A Year with Frog and Toad

Kyrie is fast becomming quite the cultured kid. Today, I took her to see "A year with Frog and Toad" at the First Stage Children's Theatre. Wow, do I recommend this to all of you who have children over the age of three. It was completely age appropriate, a ton of fun, and honestly worth the money we spent (to me, anyway). A warning, however: bring a few dollars in cash with you. They sing a song all about chocolate chip cookies while the entire cast eat...you guessed it, chocolate chip cookies. Then it was intermission. Bet you can't guess what they were selling in the lobby? (Duh. Chocolate chip cookies.) Kyrie and I wholeheartedly agree that the snail with the mail stole the show, but Kyrie's favorite part was when Frog and Toad went for a sled-ride down a hill. For such a small theatre they really got creative with how to pull these things off. Very cool!

Thought

You could feed a small nation with the amount of food my children drop on the floor each meal...

With food shortages throughout the world, I feel like I should be gathering up our table scraps and sending them abroad...

Better yet, maybe I should send my children abroad...

Birthday Party

And, in the final installment of the never-ending saga that is Kyrie's birthday, we celebrated with all her friends this weekend at Oogles and Googles. It was a really terrific party, if I am allowed to say so. I mean, I enjoyed it, that is. We had a "Down on the Farm" theme, and there was a little story all about our birthday farmer, Kyrie. The kids did the chicken dance, had a potato sack race, galloped on horses, and went on a scavenger hunt to find all of the missing things (their favors) that were hidden on the farm. Kyrie had such a great time that she asked if we could go again and even named one of her birthday presents (a puppy stuffed animal) "Bella Oogles and Googles". Check out the photos below:

My Girls

Yes! The first day it actually felt like spring and we happened to be right by the Lakefront. We ate a packed lunch outside. It was marvelous!

Lariska


At Zachary Z.'s birthday party at the Children's Museum Lariska stepped right up to play the part of a Wild Thing in a makeshift performance of "Where the Wild Things Are". Matt and I couldn't believe she just walked away from us, put the costume on, and acted like such a big girl.


Coming down the dark slide - Lariska said, "dark, no monsters". Kids and their monsters!

Tonight, before turning out the lights for bedtime Lariska blew Matt some kisses at the door. Then, I told her to say, "I love you, Daddy" - which she did expertly. After the lights were off and the door was closed she turned back to me (I sing her a song in the rocking chair before putting her in the crib) and said, "I luf you, Mommy." Wow. Unsolicited. She melted my heart.

Kyrie


After Lariska's performance Kyrie felt compelled to join in the next one.

Since turning four Kyrie has suddenly once again become difficult to handle. I suspect she may actually be having some difficulty accepting the idea of being another year older. She mentioned just after her birthday that she wanted to stay three because she didn't want to grow up and have to move away from Mommy. Sheesh. Such big worries for such a little girl.

We had her four-year old checkup last week. Amazingly, she is now in the 75th percentile for her weight (36.4 lbs) and 90th percentile for her height (41-1/4 inches). I knew she had grown a ton in the last two months, but that was quite a surprise to me that she jumped percentiles in weight and height. We are also quite proud that she can now write her first name. She has been working hard on it after we found out that a lot of the other kids in preschool could already do it. Oops, I guess I am a slacker of a Mommy. But, getting Kyrie to do anything that involves sitting down (without a book in her hands) can be quite the challenge. I am glad she rose to it and is getting much better at it. She is going through another talkative phase where she tells rambling stories for hours (sometimes days) at a time. Right now it is all about her work - how she gets there, what she does, what it looks like, who is there. It goes on and on and on.....and on. I will post a short example soon, if I can. I actually finally managed to get some video of it.

Life in the Kons household continues to be chaotic. But, fun.