Love notes

A woman at the table

Art class today

A drawing of Dorothy's room: yellow walls, green and white carpet, bed, dresser, picture wall, garland of bows, colorful lamp, and Legos on the floor

Uni - cycle

The Sunday Funnies

Dorothy plays with a friend who is into dinosaurs -- the girl crawls around on her hands and knees and roars.  This isn't really up Dorothy's alley, but she has compromised with the friend and will play dinosaur.  This is the dinosaur she agrees to:  "Its name is Dorothy-o-saurus and it's purple, it stays a baby forever, it lives forever, it eats plants, it can walk on two feet, it can jump over a tree, and it learns how to protect itself as soon as it's born."

Dorothy refers to her hem as "the rim of her dress."

Dorothy took this picture which makes it look like Brian didn't do all the work hanging our new lights by himself

This is our home compared to the local Krispy Kreme

 

Virtual PE

Video:  https://youtu.be/UzkCyaw0YdI

Beloved fox hat

Picking up our worksheet packets at school

Some assembly required

Dorothy bought a bike with her Christmas money

The Sunday Funnies

Dorothy has taken to walking around the house while she brushes her teeth, and jokes that she's pretending to be me.  "I'm pretending to be you again," she told me, toothbrush in hand.  I laughed and said, "Goodnight, Dorothy."  "Goodnight, Sarah," she corrected me.

Dorothy was writing a sentence for school.  "Yes, so they can have another adventure" was her answer.  She completed "Yes, so they can have a" and asked me, "So, how do you spell 'nother?'"

I praised Dorothy's reading, and said, "You're reading almost as well as me."  She replied, "Yeah, you can't keep any secrets from me, unless you write it in cursive."

Dorothy issued a threat:  "If you don't let me stay up and finish these books, I'm going to read them straight away when I wake up tomorrow morning.  I'm going to read all four of them, and I'm going to do it before I even wake you up."  (And she did follow-through.)

Dorothy was making plans for the following day, and described her 8 o'clock plans as "At 8 and 8:59 and all through there."

Popcorn and a movie

And...schools here are back to fulltime virtual

Spot the reader

Dorothy made some musical notations for music class and performed them

Video: https://youtu.be/i1QYynykhk4

Christmas Morning Flashback

 

The Sunday Funnies

Dorothy has a chapter book to read over the holiday and a "book club" Q-&-A to complete.  In chapter 8, the character Jack encounters a T-Rex and can't decide what to do; at the chapter's end, a friendly Pteranodon appears to scoop him up and fly him away.  Her questionnaire asks, "Do you think it is a good idea for Jack to run from the T-Rex?  Why or why not?"  "No," Dorothy answered, "because the Pteranodon is already flying away with him."

We have a large pump body wash in the shower.  Dorothy was near the end of her shower, and I asked, "Did you wash your feet?"  "Yes," Dorothy answered.  "I used a whole new push of soap for my feet."

These fuzzy cuties were a Christmas gift craft

Good age for Uno

On the 6th Day of Christmas, patience paid off

See those 2 front teeth? Dorothy wants them gone. Lots of wiggling around here.

Christmas Eve Flashback

 

Santa brought a tablet

The Sunday Funnies

Dorothy was drawing trees in a forest, and each one was distinct and asymmetrical.  "Look at my out-of-shape trees," she said.

Dorothy kept asking to go to the playground, and I kept making other suggestions.  "Why do you keep dis-encouraging me from going to the playground?  Every time I say I want to go to the playground, you dis-encourage me."

We were on the third morning of Christmas vacation, and Dorothy came into my room where I was sleeping and woke me up:  "Mom, I want to go to open the Lego calendar, but I wanted to wake you up first, because once Daddy sees me, he won't let me come back here and wake you up."

If you mention that Dorothy's front tooth is getting looser, she'll break into a loud series of "Th...th...th..." to illustrate.

Dorothy watches Lego videos online and has learned the lingo.  Now she'll describe any character, including baby dolls, by their various joints:  "This Baby Born Surprise has five articulations:  her neck, and both arms and both legs."

Family Christmas Selfie

Merry Christmas to all!

Ready

Checkin' my stocks

Cookie decorating!

Thanks to U Daniel & A Valerie for the Advent gift!

