Last Day of Summer Fun!

And what a day it is for Ellie! Today is her last day at Monterey Park. She is definitely ready to be back with her regular friends and teachers at her school (which starts Tuesday). She knows there will be new work and new toys in the daycare room and she can't wait to see what they are.

However, today won't be a full day for Ellie at Monterey Park. Her dad scored a couple free passes to Universal Studios and in Nicks words, "I'm going to bust her out early!".

She is excited because now she is over the 40" threshold there are new rides to try at Universal Studios and it'll be a whole new experience for her. Also, apparently they have a little water park with sprinklers and misters. As we all know, Ellie hates having wet clothes, so we opted to put her swimsuit under her dress. It's going to be hot today so a little water play will be fun. Nick is planning on getting her before lunch so they will spend all afternoon at Universal Studios, but I still sent Ellie with a rather large "snack" so if kids start eating she will have something, as well as getting some good food before the junk at the theme park.

When I left she was happily playing with the dollhouse and figurines, as well as, a hospital setup and figurines with a couple other kids.










Happy holiday weekend to everyone!

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Second to last day of summer

Today is Ellie's second to last day of summer and time this week at Monterey Park. Next Tuesday, she will start school again with her friends and teachers.

Today also happens to be water play and she is SUPER happy about that!



She settled in to playing with some animal figurines when I left.




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Fruit Salad Day

This post is for Wednesday August 28. For whatever reason it never fully uploaded.

So Ellie said only a few kids did dress up yesterday. But there was Tinkerbell and a cheerleader.

Today is fruit salad day. They are going to make a fruit salad for snack I think. Should be fun for her. But tomorrow is water play...her favorite day.

Here is a photo of Ellie in the car during our commute to Monterey Park school. She's enjoying a breakfast of an apple (cut into slices) and some "yellow and white cheese" (which I personally can't stand and it stinks! But nick and Ellie LoVE this stuff). I took the photo at a red light, we were safe.



At school she was a little clingy and didn't want me to go. But eventually she got herself set up with paper and a sheet of stickers to make a picture.



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"Dress-up Day"

Well, we learned a couple thing that should ease Ellie through this last week of crazy schedule and "different". First, one of her favorite friends from her normal school is also doing a week at Monterey Park, she was VERY excited about that. Second, this week is full of fun schedule activities, like a water play day, a s'more making day, and a fruit salad making day. And last but not least, today was "dress-up day"!

Last night Ellie was insistent in wearing her Rapunzel dress. However, given how dirty and how hard she has been playing lately at school... I didn't think that was a good idea. So we came up with a superhero-princess weird combination of clothes. She was happy and looked adorable.



However, we may have misinterpreted "dress-up". I'm not sure dress-up meant costume as much as actually dressing nicely...the other little girl there (only other kid) was in a very nice fancy dress. I think Ellie sensed it immediately too, because once we entered the room, she took off her cape and put away the wand and sunglasses...

Well, it should be a fun day no matter how the kids (and their parents) interpreted "dress-up day!"

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Back to Monterey Park

Ellie is back! She had such a great time up in Santa Barbara with my parents and at zoo camp and natural history camp. She says her favorite was natural history camp because of water play and her favorite thing about staying with grandma and grandpa was the Yogurtland trips (a frozen yogurt place where you pick a flavor or combine flavors and pick toppings). She settled right back into her normal routine at home this weekend and it was a lot of fun to have her back!

This morning was a shock back to reality for her though (and me after finding some cat vomit in the bathroom). She woke up early and we rushed a little to get her dressed and ate breakfast in the car to head back to Monterey Park school. She wasn't too excited about going back to Monterey park. She told us last night she was ready to go to her normal school and that she didn't know anyone at Monterey park. It has been a long August for her, each Monday she has gone to a new place with new people. She really has been a trooper.

Once we got to school Ellie saw some newish friends, her new teachers twin sons were at school. So there were at least two familiar faces. Then we were told that two of her teachers, ms. McCray and ms. Avila would be there today. As well as potentially someone else from Ellies school (but the teacher couldn't remember who off the top of her head). So there will be familiar faces, but Ellie still didn't seem too happy.



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Camp Grandparents

So Ellie is spending the next two weeks up in Santa Barbara at Camp Grandparents. She will be attending two different summer camps one at the SB Zoo and the other at the SB Natural History Museum.

She was excited to go. Mom and dad are excited for two weeks of no making lunches, bedtimes, and scrambling to make dinner.

I can't wait to hear her stories about camp and all that she learns over the next two weeks.



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Friday water play!

Ellie is totally excited about water play at school today. So excited so woke up early and put her swimsuit on and set out extra underwear, a towel, and her water shoes. Then she realized in her excited haste she put her swimsuit over her underwear so she had to start over. She also decided to take her recently decorated visor back to school because it may be sunny during water play and she would want her visor. She also opened up her sunscreen and found a ponytail holder which she set out to get me to hurry to get her ready and to school.



Yep, she is READY!

Question, Ellie comes home from this school like 20x dirtier than her normal school. More outside time? Different climber challenging her and she is falling more and getting dirty? Is she burying her legs in wood chips as a new game picked up from a new friend? Who knows,..but she comes home FILTHY!

