Fall Fun For Karina

Breakfast time before school watching Curious George

For Karina...and all of us...school has been a big transition. Karina seems to be doing very well and is adorable when she tells people that her teacher's name is Miss Lime (it's actually Mrs. Klein.) She also talks about one girl from her class named Mackenzie who she calls Miss Kenzie and gets quite upset with me when I correct her. Karina certainly inherited stubborness...with two stubborn parents I suppose it would have been strange if she had not!

But back to Karina's school, she still has a hard time looking forward to "childcare" days when she stays for lunch and gets to play with the other children all afternoon. When Tom picks her up she always seems to be having fun, but will tell us that she missed us too much. We had scheduled her for two childcare afternoons, but I think we may have to cut back to one a week, until she's not voicing such displeasure! She begins asking "Am I going to childcare today?" the first thing when she wakes up in the morning and has been known to cry in the car and tells us that she cries at school sometimes. This just doesn't seem right for a three-year old to be crying to stay home from "playing!"

Showing off her cute outfit for school

But the adjustment has certainly been for all of us. I've received many more notes from the teacher than Karina. I made the grievous errors of sending peanut butter (No peanut products!) and grapes (also a no-no) and let Karina wear clogs to school (horrors!) Lately I've been doing better but unfortunately Karina won't eat anything I'm allowed to send for lunch! I'll have to work on that!

Airplane Karina!

When she's not at school, Karina still has a lot of fun with a lot of different activities. She loves to play with other adults most of all and was able to really have a great time when my cousin Andrea stayed with us before Quentin and Lisa's wedding. Although Karina and I had done the "flying on Mommy's feet" game before, Andrea taught her how to do it without holding onto anyone's hands!

"Look Mom! No hands!"

Karina with her saxoflute

Karina also continues to be very musical and enjoys playing her saxoflute and the synthesizer piano as well as banging on, or shaking anything that makes a loud sound, but probably the most sweet of all is when she sings songs for us! She is learning new songs at school in English, Spanish and French! I couldn't understand the one in Spanish, but some Spanish-speakers we know recognized the song right away...something about "tortillitas para Mama, tortillitas para Papa" and she does motions along with the music, too! Super cute!

Of course, Karina still loves to play with "her Tommy" and although she is still more rough with him than I like, for the most part he doesn't seem to mind and in fact watches her every move!

Showing Tommy the balloon


Laying around with Tommy, singing and playing on the iPhone

Karina has shown real proficiency at using the laptop and lately she's really gotten into playing "games" (they're all educationally based) on the iPhone. It's really cool, she can be drilled on numbers, letters, phonetics and shapes. One her favorite ones has dozens of puzzles in which she drags the pieces into the correct spots.

What a cute butt!

I just had to include this photo with her adorable bottom hanging out of her dress. Outwardly, I was laughing while at the same time I was terrified I'd loose parental rights if the UPS driver happened to come to the door right then!

Karina has been enjoying the fall weather and one day she was "a really big helper!" according to Daddy when they worked together to fertilize the trees and bushes in our yard.

Karina and Daddy

Loading the pellet into the fertilizer device

What a team!

So overall we've been having a nice fall, and on a personal note...my hair has finally stopped falling out in handfuls! Now it's only noticeable that I'm still loosing a fair amount of hair when I wash it! I'm just thankful that Karina and Tommy are no longer constantly covered in my hair!

Tommy and Karina