Happy Birthday Isabel

Today is Isabel’s Birthday! For the special occasion we have decided to have a Dora and Diego themed birthday party with family and friends from school tomorrow. Jeannie, Aaron, and Shianne (Shi) drove over this afternoon from Eastern Washington to help us celebrate tonight and tomorrow as well. To get her party started for today, we went out to dinner tonight with everyone. We went over to our favorite Italian restaurant the Flying Tomato. We shared a pizza with Jeannie, Aaron, Isabel and myself. While Gino had a chicken dish with pasta and Shi had mac and cheese. Yum! Afterward we headed home and opened our gifts to Isabel.

Since we had guests, Jeannie was so nice to get a family birthday photo before Isabel opened her gifts.

Since Makayla wasn’t able to attend Isabel’s party tomorrow, her mother brought her gift to school today. So we decided to let her open it with the gifts that we had gotten her.

Quick photo with Shi and Aaron…silly kiddo!

Littlest Pet Shop Dancing Dog. This little gal is so cute! She is a speaker, a flashing light dancer, and a dog (barks, growls, whines, and sneezes). She can be linked to any musical portable device (MP3) and she dances and flashes lights to the music. She also has prerecorded music as well. Just touch her nose and get ready to dance! Isabel loves it!

A few new clothes.

A new microphone… since the one from Christmas was returned for not working properly and it works well with our birthday party theme tomorrow! (Aaron loved this toy, the whole weekend he and Isabel would dance and dance and dance… Shi got in some dancing too!)

A new soccer ball for all that soccer playing that will be happening!

Makayla’s gifts to Isabel. The books were a huge hit, she (we) loves the Berenstain Bears (we have videos and now lots more books!). Thank you so very much Makayla for the special gifts. BTW… Isabel named her new doll Makayla!

Now it’s off to bed… tomorrow is going to be an even BIGGER day and we have got to get some sleep otherwise we’ll be grumpy!

School News: Special Helper Day

Today, I went to class with Isabel to be the Mommy helper on her special helper day, which was also her BIRTHDAY!

After opening with prayer and thanking Jesus for our special friends, Nevan (whose birthday was yesterday) and Isabel. The class sang a few songs and then Mrs. Calvert read to us a story about hibernation and animals that hibernate. Afterward, everyone headed over to the tables to do a few projects before heading to the gym for recess.

Today the class worked on the number 5. Great job Makayla and Isabel.

Afterward, we got painting shirts on and painted a hibernating animal… a bear.

Makayla and Isabel were so cute together at the special helper table, whispering to one another but when I approached the table would fall silent. So funny!

After everyone painted their bear  and clean-up was complete, we headed into the gym (since it was raining outside) to play a few games.

Here all the kids are acting like crabs but later they acted liked like other animals too…a frog was one of them!

After acting like animals the kids sat down to play duck-duck-goose. Since Isabel was the birthday girl, she got to go first and picked Makayla as the goose.
It was really interesting to see the interaction with the kids before, during, and after the game of duck-duck-goose. After playing duck-duck-goose we split up, headed to the bathrooms and washed hands and took a potty break if we had to.

While I waited for the girls to finish, I watched them make moose faces in the mirror. Isabel didn’t want to do it but it was great to watch the others do it!

Back in the classroom, we had cupcakes and milk for snack to celebrate Isabel’s birthday. When snack time was over, the kids went right into “free-play”.

They gather at the sensory table to explore with dyed lentils, magnets, and alphabet letters.

Later I found the birthday girl, hibernating in the bear cave. Just a few minutes after I took this picture, Aiden, Zackary, and Isabel were asked to keep the noise down. They had been playing in the bear cave and were growling like bears at each other. The noise level went from minimal to very loud very quickly. Mrs. Calvert got to them quickly and reminded them to use inside voices. I guess, it’s to be expected when you’ve talking about bears (and other animals that growl) and theres a cave in the classroom.

After getting asked to keep the noise down, Isabel put on a mask and played “Narnia” by herself.

When Isabel rang the clean-up bell, everyone pitched in to get the room back into order before show and tell and closing prayer. Everyone gathered back on the circle-time rug, while Isabel shared with the class her show and tell. For show and tell, she took her LeapFrog: Tag™ and her Fancy Nancy Explorer Extraordinaire book! Isabel gave the closing prayer and then it was time to go! So fun to see the kids interact with each other! Love it.