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Morning car rides

Surprisingly Ellie is a bit of a chatterbox in our drive down to Monterey Park to school this week. She usually has these random what if situations that she wants to discuss. Today's topic: what would happen if I (mommy) had 88 babies to take care of. She said she would help by changing diapers, putting in pacifiers, and rubbing their back. But she said, she and I only have two hands and with 88 babies all crying we would need help from everyone in the family (aunts, cousins, grandparents and great- grandparents...).

She also was thinking about presents for Great-grandma Vans birthday this weekend. She decided that she needed a sewing machine, because Ellie thinks she only knits and needs to see like mommy...unique and definitely an interest of grandma Van (who already has a sewing machine).

Arts and crafts. She was happy to show me her peacock that she made yesterday with help from a big kid.






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Pajama Day

Apparently the sister school has fun days planned this week! Today was pajama day and Ellie was super excited. Tomorrow they are going to make s'mores on sticks (or as Ellie described it, smearing marshmallows on graham crackers as a special treat). Friday is a water play day, which she is really looking forward to.



She was right at home putting her lunch away (today she insisted on taking in her water bottle with her lunch).



She has been excited about doing arts and crafts all summer. When I left Ellie she was getting set up with an older kid to do some arts and crafts.



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No monkey bars

So according to Ellie and the teacher whom I talked with today, everything went well yesterday. Ellie made friends quickly, took control in the classroom, and had fun on the playground. She even facilitated finding the mom and dad figurines for the pink playhouse, an accomplishment she was very happy about this morning. There was some drawing. There was also a surprise familiar face for Ellie, Ms. Avila her afternoon daycare teacher from her regular school is working at the sister school this week. But Ms. Avila is working with the big kids so she doesn't see Ellie all day, but she did pop in and check on her.

Apparently yesterday when nick picked her up early for swim lessons she told him that she wanted to stay later to have more time on the playground. She was super excited about going back today...except she was sad that she can't do the monkey bars. Apparently you have to be big enough to reach the on your own without help from teachers...and Ellie apparently isn't. So no monkey bars for her.

This morning she wanted to show me everything, where her lunch goes and the kids bathroom which has a big sink and toilet (unlike her school which is sized for little kids) and she has to use a stool.






This morning when I left, she was working on her own building an airplane out of Legos.










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New kid in school

Today was Ellies first day at the sister school (the main school, her regular school is the satellite). We had a long discussion last night about what she was scared or nervous and what were her worries. Mostly, she was afraid she wouldn't have friends and the kids wouldn't like her. Something that was also stressful, the main school goes through elementary school so it was VERY likely she would be one of the youngest kids. However, her teacher told her about the playground and she seemed excited about the monkey bars. But the new school is big, like two story's and lots of classrooms big. She was worried about where she would nap, would she have a cubby, where would she put her lunch...I told her I would stay at school until all the logistics were figured out and she was settled in. She seemed happy about that.



We got up early (it's about a 25 min drive to the new school) and had banana muffins in the car for breakfast. Ellie picked out her "power outfit", well something she really likes and gave her confidence.


She was a little hesitant, checking out her surroundings. The first two kids she met were like 8 and 10 so she was a little nervous about that. Then another arrived, about 6 and a girl, so Ellie seemed a little more comfortable although she didn't go talk to her.



I think that's a fake smile...

But she immediately identified a pink playhouse and sat down to play with it. She was caught up with the new toy (which had a baby figurine...so that made her happy) when I left.



I plan in calling to check in a little later. And nick will be getting her early for swim lessons today. Hopefully she has a good day and enjoys the monkey bars.

In other news we had a good weekend. Nick won an Emmy. And Ellie phonetically spelled out a word on a card. We were going to a housewarming party for a friend and so I baked a loaf of bread to take. Ellie drew a picture ("it's a giant bug eating stuff") but wrote "shef" because she said she wanted to write 'chef' because I was cooking in the kitchen. No help from me or nick, all on her own.



(We didn't give the card to the housewarming friends, we put it on the fridge)

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Last day of August daycare at Ellie's school

Today is the last day of August school/ daycare/camp in a familiar setting with her own friends for Ellie. Next week she is attending the sister school (same program, different campus, different teachers and kids). Then she has two weeks of camp up in SB and then she is back at the sister school for a week. She is definitely a little stressed about the new campus next week but is really looking forward to the camps up in SB.

She was excited to see baby animals and do animal crafts at Zoo Camp and see the bones and eggs at Natural History Museum camp.

Ellie also informed me she is not extinct so her bones are not in a museum like the dinosaurs. She also informed me that dinosaurs hatched from eggs like birds and asked if I thought Dino eggs were bigger than ostrich eggs, because ostrich eggs are really really big. Where she learns this stuff I'm not sure, but is definitely is learning and absorbing knowledge from all areas.





Not the best photo today of Ellie. She was bummed her buddies weren't at school.

But apparently our road is going to get repaved (I HATE the smell of asphalt!)



And we now have new windows at the front of the house.



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Mood swings

This morning Ellie was a little grumpy in the car. Apparently she was still harboring some anger towards Aunt Susie from her last visit out to SB in July. She was upset that on a Saturday night, Susie, mommy and daddy went to a movie and left her at home with Grandma Pam. She said she wanted to spend all her time with SuSu but she went to a movie with mommy. Apparently she felt she was ditched by her aunt.



But as soon as she was at school, all was well. She was running and playing on the playground with her newest friends.










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