Bass Pro Shop Through the Years*

 

*I can feel your judgment.  Bass Pro Shop offered appointments and a 5-minute adventure to take pictures with Santa behind plexiglass, and we went in early November!

The Sunday Funnies

Dorothy was drawing pictures of members of our family.  She described, "I drew Daddy's glasses.  I gave Daddy his swirly hair also."

Dorothy wanted to play Uno.  "Ok, but remember that it's a no-crying game," I said, "because crying spoils the fun."  "Ok," Dorothy replied, "I'm gonna try to win so I don't cry."

We watched The Christmas Chronicles, and the little girl climbs into Santa's bag.  She fits her whole body into the bag, travels through a swirling tunnel of gifts, and enters an Amazon-type warehouse of wrapped presents.  The scene carried on for two or three minutes, and Dorothy finally observed, "The bag is much bigger than it seemed."

The next day we watched The Christmas Chronicles 2, where an airline employee gets into the spirit of Christmas and breaks into song with Santa Claus.  In the next shot, her uniform has turned into a sparkly red and silver costume as she belts a number.  "Where did she get that dress?" I asked.  "Maybe Target," Dorothy replied with sincerity.

"Why do your teeth get pointy if you suck your thumb?" Dorothy asked.  "They don't," I said.  "Where did you hear that?"  "You told me!" Dorothy replied.  I thought about it, and told her, "I think I said that your teeth get pokey if you suck your thumb, but I meant that they will poke out because they'll move."  Dorothy paused and looked slightly worried, and then said, "Oh well, my friends that I told that to probably forgot by now, right?  I mean, that was at St. James."

Needs a little more tinsel

Care Bear goes to school for Polar Express Day

Weekend progress on the backyard

Dorothy took a picture of her "reindeer trap," a school assignment

Dorothy designed and (with a little help) made this Zoom ornament for her teacher

Jump rope at the lunch bus stop

The Sunday Funnies

Dorothy was hoping that a particular Lego design would be unveiled in her Lego calendar that day.  "You have a 1 in 16 chance," I told her.  "A 1 out of 16 chance," she corrected me.

I walked by Dorothy's room.  She looked up and said, "Mama, I'm actually cleaning-up!"

Dorothy was learning to jump rope.  She's much better now.  But on the first day, after rhyming "Cinderella dressed in yellow..." many times, she complained, "I always mess up at Cinde-!"

Dorothy is obsessed with Legos right now.  She likes to build the set according to the directions one time, but mostly she is interested in designing her own creations.  For this reason, she gets excited about useful unique pieces.  When she opened the 10th day of her Lego Advent calendar, I saw an adorable moveable elf station for decorating tiny cookies; Dorothy exclaimed, "Yay!  A hinge!"

Dorothy was excited when I picked her up from school because she had received coupons for free food at Wendy's.  We read the coupons, which included a frosty and French fries, and Dorothy asked, "Is the French fry coupon just for French fries, or for ketchup, too?"

Chelsea on Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures must have made a big stack of pancakes, because Dorothy wanted to make chocolate chip pancakes after watching the movie.  I served her pancakes, and she requested that I stack them up, and then that I add syrup, and then that I make the syrup dribble over the sides.  The next day, she requested again to make chocolate chip pancakes, and this time requested all the same presentation, plus a big pat of butter that she had apparently forgotten the day before.

I asked if Dorothy would like a quesadilla for dinner, and she said, "Yes, but only if Daddy makes it."  "You liked the one I made yesterday," I said.  "You gave it two thumbs up."  "Yes," Dorothy explained, "but that was with ketchup on it.  Daddy's is two thumbs up just by itself."

Dorothy's handprint on our new cement

Evening yoga

Pretzel views

Come see the amazing Pretzel Girl!

Stomp rockets this weekend

Watching the concrete pour

 

The Sunday Funnies

I told Dorothy, "I notice that you walked yourself into the school yesterday without a teacher.  Do you know your way to your classroom?"  Dorothy answered, "Not really.  The door keeps changing."  "The door keeps changing?" I repeated.  "Does your classroom change?"  "No," she said, "the door keeps changing into different holidays."

Dorothy asked what literate meant.  I told her, and she said, "Oh, I'm a literate."  "No, you're not -- you can read," I said.  "That's what I said," she responded.  "I'm a literate."

Cozy

Lego Advent calendar (aka Dorothy's reason to get up in the morning)