Rebekah and the Rats

I'll start this by explaining that on the particular day these photos were taken, Rebekah was having some hair issues. She went to bed the previous night with her hair slightly damp from her bath, which made it even more wild than usual when she woke up the next morning. She decided that morning that she would have nothing to do with pony tails, headbands or even a small clip. She informed me in a very matter-of-fact way that "Hawaiian girls wear their hair plain!" So now we can add culture lessons to the list of all the things she is teaching me.

On Monday, Rebekah's class had a field trip to Hoffer's Tropic Life Pets. It has got to be one of the neatest pet stores I have ever been in, if you live anywhere nearby and need a fun birthday party idea, they do one of the best birthday parties ever!

We started the field trip in their classroom where a bunch of animals were waiting to greet the children.

The first animal we saw was this cute hedgehog. I learned that the German word for hedgehog is Igel. Which made a recent conversion I had with the girls about an "eagle" make so much more sense.

A note to my mom: Mom, this is the part where you will probably want to look away, just skip the rest of this post in it's entirety ~ it's too gross. I'll post new photos of the girls soon, and you'll enjoy that a lot more than this.

These were the second animals we got to meet. Many of the children were a little scared. I said a silent prayer that Rebekah would be one of those children.

No, Rebekah, don't do it!

Really?!? You are scared of most dogs, but you're happy to put your face that close to a rat?

The white rat was too much cuteness for her to resist.

We saw so many cool and unique animals at Hoffer's like...

This softie chinchilla...

These tortoises that Rebekah and Amy raced across the table...

This bearded dragon eating a worm...{gross but true: our gecko attacks crickets in this same way. Just when I thought I was warming up to the cute little guy}

The kids each got to take a turn holding a sea star...

And see baby sea stars that were even smaller than their little fingernails...

Everyone marveled at the store's Nemo tank where all the fish friends from the movie make their home.

We fed the koi...

And saw the alligators.

When this snake slithered it's way into the insturctor's shirt sleeve...

Rebekah managed to offer a hesitant smile in gentle support. I guess she's smiling and doesn't mind that the snake is making it's way closer and closer to her neck, so I should smile too.

After all that excitement and fun, this is still the image from the day that is burned into my memory:

One Fine March Day

We have had the most beautiful early Spring weather! All these photos are from two weekends ago, and we have had a few chillier days since then, but really nothing to complain about for March.

I took this photo feeling surprised that well before Easter it was clear that the daffodils were ready to bloom anytime. Less than 24 hours later they did, and now the side yard is a sea of yellow.

With the weather getting warm again it was time for our annual lining up of the neighborhood children for height assessment. Just kidding, we don't measure the kids. I'm not sure what they are doing, but lined up like this they looked like those Russian nesting dolls, or one of those weeble wobble toys where the biggest one opens up and all the smaller pieces hop out in size order.

It was all fun and games until the littlest one ran away...

...and then the chase was on!

It was wonderful to have my mom visit for the weekend.

Who would have guessed that St. Patrick's Day would be the perfect day for getting the bikes out of the garage {giving this little one the chance to get confident on hers after a long winter break}...

Sunbathing...

And eating ice cream outside?? The month of March doesn't get much better than this. Happy Spring!!

a bad case of the irish chicken pox...

When we arrived at the gym yesterday many of Emma's teammates had drawn freckles on their cheeks with a green sharpie in the spirit of St. Patrick's Day. Emma decided that due to her strong Irish heritage, she needed some too.

With some help from her friend, Hallie, she went a little overboard and it ended up looking more like a rare form of green chicken pox.  I hope they clear up soon, she has a meet tomorrow, and her cheeks are still all splotchy green :-)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Germany Under Glass

The first weekend in March the Mitchell Domes hosted Germany Under Glass. There was a lot of German music, dancing, crafts and food and the Kindergruppe that Rebekah dances with was invited to perform.

Some of the girls before they got lined up to perform.

Rebekah enjoying the dance. This was such a change from the Christmas party when she refused to dance. She is seeming like such a grown up little girl lately.

Here is a video of their dance. It's a little bit of a hodge podge of a few dances put together, but I wanted to share a clip of a few different dances without making this video too long.

I like her tiny side eye smile to the camera every so often and how she and Claire look lost at the two minute mark when the music starts and they clearly have no idea which dance to do. At least they caught on pretty quickly.

Most of the children from Kinder Gruppe.

Face painting fun.

Decorating traditional German Lebkuchen Heart cookies.

Without glancing at the photo above which kinda gives it away, can you guess which of our girls each of these cookies belongs to?

