Megan's First Day of First Grade
My baby started first grade this year! Megan is growing up so fast, and turning into a young lady before our eyes. After going half-days last year, she has been looking forward to going all day long for quite a while. Her teacher's name is Mrs. Brengel. She wore a special apple dress and bracelet on the first day. On the way home, she asked her daddy when the next summer vacation starts. I'm afraid it might be a long year!
Gone fishing!
We went to Aunt Lori and Uncle Ken's house to celebrate Nana Caroccia's birthday. While we were there, Megan had a chance to fish in the pond. Uncle Ken stocked the pond after he made it, so there are a lot of fish in there. And he goes out to the dock to feed them every night, so that was the "hot spot" for catching them.
Megan's first actual catch was this minnow. She was getting frustrated and just dangled her worm into a pool of minnows. This one bit on and she pulled it out. It was only about 2 inches long, but she was thrilled.
Eventually she caught a bigger fish. This one was 4 or 5 inches long. The kids had a great time. William caught several really big (like 10-12 inches long) ones and they all caught a handful of panfish. Megan fed this one to one of the cats - that made her day.
Here's William and Megan sitting on the dock together. They had fun hanging out. This is one of the rare moments when they were both still and I wasn't worried about one of the kids hooking someone!
And a shot of the "birthday girl". It was Nana's 78th birthday. We really enjoyed being there to celebrate with her.
Look Ma, no wings!
Megan took the plunge this weekend. She decided to give swimming without water wings a try. She took them of and held onto the edge, then said, "Hey Grandpa, watch this!" She was going to try to float, but we convinced her to try to swim instead. Once she realized she
could she would not stop! She was swimming the length of the pool, on her own, by the end of the day.
Here she comes!
and there she goes. She was so proud of herself and we were very proud of her too. I think she could have done it long ago, but just needed to work up the courage.
And a shot of Molly just because. She still swims with her water wings for now, but I bet she'll give them up next summer. She's a daredevil and doesn't like to be left behind by her big sister.
Tooth Pillow
Megan is on the verge of losing a tooth or two. For the past year, she has watched several friends lose their first (and later!) tooth and wish she was among them. Earlier this summer, we started to notice that her two bottom teeth were getting loose and now they seem to be on the verge of coming out.
Like any good crafty mommy, I decided to make her a tooth fairy pillow. After looking at a few tutorials online, she settled on
this one from the Felt-o-rama blog. Of course, I didn't have any felt on hand, so I had to make a trip the the fabric store before we could begin - darn!
Once I got home, she wanted to get started right away. She helped with every aspect of the design - selecting buttons for the eyes and nose as well as the fabric for the layered skirt. We couldn't decide which ribbon to use, so we made the loop from one and trimmed the skirt with the other. I have to make another trip to the craft store to pick up sparkly pipe-cleaners for the wings - I thought we had some, but apparently they have all been used. Megan is very pleased with her pillow and now furiously wiggling her tooth so that she can put it to use!
Close-up photo courtesy of Megan :)
