m super happy that more interesting fruit is already beginning to appear in the stores, though! The kids definitely see fruit as a treat…and it’s a much better after-school snack than crackers or cookies, etc. And they’re always ready to snack on something when I pick them up!


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cameron with her bucket
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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the joy of having bloobs
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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it was also pajama day
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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biking – 3/16

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biking with Dylan
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Cameron had been wanting to go to Blue Ball park for a few days…I guess she and Jada had been talking about how Jada was going to go there, so she apparently told Jada we would go, too. Well, the days didn’t sync up, but since she’d been talking about it, we decided we’d go anyway. It was a beautiful Sunday, so why not??

Dylan hasn’t really biked on anything other than asphalt (mostly, if not exclusively, at the school), so I thought it might be fun for him to try some different terrain, plus the field up above the park playground had a nice loooong path surrounding it which I thought would make for a nice fun loop.

Dylan was initially very unhappy about riding in the gravel, saying his bike wouldn’t go fast enough through it and he needed a gear bike and on and on. But, after a couple of miles of biking it, he started having a blast! In the end, we had a great time. It was fun for me to be back on my bike and it was fun for him to feel like he “mastered” gravel and “grass.” He’s now eager to try out more trails!

Tom couldn’t ride his bike because it’s currently on the bike trainer in the garage, plus we don’t really have a great solution for taking Chloe on a bike with us (her seat is still on the Yuba and we still don’t have a bike rack that can accommodate it), so he stayed with the girls down at the playground where Chloe was apparently a stellar (and fearless) climber!

On our loops, Dylan and I would stop at the top of the playground and look for them. Once we’d satisified our curiosity (we saw them on the rocking thingies and on the swings), we’d race off to do another loop.

It was such a fun day…looking forward to having all of us be able to ride together (Cameron is an expert on the balance bike but has been reluctant to do the 2-wheeler and Chloe is already claiming the 2-wheeler as her own!).


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school day sweetness – 3/19

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big hugs
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Chloe gets a big hug from Dylan!


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backyard time – 3/15

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backyard
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Sometimes it’s just nice to hang out in the backyard when the weather is good. Chloe is agile enough on the path…and the big kids are good about watching out for her safety, that I can usually get some weeding done while they go about their play. And, they love watering stuff, so they help out, too!

So, this time, Chloe got some post-it notes stuck to her back, courtesy of Dylan, but she also got bubbles, courtesy of Cameron!

The kids also harvested some of our mandarins. I find them too sour, but they don’t seem to mind! The tree has lots of fruit, so it’s good that it’s not going to waste…!


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bubbles with cameron
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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more bubbles
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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chloe on the path
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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budding ballerina
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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beach friday – 3/18

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beach friday
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Beautiful days are perfect for the beach. The kids love to just hang out and Jenny and I (and usually Claire, too) are free to chat. This time, we had some bubbles from a bday party goody bag which got Kaden and Cameron playing amiably together….


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bubbly fun
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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bubbles
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Cameron was remarkably good about sharing. When Kaden’s buddy from pre-school joined the group and they ran off for the rocks with the bubbles, she made no complaints! And, she took it completely in stride when she discovered that all the popcorn snacks were eaten and Chloe had eaten both mandarin oranges! She is really growing up.


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little chloe
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

And here’s little Chloe looking a bit concerned, although I’m not sure of what! She mostly sat around with me eating popcorn and mandarins, but nobody gave her any trouble. She is a lucky little girl. All the bigger kids are so nice to her and are always willing to share and give her extra turns with toys!


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Dylan’s latest report card

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field trip day
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We ended the week with Dylan’s final field trip (for the year?) — a local production of “The Frog Prince” at the Mello Center in Watsonville. I volunteered at the school that morning, so apparently I earned some special treatment (my group — just Dylan and Maya! — and I were excused from the class first)! I would say that I was also spared a large group of kids and any unruly ones as well! Phew!

