Wednesday - Inside Out Day !!!

Today, Wednesday was Inside Out Day and although you can't really see that everything she is wearing is inside out, it really is, including the hat !!!





Jade is really having fun with all this but the funny thing is that when I picked her up from school a few minutes her teacher said to me that she knew I couldn't wait for this week to be over with (hehehe), they know I like to have stuff just so ... and that all this change this week has been a huge challenge for me :-) As long as Jade enjoys it, it is worth the challenge.

Gymnastics Medal Test

Well today was Jades final gymnastics medal test for this year. Dave and I should be proud to go to these but really Jade does so much better during the year in her class, when it comes to their parent observation days, she really doesn't concentrate and is more worried about whether we are watching and of course taking photo's and videoing that she really doesn't do as well.

That all being said, today she did a bit better, I told her she had to try and be first in line to demonstrate anything, that way I knew she would listen a little more and she did, thank heavens :-)

Anyway here are a few pics that were taken at home before leaving for the International Sports Centre where she does her gymnastics.











My camera really doesn't take great indoor shots so I really didn't get many pictures, thankfully Dave took a video that came out better. They started with floor work, which really isn't her strong point, but the main thing is she tries :-)

Then they went onto a kind of obstacle course with different stations, this one below she did very well at, Jade has always had really strong upper body strength so this she enjoyed, I actually was amazed how many kids couldn't do this ... I guess it proves how different all kids are right ?



Then the beam and bars, she loves doing the monkey things up high but she is still a little nervous of the beam which I don't blame her, it's so high, it makes me nervous.





And a table top, she loves doing this especially when she does a hand stand and goes over into a table top.



And finally it was medal time and she was so proud of her little trophy.



This is her entire class, there was one teacher missing, there is usually two per class.



So they have one more week left which is usually a fun week which they all enjoy then there is a break till the Fall. I think I mentioned though that in the Fall I am going to put her into the trampoline and tumbling class as I know she will enjoy that more, this class she was starting to no enjoy so we will see how that goes. She actually wants to play soccer which I am not for since, in SA girls really don't' play soccer but here it's a big girls sport ... but we will see :-)

Read Before You Comment ... Her Mother Dresses Her Funny !!!

Ok before you say ... shame this poor kid, her mother dresses her funny ... it is Tacky Day today at school so you need to mismatch as much as possible and I have to say this was my biggest challenge as I love Jade to match, anyway, thankfully she thought she looked cool, that is all that matters.

Later today is parents observation day at gymnastics, hope all goes well but I am sure if I get some pics, the lighting in there is always so bad :-( but if I get pics I will try and post them later.

Monday ... Hat Day !!!

Ok after yesterdays update I will keep this short ... as you know I am a huge hat person so Jade had a bunch of hats to choose from for hat day today but this is the one she wanted to wear and I wasn't going to fight that fight, so as big as it was on her, off she went.

Also after all the pics yesterday she was not in the mood for pics this morning and the more I asked her to smile the more she wouldn't or you would get such a silly smile, it wasn't worth the pic ... so sorry this is not a great one but I want to try and get one from each day to paste in here :-)

Mothers Day Weekend ...

Yep, it's Mothers Day weekend ... I plan on taking as much advantage as possible :-)

Friday night was 'date night' so Dave and I went out to one of my favorite restaurants, The City Tavern for yummy pasta after which we went to see a movie, it was my choice of course and I picked well, but poor Dave was forced to go watch a chick flick, but he enjoyed it even though he won't of course admit it. We went to see Maid Of Honor with McDreamy in it, he is too cute, although I am sure one of his first movies in which he played this nerdy pizza guy keeps on sticking in my mind so he is definitely not my number one actor ... but thinking about it, I actually don't know how is !!!

Then yesterday I pretty much did my usual weekend clean up and shopping so that I had Sunday free, it was a beautiful day here so Jade was outside playing with the kids all day. Oh Dave got his new bicycle this weekend so he went for a quick ride, I didn't hear any complaints so I guess he is happy with it.