The girls went on a scavenger hunt to find all the ladybugs hidden in the three domes. Looking through the pictures I took, I realized that I should have taken a picture of the outside of the domes for anyone who isn't local and can't picture what they might look like. There are 3 pretty big greenhouse-like domes, two of them always stay the same, the Tropical dome, and the Arid dome. The third dome is a "show dome" and the theme changes about 4 times a year...it's a very neat place to visit. Especially on a gloomy winter day {even though we didn't have too many of those this year} when pretty flowers like orchids and Queen Emma Lilies and funny things like baby toes, sausage trees and chocolate pudding trees brighten our day.

In the tropical dome.

The real Hawaiian Princess Ka'iulani loved banyan trees, her father planted many of them in her yard at I'olani Palace so she could play in their shade. So each time we visit the domes, I always take a photo of our Princess Ka'iulani by the only banyan tree I know of in our area.

My sweet and happy little German dancer. I seriously cannot get enough of that dress, I would let her wear it everyday if she asked to.

The current theme in the show dome is Fantasy Garden Train Show, although I think it changes either this weekend or next week. As always, it was so pretty.

The miniature floral trees that the tracks went through.

One of the crafts that the girls were able to try were the folded paper ornaments on this tree. It was hard!

Alyssa showing my mom her intricate paper folding.

Thank you G&G for coming to see Rebekah dance!! It was a lot of fun. I wanted to use a German word here that I see used a lot to describe our day: Gemütlichkeit, but I wasn't sure that I was using it correctly. I think it means happy or fun times, but I don't know for sure. I wish I would have ever gotten around to taking the German classes offered to the parents at our school :-)

A Pinata, a Pot of Gold, and a Patriot

Alyssa finished her lion pinata!

During the process of layering the paper strips over the balloons, it was hard to imagine that there was a lion just waiting to appear in all the mess. I think I have paper mache goo {aka camel snot} permanently dried to the upholstery of our kitchen table chairs. Good thing we already had plans to re-upholster them. But Alyssa is so proud of her lion, and tomorrow night during "Festival of Nations" at her school, it will be for sale. Her teacher told the kids she planned to sell them for $3-$5, Alyssa is sure hers is worth the $5 price tag! I was really proud that she completed the whole project with extremely little help from me or Dave.

For the German Immersion Foundation Auction and Dinner that is coming up later in the month, each classroom at the elementary school was given a cute little garden gnome that we had to re-design. Think miniature Cows on Parade.

I was really intimidated by helping with the project because I am not at all crafty, but I thought both Rebekah and Emma's class gnomes came out nicely. This is Rebekah's kindergarten class', "Luck of the Irish" gnome. My friend gave me the idea to make the gnome into a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and Rebekah's teacher did a great job making our gnome gold! I had the kids use Q-Tips to paint the rainbow, and we glued it to a foam board with a map of Ireland on it. There is a wrinkle in the rainbow that happened as our paint dried. We are going to try to fix that before the gnome is auctioned off.

The 3rd graders have been learning about the United States, so I wanted to incorporate that into their gnome. The kids did such a great job painting up the individual pieces I cut out for them. Basically all I did was glue everything together and touch up little areas where the paint didn't cover what we intended for it to. We are excited and hopeful that these gnome projects made by all the children will contribute to a fun and successful fundraising event for our schools! The kids certainly worked hard on them!!

Rebekah's Recent Artwork

Rebekah has never loved doing things that require a lot of small motor concentration. She likes to draw and color, especially with markers, but even the things she really enjoys can fatigue her pretty easily, and she gets frustrated if she makes a mistake. Cutting and writing have reduced her to tears at times.

In January, Rebekah's teacher sent home a note saying how much her handwriting was improving. Then in February, Rebekah was so enthusiastic about the Black History unit they worked on. She brought home several pieces of artwork that are much more detailed than her previous work, and I can tell she is working hard to make her letters the appropriate size.

She loved telling us about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and Ruby Bridges. She refers to them mostly by their first names only which is so cute.

It's just a small thing, but I am so thankful for her recent progress. She now asks me to sit down and write things with her! For the first time this year, writing out her valentines was actually FUN for her. She'll call to me when I am in the kitchen and ask me to spell something for her and then she'll proudly march into the kitchen with her notebook to show it to me...and she never used to enjoy doing this kind of thing at all!

Rebekah's sweet smelling hands sprinkled with jello sugar.

She is such a little muffin...when Alyssa asked her the other day if she wanted to go upstairs to play with her, Rebekah replied, No, I'm just going to stay by Mommy. She's my best friend. Now I can just hope she will feel that way forever :-)! I love her sweet little heart.