Today is Valentine's Day and we had a party at school. It was a lot of fun. We each got to decorate our own cookie. I was doing pretty good until I dumped a whole bottle of red hots on mine. I never tried one before and it really burned my mouth. I had to run and find a trash can so I could spit it out!

My teacher had us take all of our Valentines and glue them on to a big piece of paper to make a collage. Then I got to bring it home so I could hang it up in my room.
We had a lot of good food to eat, too. It was a great party and I'm really glad that Mommy got to come!

Today Mommy and Daddy took me to see the Doodlebops. It was a lot of fun. I watch them on TV all the time, so it was exciting to see DeeDee, Rooney and Moe up on the stage. I just wish I could have met them and gotten their autograph, like they do on the show. I knew all of the songs they were singing and I sang along with them. It was a little hard to see when I wasn't kneeling on Mommy's lap, but I did get down to dance a few times. During intermission, Mommy got me a cool hat.

We all took turns wearing it.

I'm so glad that I got to go to this concert!

Today was my first day of Kindergarten!!! I was so excited to go to school. Mommy took a couple of quick pictures outside and we headed down to my classroom. I found my nametag, let Mommy take one more quick picture and then I ran in to my class. My teacher's name is Mrs. Prout, and she is really nice. It was an exciting day. The best part is that I get to ride the bus this year. Well, I get to ride the bus home, anyway. Mommy will drop me off in the mornings. I can't wait to go back tomorrow!!

Today was a really exciting day. We are at Disney World!!!

I had to get up really, really early and then Grandpa took Mommy, Daddy, Grandma and me to the airport. We had to wait for a long time, but mommy got me some breakfast and they had some things to play with there, so it wasn't too bad. Finally it was time to get on the airplane. We found our seats and I was ready to go. Unfortunately, it was so cold out that they had a hard time getting the thing that puts the suitcases on the plane to work, so we had to wait some more.

At the airport
Originally uploaded by alidoodle

We got up really early this morning and went to the airport because we are going to Disney World! These are our carry on bags waiting to go. I got to have breakfast while we were waiting to get on the plane. It was very exciting to go down the runway and take off, almost like the Little Einsteins blasting off in Rocket. Even though I had been up since really early, I was to excited to sleep on the plane. Mommy really wished I had...she was pretty tired. But at least I behaved really well, so she was happy about that.

Today was a really fun day, even though it was rainy and cold. Daddy had the day off, so he came to watch my swimming lesson. After that, we all went to Pizza Sam's to meet my friends, Allie and Haley, and their moms for lunch. After lunch, we walked around downtown a little bit, looking in some of the store windows. We even got to go into the bakery and get a cookie. We walked down past the courthouse and looked at all the decorations. And then we went to the Santa House. It wasn't open yet, so we played around in the pretend igloo that was outside and peeked in through the windows to see all the fun stuff inside. We went across the street to my church and went inside for a little bit to get warm. I showed my friends my school classroom and the pictures on the windows that the senior high youth group painted. We left the church and went back outside and got back to the Santa House just as the clock was ringing 1:30. It was time for it to be open! We went inside and Santa was there waiting for us. He said "Ho, ho, ho! Welcome to my house!" While my friends were taking their turns sitting on Santa's lap and talking to him, I went around and looked at all the really neat things in the house. I got my picture taken in a sleigh. I got my picture taken standing next to a big stuffed reindeer. There was a great big huge nutcracker there, and he really worked. I got my picture taken next to him, too. When it was finally my turn, I ran right up to Santa and sat on his lap. I talked to him for a little bit and we posed for a picture. Then he gave me a handful of candy. I wanted it to snow, and he was going to try and make it snow on Mommy and Daddy, but the snow machine wasn't working. :( I was kind of disappointed, but it was ok. We spent some more time looking at all of the things there were to see. My friends and I all sat in the sleigh together for more pictures. We found some jingle bells to play with. We played at the train table. When we had seen everything there was to see, it was time to go home. We made one more trip through the igloo and then walked back to our cars. I said goodbye to my friends and came home for a nap. It was a very busy day!

Tonight we went, with mommy and daddy's church group, to the Holy Walk. We got to ride on a real school bus from the parking lot to the church! That was a lot of fun. When we got to the church, we went inside to sing some Christmas hymns and watch "Mary" tell us about why they were going to Bethlehem while we waited for our groups turn to take the walk.