And finally today was Mothers Day, there was great excitement as Jade had made me many cards and a really cute stepping stone for the garden, I cannot believe daddy was so creative this year, I am impressed, I totally love it :-) Also I got to sleep late while the two of them made me breakfast in bed, this took forever which was funny coz I thought I was going to get bacon and eggs and wondered what my kitchen would look like when I came downstairs but I got toast with jam and cheese and a big glass of orange juice, all of which apparently Jade did herself, so cute, she was so proud of herself.

I got two beautiful bunches of flowers, one mixed bunch and the other was just a variety or carnations, I love carnations, I also got a few other things so felt utterly spoilt. We took it slow the morning, changed our spare room around which I have been wanting to do for a while so that was cool, then we got showered and done and went out for some bowling, Jade had never bowled in the adult lanes before so this was a treat, we of course had the bumpers up but even so she did so well I could hardly believe it, mommy had to play especially hard so she wasn't beaten by Jade and well daddy didn't get the memo that it was Mothers Day and wiped the socks of us both, I think now coz he plays league at work that he feels he has to always show us up :-( But we had great fun.

Afterwards we went and had a bite to eat and then it was home sweet home. What a nice day ... thoroughly enjoyed by all. Oh by the way, apparently Dave had a nice day planned for today but the weather today wasn't great and even though it didn't rain today as much as what it was suppose to, he didn't want to take the chance and spoil the day ... which is why we spent the day indoors. He won't tell me what the plans were coz he wants to keep it for another occasion so I guess I will just have to be patient and wait and see, either way I am impressed with the effort put in this year :-)

Ok you never really see pics of me so enjoy them while you can ... I know ... I need a serious tan but hopefully that will come soon since the pools here are slowly but surely starting to open, although it hasn't been too hot here to date.











Wow, I can't believe Jade has one more full week of school and then she is done on the 21st of May until she starts Kindergarten in the Fall, sometime in August. Anyway this is a fun week for the kids and Jade is very excited, Monday it is Hat Day and although we looked for someone with one of those funny South African hats we didn't get lucky so we are just wearing a pretty one that she picked out.

Tuesday is Tacky Day, no not Sneaker Day like I am sure most South Africans reading this would have thought ... it is a day where you need to dress as ugly as possible, now this is going to be a hard one for me to pull off, but we will see what we will do ... I need to give this much thought.

Wednesday is Inside Out Day which speaks for itself, everything worn must be inside out. Jade thinks this is the funniest one.

Thursday is Crazy Hair Day and although she wants me to put pink streaks in her hair I think since her hair is so long that I might try and do the Pippy Long Stocking (spelling ?) hair style but we will see.

And finally Friday is PJ Day which they have had before but in Winter so since it is warmer now, Jade wants to wear PJ's that look like a dress so we will see what we can do :-) It should be a fun day for all though.

Sunday is their end of school program, I will try and take a video again to post on here for y'all to see.

Other than all this excitement for the week, we have her gymnastics observation day on Tuesday too, where they get graded and the folks can come see what all they do during the lessons and of course how much they have learnt since our last viewing, they will also get trophy's. I am not sure if I mentioned this before but I am taking Jade out of her usual gymnastics class and in the Fall I am putting her into a trampoline and tumbling class that she wants to do, so we will see how that goes.

Also this week I need to seriously work on Camps for the Summer since I haven't booked her in anywhere yet, hold thumbs I can still get her in somewhere.

Anyway all that is left to say is, Happy Mothers Day to all the Moms out there, hope you had as nice a day as I have had. Thanks Dave and Jade for making my day so special, I love you guys :-)

Update From Parent Teacher Conference ...

I am happy and of course proud to report that Jade got a good review at school today and that they think she is more than ready to be going to Kindergarten.

