Vacation shots, part 1

The forests of Mt. Hood!  This is nature's see-saw.

There was a hot tub, woods to adventure in, and some weird homemade sword that our friend Daniel found in the creek.  CREEPY. 
I tried to take a lot more pictures, but they were blurry.  I blame the camera.

Family selfie

"Mama, let's take a selfie!"

Tooth victory

After wiggling it all week, and spending half a day talking with her teeth clenched together for no understandable reason, I decided to give Scarlett a carmel and told her to chew with her front teeth.  Four seconds later, voila, the tooth was out.  Then I had to buy her another carmel because she didn't want that first one anymore.

Before:

After:

My lovely girl Cathedral Park:

Baby's First Loose Tooth

Scarlett has two loose front bottom row teeth.  She is ecstatic.  She can't sleep, because she is too busy wiggling her teeth.  I told her that summertime is no fun without teeth to eat with, so she shouldn't hurry the teeth out, because she doesn't believe me.

Scar-ism

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week at Scarlett's school. We love her teachers, we want to appreciate them hardcore, so we've brought coffee beans and chocolate and some beads for the classroom.  There were also some homemade activities set up for the kids to do, one was writing a wish for your teachers or class or school, and dropping it into a wishing well.  Scarlett wrote "I wish that everyone could have everything they want."  (I translated underneath, since her spelling and handwriting are still works in progress.)

I thought that was a lovely wish, and I asked, what would you wish for, for yourself?  She said "I would wish for a thousand Arnies!"

Scarism

"I have a good idea of what we can do with caramel.  We can make a sculpture of the Titanic!"

 This kid here always has the Titanic on her mind:

Our Happenings

About a month ago, Scarlett found a molar popping through, in the lower right of her mouth.  When she turned five, she told us that five is the year you lose teeth.  She's excited for that.  We said- 5 to 8 is when you'll lose teeth, dear, so it might not be this year.  But she's pretty insistent.

The molar is a good distraction, in the meantime.

She's started reading, and she's shy about it.  But it's pretty sweet, once she gets going. She likes to find words that appear several times on a page, then she points them out.  She likes words that end in 'ing' because mostly, she can sound those out.  She is planning a bbq of food and drink that she can spell.  It started with beef, beets and beer, but has graduated to including cupcakes and mushrooms. 

Run for the Arts

At the Run for the Arts fundraiser, at her school, Scarlett ran a mile & a half around the parking lot.  With some stops for water and fruit and to sit on curbs (like mother, like daughter).  But she kept going, maybe because she had to run 12 full laps to get a t-shirt. 

At one point, she and her buddies sat down on a curb.  But then, their teacher ran by, and dared them to follow, and they jumped up and went after her.  It was all kinds of adorable.

Easter (belated)

I wrote this and never posted it, what a waste.  So, here we are, but late:

We hit up an Easter party at the park- with bouncy houses, face painting, and a helicopter that dropped the eggs down in a circle, while all the kids watched.  They separated the egg hunts by age group, so Scarlett with with the 5 to 7 year olds, and I was a little worried that she wouldn't move quick enough or would get run over by more experienced egg-hunters.  I remember an early Easter, when she found one egg, then ran over to us smiling, focused on that egg, while all the others were gobbled up.  Or a time recently with a pinata, she was so entranced by the candy that she only picked up one piece.
But her competitive spirit showed up, and she filled up that basket then ran back over, smiling.