When it was finally our turn, our "family" went out into the cold and ran into some angels while we were on our way to Bethlehem. They were talking about a very special baby being born that night. As we kept going, Roman soldiers kept jumping out at us and yelling at us. Since our "family" were goat herders, they kept telling us that we stunk. One of the soldiers asked me what my goat's name was and I told him I didn't have a goat. That wasn't the right answer! Luckily, they let me stay with my "family" anyway.

We kept going and eventually came to the city. We had to show our papers to lot of different soldiers. That was hard for me because I kept dropping mine. Luckily mommy was paying attention and kept picking them up for me. We paid our taxes and got our papers stamped and then went into the city. That was kind of scary! It was really loud. People kept trying to sell us things, people were yelling, there was a lot of music being played. It was crazy. I held on to mommy's leg most of the time, so I wouldn't get lost.

We kept going through the city, following the star we saw until we got to the stable where the special baby was. It was Baby Jesus!! (Not a real baby, because it was really, really cold, just a doll baby) There were also some real donkeys there too. I got to pet them!

Afterwards, we went back in to the church for a little bit to have some cookies and some hot chocolate. Then we took a van back to the parking lot and back to our car.

We got to go to Pizza Sam's for supper. I'd never been there before, so it was kind of exciting. They have a place where little kids like me can stand at a window and watch them make the pizzas! The man that was making pizzas threw flour at my friend Andrew and me and he threw some pizza dough at us, too! It's a good thing there was a window there. The pizza was really good.....so good that I ate two whole pieces!

Tonight mommy and daddy took me to the Christmas Walk at Dow Gardens. It was fun. I like to go to Dow Gardens during the summer, so it was neat to see it in the wintertime. The paths were all lit by candles, and I stopped to get a closer look at one.
We went past a whole area that was filled with more of these candles. I wanted to walk around and look at them, too, but mommy and daddy thought it would be better if I just stayed on the path. I guess they were right, but those candles sure were pretty.
There were some choirs there, too, to sing for us. This one was singing songs that I could dance to.
Here I am leading us down the path. The trees were really pretty with all their lights.
We got to go into the conservatory, which is where the butterflies are in the springtime, and listen to a guy playing the saxaphone and a guy playing piano. Mommy said that they go to our church, but I don't think I know who they are. I really liked looking at the decorations in here. They were from "The Nutcracker!"
I'm glad we got to go on this walk. It snowed some last night and this morning and even though the lights and candles would have been pretty by theymselves, they were even prettier with the snow. It was really cold though, so the new coat and snowpants that mommy and I bought this morning came in really handy!

Today, mommy and I got to meet my friends (and their moms) for lunch at Wendy's. And as an extra surprise, Daddy showed up too. After lunch Daddy had to go back to work, but the rest of us went to the Chippewa Nature Center. Mommy and I had never been there before, so we didn't really know what we were going to see.

We headed off down the trail into the woods and ended up at a place called the Homestead. We had to cross a couple of bridges on the way, so we tried to be very, very quiet so we wouldn't wake up the trolls. We saw some old buildings, but didn't get to go inside to see what they were all about because there were some bigger kids there for field trips with their school classes. There were some farm animals that we got to feed. Allie's mom brought apples to cut up and feed the pigs. I liked watching the pigs, but didn't want to get close enough to feed them. There were chickens there, too.

From there we went to see the cows. When we got to their pen, they were all the way in the back. But Allie's mom had brought a big bag of corn with her, too, and she shook that bag so the cows could see it and they came running right up to the fence as she poured it out on the ground. After the cows ate all the corn we pulled up handfulls of grass and fed them that way. Cows' tongues are very rough and very slimy!

When we were all done outside, we went back to Visitor's Center and looked at all kinds of interesting things there. They have a turtle in a water display that looks like it's really real. I thought it was, and mommy did too, for a little while. They had a bunch of things on the counter that we could pick up and look at....from seed pods to animal bones. They also had some things that we could look at under a microscope. That was really neat. We went to the River Overlook and got to watch the river rushing by. They had a telescope set up and we could see into a hole in a tree on the other side of the river. We also went into the Ecosystem Gallery. That was really fun. There is a place in the back where we looked out a window and saw all kinds of birds, squirrels and chipmunks eating and playing. There are all kinds of things to look at and play with.

I had a lot of fun with my friends today.