The report written by her teachers Ms Cindy and Ms Leah read "Jade is not only a joy to Ms Leah and myself but to our entire school. She is smart, thoughtful and always has a song to sing. We will miss her, thank you for letting us here at ECA be a part of her life !"

She has mastered all the Social and Emotional Development steps set out by them as well as all the Skill Development steps and Physical Development steps.

The only thing under Fine and Gross Motor Skills that she did not master was to pump when swinging which I guess is our fault coz she doesn't have to do that, we have always just pushed her :-(

In her Cognitive and Language Development there were four things we need to master before she goes to Kindergarten, one was that she didn't recognize her last name when shown, neither could she write it. She knows it when asked but we have never really pushed her to write it and never thought about the recognition part so we will work on that. Also even though she knows she lives in Big Pine Drive, she doesn't know the number which I guess is really important so we need to push that, she knows that she lives in Matthews and in North Carolina but she doesn't know obviously the difference between the two so we need to teach her our address. She also knows our telephone number but because from the beginning we taught her the number without the code in front of it, she forgets that and needs to know that too so those are things we will definitely work on between now and the start of 'big' school.

She is definitely Left Handed, there is absolutely no doubt on that one !!! That being said, some sports that she attempts she does with both, it depends on how she sees others do it or how the teacher does it, so I have heard it's an advantage to be able to play sport with both hands, we will see :-)

With her colors, shapes, letters both uppercase and lowercase there were no problems, I guess they only need them to count up to 30 but she can go up to 100 and is working out how to go further from there ... She knows the days of the week and the months of the year but has a problem recognizing the word at this point so that's another thing we will work at during the Summer.

Even though I know Jade is excited to come home every week with the new word for that week, apparently she has done really well in class with these words, recognizing them and remembering them, so hopefully that will mean that reading will come easy for her, they have been doing basic reading at school and they have said there are no problems with Jade when it comes to that.

They need to know 3 Pledges at school, obviously the American Flag would be the one they would continue on with in Kindergarten but at ECA the Christian Flag and the Pledge to the Bible were just as important and although she knows the Christian Pledge she had a problem remembering the Bible Pledge :-(

They said Jade mixes well with everyone both class mates and teachers so they didn't' see any problems going forward and well they didn't need to tell us that Jade likes to sing, I always joke that she loves to sing but she is no future American Idol but they thought she sang pretty well, I still think she may land up being the song writer but not the singer (hehehe) but that's just me.

Now before I bore you all totally to death, I was very informative here because in SA the schooling is a little different and I wanted to pretty much give them the picture of what all the kids do here even before they go to school, I hope this helped.

Let me say it one last time ... I am a very proud mom today :-)

Pretty In Pink

There is no school today because it is the parent teacher conferences at school, I guess we will find out today whether little Jade is ready for Kingdergarten, here's hoping she is.

Anyway so we got a little dressed up this morning since my little girl has turned into quite a young lady or diva actually, it's all about the pink today, she has the same outfit in blue which I am sure would make her eyes pop but she wouldn't hear about putting on blue ... as I said, it's all about the pink today.





Her hair is getting so long, we are trying to keep it in good shape with regular trims since we are growing it for Locks of Love which to me would be such a beautiful way for Jade to part with her long hair come Summer. Now having said that who knows come Summer if mom is going to be able to cut it, I may just not have the heart to do so but we need 10 inches so we are growing it as long as possible so that when we do cut it, the cut isn't too short, although short in Summer would be good.

For those of you that don't know what Locks of Love is, go take a look at this site http://www.locksoflove.org/ it is an organization that takes 10 inches of hear and makes wigs for kids that have Cancer or whatever illness makes them lose the hair and gives them a new lease on life. One of the kids in Jades class did this already and it has encouraged other kids to do the same, I think it would be a beautiful gift for someone as young as Jade to give, something she will never forget and definitely be proud of. You also will get a photo back I believe of the wig on the child it was given to, how special is that. Well as I said, we will see, the desire to do good is there but when the time comes, hopefully we can all carry through on it.



