Faces

Here's this cute little face:

And this brilliant face that she drew yesterday.

It kinda reminds me of this self portrait by John Lennon.

Thanksgiving Candids and Santa's Arrival

Friday evening we walked downtown (with everyone else in Media) to see Santa arrive on a fire truck to turn on the towns Christmas lights.  

There he is!  

Thanksgiving

Our Week

Here are the two photos of Oly from preschool this week.  In the sand, and with her shaggy hair facing us working on a class collage using scraps of unclaimed paintings from the drying rack. 

And then last night we went back to Azie, inside on a Friday night this time.  Very ambitious.  We had our first talk about what "on our best behavior" meant.

She ate all of the fish eggs, which are her absolute favorite.  

And as always, at the end she got fresh mint ice cream.  

Our Bossy Flasher

(Two versions just in case the formatting doesn't work on one.  They are the same video)

There are no words (as in, we are speechless.)

Oly is "Free"!

We took absolutely no photos while we were at Lucy and Jaspers, but you can see them all over at their blog.  You don't really need them duplicated, right?  The only pictures we did take were on Saturday night at around 11 pm when Tim and I went to bed.  We had put Oly down at 8 or so in her cozy nest in the corner.  See?

No?  That's because she's not in her bed!  We panicked for a few seconds and then saw these tiny little hands up high in our guest bed:

Notice how the laptop is still up on the bed?  Thank goodness.  It had been playing her classical music to fall asleep to.

After snapping these adorable pics we scooped her up and put her back on the mattress on the floor, she hardly woke up.  The next morning we asked her what she was doing in our bed and she said, "Well, I was changing the sleepy time music on the 'puter."  It's a miracle the laptop didn't fall to it's death.

We just put her to bed, on this her 3rd birthday.  If you ask her how old she is she says, "free!!!"

Field Trip Part Two

These are our photos from the field trip.

The gang waiting for the train:

The 4 minutes train ride:

The huge chair was a big hit, except for with Oly who was terrified of it:

Scarlett and Oly waiting patiently for their turn, holding hands:

Swinging!:

Field Trip!

Here are some photos that another Dad took at the field trip Oly's class took last Friday to the grounds at Swarthmore college.  Almost all of the parents were able to trek along, it was so nice for Tim and I to see the kids in their element.  

Oly and Scarlett on one of the huge wooden swings that are around campus:

I think she actually said, "Shane!  Take my picture!  CHEESE!" here:

They figured out that the sides of the granite steps were a great slide:

Snack time.  Scarlett, Natalynn and Olympia

Ong and Reading

Oly hung out with her new friend Natalie this morning (well "new", because she hasn't been on Earth that long- we've known their family for as long as we've lived in Media), she couldn't keep her hands off of her:

How cute are these chubby little girls???

Breaks

For her Birthday, Oly received a gift certificate for a creature at Build-A-Bear Workshop, a store where you, you know, build a bear.  Actually she picked out a kitty.  Here she is cuddling the empty shell:

And getting it all stuffed with fluff:

Giving it an air bath and brushing it's fur:

She named her Breaks and picked out skates and a flyers uniform.  I might have steered her just a little bit toward the uniform, but she really did chose the skates herself first.  

On the drive home from the mall just now she whined and cried and screamed because I wasn't going along with her plan, which was: "Mama we're gonna go hooooome, wait for Papaaaaaa, then go to Lucy and Jasper's and drop Breaks off at the ice skating riiiiiiiiink, then I'll go back home and get my skaaaaaaates and then go back.  Ok?  Is that a deal?" 

In general it's a fantastic plan, we just can't do it all tonight.  Breaks has to wait until this weekend!

Books, Bagels and Stories

There was a small fundraiser at SRV yesterday, a brunch with tasty food, stories being read, and the Book Fair running simultaneously.  We invited Tommy, Ruthie and Charlie, and their Mamas along with us.  They all had an indecent amount of fun.

Here is the head of school, Todd reading aloud.  He just happened to choose some of Oly's favorite books so she spoke over him and recited the whole thing.  I was mortified but I imagine he loved it.

(P.S. I sent this picture to him in an e-mail this morning and he replied, "I LOVED Oly's participation.  She's a treasure......" A true progressive educator.)

Photos that will certainly run during their High School Graduation slide show:

Charlie wants. that. bagel.

Stalling Before Bed

Oly: "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, what if a monster comes and he takes off this teeny, tiny toe with his big sharp teeth?"
Me: "Oh that won't happen because there's no such thing as monsters."
Oly: "No but there is and if he bites off my toe can we buy me a new one?"

Ticket!

We've been opening Oly's birthday presents very slowly, one or two a day.  It's perfect timing for Papa being out of town and her being totally sick of me.  This morning she opened a gift card from Target and exclaimed, "A ticket!"  We went to Target and walked around the toy section for an hour.  She touched every single Barbie, princess and talking army-guy thing, but she picked out a.......

grocery cart full of fake food.

Good job Oly!

Twick 'O Tweet

"Mama come ON!  We need to get candy!"

We went to every house on our block and she came back with about 10 pieces of candy.  She was very excited to come home and hand out treats to bigger kids, although some were dressed a little too scary.  My favorite costume was an 11 year old dressed as a "Cereal Killer".  Gruesome makeup and a fake knife stabbed through a box of Cheerios.  

Tantrum

Oly is sobbing because the Moon can't talk.

New 'Do