Today, my class went on a field trip to the Whiting Forest. I had never been there before, so it was pretty exciting. We started out with some stories in front of the big fireplace.

Then we got our coats back on and went outside for a nature walk. We looked for different leaves, pinecones, pine needles and tried to find a squirrel (which is kind of hard to do with 20 noisy 4 year olds tromping through the woods!).

We saw some pretty silly things out on the trail, too. These two trees had faces!

We picked up leaves along the way and then climbed to the top of this tower and dropped them over the railing so we could watch them float back down to the ground.

I picked out a very special leaf before we got back from our walk. We split into two groups and each group got to take their leaf and run it through a laminating machine so that we can keep it forever. After we were all done, we went back outside and had a quick snack...pretzel rods!

Boy, I never knew that I'd get to do such fun things when I went to school!

I got to go on a hayride!!! I love hayrides. We got to ride out into the pumpkin field and pick out a pumpkin to take home. I picked a really big one. Daddy had to carry it for me. I can't wait to carve it! (But I don't want to scrape the gooey stuff out.)
After we got back, I tried to milk the cow, but it was too hard. I didn't get very much water into the bucket. If I get to come back next year, maybe I'll be able to milk the cow.
There was also a petting zoo. I got to hold a baby chick and I got to hold a kitten
I got to ride this really fun zoo train . And I even got to ride a pony!
I hope we get to go back there again next year!

We did the coolest thing today at school! We got to go to the Santa House and see Santa Claus!! And it's not even Christmas yet! The Santa House is so much fun. There are all kinds of things to look at. And can you believe it actually snows inside the Santa House?!? Well, it does! That's my teacher with snow all over her.

Of course, the best thing is getting to see Santa. He came in and sang some songs with us. And we all got a chance to sit on his lap and talk to him. I got to shake some jingle bells during one of the songs.

I can't wait until Christmas and Santa comes back to the Santa House!!

Tonight I got to go to the Balloon Festival. It was really neat. We were at the fairgrounds and all of a sudden all these hot air balloons started flying over us. I saw one that looked like Garfield, one that looked like the Sugar Bear and one that looked like a big rubber duck.

I also got to see some skydivers. I thought that was really neat and think it would be fun to sky dive when I get bigger.

Here's me and mommy while we were waiting for the balloons to get set up on the launch field for the "nightglow." When it finally got dark enough, all the balloons turned on their flames and just glowed. They would do long glows and they would do short bursts of flame that was like flickering. It was really neat.

I'm so glad we went and I hope we get to go again next year!

Today was my first day of school. I couldn't wait to go.
I picked out this great backpack....mommy let me get it even though it's really big.
Here I am standing underneath the sign of my school

We did a lot of fun things today. My teacher weighed and measured me to see how big I was on the first day of school.
I painted with marbles.
I sorted pom poms by color using a pair of tongs....that helps me work on my fine motor control, or so mommy says.
We even got to do finger plays and hear a story.

I can't wait to go back!!

Today, I jumped into the pool at swimming lessons all by myself. My teacher was very proud of me, and so were mommy and daddy.

Today mommy and daddy took me to open swimming at the Community Center. It was a lot of fun. I finally decided that I can jump into the pool without any help. And I jumped in a lot. I also finally figured out how to get out of the pool by myself. I've been having a lot of trouble with that in swimming lessons. If I can jump in and get out of the pool at swimming next week my teacher will be so surprised. The best part of the day was getting to go down the water slide. I love to go down the slide and daddy took me down as often as we could. I was pretty tired by the time it was time to go and didn't even put up a fight about having to get out of the pool, like I usually do. I hope we get to go to open swim again sometime.

Last night, mommy and daddy took me to the Santa House



to see Santa Claus. It was really neat. There are all kinds of neat things to look at like trains and elves and Christmas scenes. There is even a reindeer



and a sleigh



to play with while you're waiting to see Santa. When it was finally my turn to see Santa, I got right up in his lap and had a little chat.




I'm so glad I got so see Santa.

Today they had trick or treating at my daddy's work. Mommy took me and I had a lot of fun going around and seeing everyone and getting candy. Mommy and Daddy kept telling me to only take one piece of candy, but everyone thought I was so cute that they kept telling me to take two or three. By the time I was done, my pumpkin was almost full and it was so heavy I could barely carry it.

Here's a picture of me in my costume. I'm a witch this year, but my hat wouldn't stay on. Mommy is going to try and fix it for me by Halloween.