After the performance, we went to Blue Ball Park for lunch and play time. It just so happened that another local school had the exact same field trip, so Dylan saw his pen pal, Kai and we saw Jenny’s daughter Julie!

We also got Dylan’s report card. He did very well and we are so proud of his hard work. It has been really enlightening to volunteer in the classroom. For all that we perceive Dylan’s attention span as waning or his progress as sometimes slower than seems “reasonable” when we’re working on homework with him, I am able to gain some perspective when I see where he “stands” relative to his classmates.

The range of abilities is wide, but even knowing the low and high ends reassures me on his overall progress.

Is he at the top of the class? Nah. And that is fine. I still would rather he be kind and cooperative than be #1 and competitive; interested for the sake of learning and not just learning for the sake of a grade. For the record, he got 2 S’s, one for handwriting and the other for math facts; everything else was an “E”(on a system of N-needs improvement; S-satisfactory; and E-excellent).

Other school-related news? His classmate (Helena) has a crush on Dylan (what else is new? Maya does, too (his best buddy). And so does Olivia (according to Olivia’s mom). And, my guess is that the source of the news (Cienna) does, too, but that’s just a guess…! And, I’m not about to tell Dylan any of this!).

I asked Dylan how he felt about it. His response: “awwwwkward”. They all seem so young for all of this business so I hope it doesn’t become some silly distraction and, more, I hope Dylan doesn’t let it get to his head!


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Cameron – Swan Lake

Here’s Cameron’s video from last Friday’s IAD dance class. This was the first time they danced without their dots (the markers on the floor that each girl usually stands on). One of the other parents (and another teacher) was quite impressed with Cameron’s ability to follow instructions and the teacher’s lead. She’s really developing into such an amazing gal.

Now that we have mentioned the possibility of dual immersion, she’s been practicing her Spanish! At bedtime story time, she has been picking up counting books and practicing her Spanish numbers. She can’t immediately come up with, say, “cinco” for 5 if she is presented with the number out of sequence–in other words, she has to count up from 1–but it is so awesome that she is really interested in working on it!

She is also interested in reading on her own — she gets irritated if I read the cvc (consonant-vowel-consonant) words she already knows, and she is wanting to sound out more and more new words every night.

She has also developed a pretty strong sense of fairness and thoughtfulness; if she gets a treat, she’ll pick one up for Dylan and does not eat or take more than what Dylan will get (even though Dylan would never know how much she’s had); if Dylan points out that something is not fair, she says, “k” without any sort of anger or bitterness and just does whatever corrective action is required. Very, very proud of the person she is!

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part-ay

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cameron and mattias
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

It is apparently birthday season at the preschool! Last week was Jada’s birthday, this week was CJ’s (and next week will be Ben and Sarah’s). We were quite late for CJ’s party since Cameron had ballet class beforehand. This was her last class of this session and she liked it enough that we’ve registered her for the next one!

But, anyway, back to the party. We got there for the last hour of it. All of the kids had fun jumping in the bounce house and playing in CJ’s playroom. I enjoyed the view–the house was at the top of a hill near the Chaminade, with few neighbors and unobstructed views of the surrounding trees and valleys! Beautiful.

Lots of school buddies were there, of course, so Cameron had a blast. Mattias happens to be one of her better buds. So, at cake time, they sat together.


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cake tooth
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

I love Cameron’s joyous smile. And, Mattias is quite a ham! Mattias, Cameron, Jada, Owen, and Margot are apparently quite a group. And they are all very bright. Mattias, like Cameron, has already begun to read!


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with margot and charlotte
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

On the other side of Cameron, are Margot (Cameron’s age) and her little sister Charlotte (Chloe’s age). It was so cute to see Chloe and Charlotte together. Chloe actually talks about Charlotte just about every day. Both girls are extremely verbal and on the smaller side which probably is partly why they get along so well!


Bday party goofiness with Mattias
more choco teeth
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

I’m glad we could catch at least some of the party. Love seeing the kids having fun and we really do like all those parents, too!


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Bday party goofiness with Mattias

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