Are these shoes just not too cute, she had dress up shoes that she would play around in at home all the time, all she wanted was heels, so when I saw these I knew she would totally love them but I had no clue she would love them quite as much as she does. She wants to show everyone when we are out and about how pretty her shoes are when really mom is just hoping she doesn't twist and ankle on them :-)









That's it for me for today, I am sure I will update you on what was said at the conference today. Until then, have a good day and week.

Still Nothing Much To Report ...

Oh well what can I say, nothing too much happening around here at that moment, the big excitement this past week is that they had Beginners Night at Matthews Elementary which is where Jade will be starting Kingdergarten in the Fall. She was so excited to go see her new school and mom and dad were excited too only very much to moms disgust she got hit with a bug on Wednesday night which hit her bad and kicked her butt all day Friday :-( so I had to miss out. I was so sad to have missed that especially since you know dads ... they don't take in all the info us moms do but thankfully Dave brought home a big folder full of information that they gave out which gives me an idea of some of the topics they covered.

I cannot imagine my child getting on the school bus in the Fall but before we know it Summer will be here and over with and off she will go, that is going to be one emotional day for me, that I can tell you.

Jade has turned into a little Diva lately, she is all about the dresses and the higher the heels the happier she is, not to mention that she doesn't want her hair tied up anymore and now is getting picky with what I want her to wear, she's too much, can't imagine what teenagehood is going to be like, I have fear to dads pocket though, she has expensive taste ... you go girl !!!

Back to the weather and talking about Summer, it seems that the weather is getting warmer and Summer might be around the corner, gosh and the long Summer school vacation is just around the corner ... I had hoped to pass a good deal of time between here and Canada but it turns out that my cousin can't come down this year :-( I am so sad about that. Jade and I might still go up and spend a week or so up there but it all depends really on timing and if these aweful gas prices go down some, they are killing us at the moment.

I am still not sure what day the pool opens I need to look into that, gosh since I stepped down from being on all the committees in this neighborhood I sure am in the dark a lot of the time :-) sometimes with all the politics that goes with being on a committee sometimes it is just safer or better being that way :-)

Well I am in the swing of all my jewelry parties again, it's been a little slow for a while, I guess I just lacked motivation but now I am going well again which is great, busy but great !!!

Otherwise what can I tell you, Dave is still trying to figure out how to either get his bicyle fixed or replaced, poor guy I think is getting withdrawls from his mountain biking, at least he got his cell phone replaced, thank Heavens !!!

As for what is coming up this next week, Thursday we have our parent teacher conference at Jades school, this is where they will tell us how ready Jade is for 'big' school or what we still need to practise to prepare her, hopefully the report is good, hold thumbs.

That's all for me for now, I need to take some more pics soon ... there just havent been any good opportunities lately. Take care.

Nothing Too Much To Report ...

Well it's Spring for sure ... I have been doing pretty well with my allergies so far but the past two weeks I have been taking a little more strain, hopefully it doesn't get any worse. Jade also has been rubbing her eyes a lot, golly, I hope she doesn't land up having my allergies, poor thing.

The weather has been weird, we have had temperatures into the upper 70's, definitely T-shirt days and then now we have another cold week with highs only in the early 60's and well really cold mornings, Winter mornings ... I can't believe it. To think in a little over a month it will officially be Summer and the pool will open, that's hard to believe, all I know is that water is going to be really cold !!!

Well Summer is coming quickly which means Jade only has a few weeks of school left, I can hardly believe that, gosh, then it will be over with with Preschool and into Kindergarten, my little girl is growing up for sure. We have a evening at her new school coming up so that is exciting for all of us, she is just excited about riding the school bus and nothing else at this time, it's going to be a big change for her, she is so used to the same kids at school, kids that have been with her for almost 3 years now that all the new faces and new routines etc. it's going to be a big change for her, that is for sure.

