This Was My Best Graduation EVER!

Today, my baby girl, my Kindergartener, graduated and is now a 1st Grader!!

We had a surprise Graduation Party for her, complete with cap & gown and Pomp & Circumstance playing in the background. 

I had my DH take her to the park this morning.  I baked a cake, made some ice cream, wrapped her graduation gift, and got her cap & gown out on her bed.  I even made her a graduation certificate!

My daughter called me to let me know they were coming home. I waited in her room for her with the door closed.  When she opened her bedroom door, her initial look was “Huh?  What are you DOING Mom!” LOL  But when I explained what was going on, she was so thrilled.

Over and over today, she repeated “This was my best graduation EVER!” as if she has had so many before this. LOL   She wore her graduation cap & gown for quite a while today, taking it off only to eat or go in the pool.  She even asked me tonight if she could sleep in the gown. 

I think she was pretty pleased with the day.

On another note, I’m working on setting up our homeschool blog where I will post all about our homeschool days.  I’ll keep this blog for all other Princess-related things.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your weekend.

Another few months have flown by…..

I had good intentions of keeping up this blog but got sidetracked.  We’ve been so busy with homeschooling and enjoying our pool that this has just gotten pushed to the back burner.

Trying on her new Princess and the Frog bathing suit

I’ve decided to start a new blog to chronicle the homeschooling journey we are on.  This blog will continue to be about The Princess but will have limited posts about homeschooling and just focus on her every day antics.

I’ll post a link to the new blog when I have it setup and ready to go.

For now, we are just finishing up our kindergarten year.  Yes, we are homeschooling during the summer.  It is hot here, and not much to do outside besides go to the beach or swim in our pool, so we have continued Kindergarten into the summer months.  I hope to finish up by the end of this month.  Then we will take off a few weeks to give us a short break and give me time to finish getting everything ready for 1st Grade and then we will be back at it.

Hope you are all enjoying your summers!

Turtle & Bread In The Same Sentence?

Sounds weird, right?  But that is what we did today. Make Turtle Bread. 
We are studying a unit on Turtles in Kindergarten. For those of you who don’t know, I homeschool E.  It’s been a challenge, but one we continue to work at. 
Anyway, just as we were finishing up our unit, I saw instructions on how to make a turtle-shaped loaf of bread.  I had been looking for SOMETHING to make shaped like a turtle and *snap* there it was! Perfect.
Today was Turtle Breadmaking day.  I just make a quick recipe of white bread from my breadmaker (which is broke at the moment but that is another story) recipe book

and then set it to rise on the counter.  E kept running to check to see if it had “rised” yet. LOL
The fun part was next.  E got to “punch down” the dough.  Then we broke it up into the following pieces and put it together on a greased cookie sheet.
Shell – one 6” ball of dough
Head – one 3” ball of dough
Legs – four 2” balls of dough
Tail – one wedge of dough

We didn’t have raisins to use for the eyes, so E suggested we use chocolate chips.  Yummy.  Great idea E!
*forgot to mention the eggwash - 1 egg mixed with 1 tbsp water *
Let it rise again for 30 minutes, than into a 375 degree oven for about 25 minutes.
Turned out GREAT and tasted GREAT too!

Not sure if there will be any left when my husband gets home!
Sharon

It's Been A While.....

We've had a busy summer and now it's over (although not pool time...it's still warm enough to swim for a few more weeks).

E had a couple of first in the last few months:

1. She started swimming w/o any swim aids (vest, ring, water wings).  She is quite the fish now and LOVES to swim.  I may need to get her on a swim team.
   
2. She has started reading.  She has a few Step 1 (K-1) books and she is reading them fairly easily.  She is so proud of herself and stops just about every sentence to say "Mom, look, I'm READING!" 
   
3. She is OUT OF PULL-UPS!  This is the one that makes me the happiest.  She has stayed dry at night for all but one night the last two weeks.  I do wake her up before I go to bed to have her go potty but she is doing great and I am so proud of her!

We've started Kindergarten at home and we both LOVE it.  We took our first field trip last Friday.  We went to the St. Pete Pier, which has an aquarium on the 2nd floor.

We took the bus there...what long trip it is.  Then we had to walk about 15 minutes from the bus down to the Pier. We walked through a little park and saw a great fountain and some beautiful flowers.

It started to rain and we got drenched.  E was worried about her dress getting all wet but I just kept telling her it's only water and it will dry.

First stop was an ice cream at a little food court while we dried off.

Then it was up to the aquarium to check out the fishies and other sea creatures.   Some were beautiful...and some were just plain strange looking. LOL

I have so many other pictures but they were all taken with my cell phone and the quality is just not good.

On the way out, we stopped at the gift shop and bought a few things to remind us of our trip....a story about a flounder, a sticker book with some aquarium fish, a coloring book and crayons (mostly for the bus trip home) and a coin purse with the Aquarium logo on it.

Next, was a trip up to the 5th floor.  There is an observation deck with awesome veiws of the city skyline and Tampa Bay. 

Last stop was the restaurant also on the 5th floor for a quick dinner before heading back home. 

Turns out there is a trolley that runs from the Pier up to 1/2 a block from the bus stop so we were able to catch that...and only costs .25! 

E had a great time!  We will definitely go back another time.  She loved the clownfish and the fish that looks like Dori from Finding Nemo...and the little sting rays.

Now you are all caught up.  As usual, thanks for stopping by.


N