In the meantime, mom is working on what we are going to do the three months of Summer and at this stage, I have no idea. I know I want to put her in one or two Summer camps but really haven't done too much research on all that yet, I better do something soon or I might not get her in, well if worst comes to worst, we will just hang out more at the pool. She enjoyed the different pools at the gyms around us last year so we will do that too I am sure. Also I am working on another trip up to Canada again, hopefully Jade and I can spend some time up there and talk my cousin into coming down here again for a while, last Summer was such a blast !!!

Otherwise, we had a nice weekend, Friday was date night and for the first time my girlfriend Tina put her kids in at the preschool with Jade and we had a double date, nothing too fancy, dinner and some bowling which was great fun. We really had a nice time so hopefully we can do it again soon.

Then Saturday we went out fridge hunting, Monday last week our fridge packed up, what a nightmare, thank God one of my neighbors eats out a lot and had freezer space I could put all my meat in, what a mess !!! We pretty much lived out of my Coleman's for a couple of days till Tina remembered she had a little fridge we could use which has been a huge life saver. For me that cooks every day, this was terrible, buying food on a daily basis to cook and only cooking so much since the little fridge couldn't really hold too much. It was just a really hard week for me. So as I said, Saturday we went fridge hunting and couldn't find the one we wanted so eventually settled for second best which thankfully gets delivered today, I can't wait. I have a show this evening, I never have shows in a Monday but trust me to have one on an evening I would rather be home sorting out my fridge.

Tonight's show should be interesting though, it will be the youngest group I have ever done a show for, it's a group of university girls, it's going to be very different for me but I have no doubt they will be a fun group.

Then yesterday I did my usual spring clean in the house and Dave worked outside on his bike and of course mowed the lawn since it is back to mowing the lawn season here again. Then late afternoon he went for a cycle ride and had a bad fall, thank God he is just battered and bruised and nothing is broken other than his bike and cellphone which is is very mad about. The frame on the actual bike broke which is so weird but hopefully he can get that repaired at a minimal charge but his brand new expensive cellphone the entire front touch screen shattered and now really isn't working too well. Thank God it worked enough to call me to come and get him but still the poor guy is so mad at that expense, he said, he is glad this week is over, fridge, bike, phone ... please let it be over.

Oh one last thing I wanted to mention was, I think I wrote earlier that birds made a nest in my door hanger flower arrangement, well over the past week they eggs hatched and Jade was able to see the little baby birds grow over the past couple of days. Unfortunately Dave mentioned to the other kids in the road about the birds and they messed around at my door yesterday and I am not sure what happened but from what was said, I think the babies got out. Dave said he thinks they are flying but he also saw them on the ground under my bushes so ... it was a good day yesterday for flying lessons so I hope that was the case but it's cold today again I hope they are ok, bloody kids, I was so mad at them, Jade knew to stay away from them but these other kids, which many of them are older than Jade, you would think they would know better, anyway such is life right ??? Thankfully Jade got to experience the whole egg thing and the hatching and seeing the babies grow a bit, something we really don't get to see so close up to often.

Anyway, all that's left to say is Happy Birthday Dad ... hope you have a good one :-)

The Worlds Biggest My Little Pony Tea Party

Well so soon after Disney, I knew daddy wouldn't really approve so I quietly bought tickets for Jade and I to go see The Worlds Biggest My Little Pony Tea Party at the Ovens Auditorium here in Charlotte.

So Thursday evening while daddy worked late, Jade and I went out for a very special evening, first to a quick dinner and then to see the show which was almost 2 hours long which I was amazed at because I thought it wouldn't be longer than an hour.

It was a cold rainy day, definitely not a day to want to be out on the road to anywhere so we dressed up warm, here are a few pics of her dresses up and ready to go ...











Here are some pics and vids of the show ...