Butterflies
Kaira's class was studying different insects, and while working on butterflies actually brought live caterpillars in and got to watch them as they made their chrysalis, and then as they emerged at butterflies. There were two caterpillars, which they named Fatty Patty and Fuzzy Wuzzy. On the day of Fall Carnival, the first one (Fatty Patty, I think), came out of its chrysalis. The first picture is of Kaira standing next to the net/cage that the butterflies were being kept in (it's a little hard to see), and the second one is a close-up of the newly emerged butterfly... so new, it was still shaking out it's wings to try to dry them off!
1st Grade Bibles
The first graders have a special church service where they are presented their very own bible, complete with their name embossed on the cover. They get to keep these Bibles in their class all year to study, and then get to bring them home to keep at the end of the year. These are a few pictures of the special church service where they got their Bibles.
Fall is Here!
We are finally starting to get a few chilly days here and there, and Kaira was excited to wear one of her new sweaters to school. You can actually also see our pumpkins in the background... Kaira named each of them. If you look close, you can probably see the little name tags she made for them - 'Big Papa', 'Big Mama', 'Little Jr.' and 'Little Sara'.
Kid's Council
Kaira is a member of the Kid's Council, a kids' volunteer group to help teach kids to do nice things for others. It is through one of the local Children's Hospitals, and they meet a few times a year to do projects to benefit the kids that are in the hospital. This time the kids got together to decorate bags that will be filled and given out to the children for Halloween. They also had a little station where the kids could get their fingers casted to get a little idea of what it feels like to have a cast on.
Birthday Cupcakes
Kaira got to have a little party at school with her classmates for her birthday, and so of course I had to send cupcakes for the party. Since they had just finished studying butterflies, and Kaira really likes them anyway, I decided to try out a new idea I had seen and make Butterfly cupcakes. They turned out very cute and Kaira loved them...
Kaira wanted to have her birthday party at SciPort - she loves that place and they really do have awesome birthday parties. They have a bunch of different themes to pick from, and she chose the Under the Sea theme one.
The Cake
I make Kaira's birthday cake for her every year, and so this year was a real challenge to make an 'Under the Sea' masterpiece. It ended up turning out great and I am quite proud of my cake, so wanted to put in a few pictures of my handiwork... one of my best yet!
Party at SciPort!
For the 'Under the Sea' themed party, the kids got to pass around jars with anemones, jelly fish, and other sea creatures in them. Then they got to make their own jelly fish. They mixed together some stuff in a cup (I'm not really sure what it was), and as they were mixing, it turned into this slime-like goo. Lokei's face is priceless!
Then they put the goo into baggies that were cut to have tentacles on the end, and tied off the jelly part. Ta-da... jellyfish! Then they made Oceans in a Bottle - they started with water bottles of blue water, added sand and mini seashells, then added some baby oil on the top for 'waves'. Presto... instant 'Ocean in a Bottle'
After Kaira had stirred it up real good... it needed to be frozen, right? Well, at SciPort they do things a little differently. To freeze the ice cream in a hurry, they brought out... Liquid Nitrogen!! The kids all had to move back while the party host wore special gear to handle the -320 degree liquid nitrogen. Was VERY cool to watch!
And then it was time for cake...
Birthday Dinner
Kaira got to choose where we were going out to eat for her birthday dinner, and she chose 'the peanut place'... Logan's Steakhouse (where they let you throw the peanut shells on the floor). Earlier in the day, we took Kaira and Lokei to the Build-A-Bear store. Lokei made her first ever build-a-bear... or actually cat, a gray one that she named Smokey. And Kaira made a bunny, which she named Susie. They both brought their new friends with them to dinner.
After her party was over at SciPort, we let the girls stay and play at SciPort for quite a while longer. And then when they were done, we headed off to dinner. So it wasn't until late, when we got home from dinner, that it was time for... presents!!! For the sake of conciseness, I left out pictures of most of the gifts she got from her friends... which included a Barbie (oh no! we've managed to avoid them until now! And even worse - it's a 'Totally Nails Barbie' that comes with color changing nails for doll and fake press-on nails for the girl to wear - yikes!), several bottlecap necklaces which are popular with the girls at her school, and a science set to learn all about light (from Jocelyn). Lokei picked out a book for Kaira, called 'The Littlest Llama' that came with a little stuffed llama, which Kaira was very excited about.
Because it was so late, we decided after opening the presents from her classmates & friends that we would save the rest of the presents for the following morning. We started the morning with a belated birthday breakfast (we had somewhere to be early on the morning of her birthday, so postponed the big breakfast a day).
Then after a good breakfast, we moved on to the business of opening the rest of the presents....
Presents from Grammy...
And then presents from Mia, who is still recovering from hip surgery only a couple weeks prior, and is awesome for somehow still managing to get a package and card out in the mail on time!
And a few of the gifts from Mommy...
More new clothes for her Build-A-Bear... a robe (just like hers!) and PJ's for her dog... and a soccer outfit too! [notice her dog and bunny, and Lokei's cat all lined up and tucked in on the couch in the background!]. And also a magnet set - she was pretty excited about this... she's been wanting it for a while
A new book... a kit for her to make her own book... and a fashion drawing studio...
And... a microscope! I told Kaira that every good scientist needs a microscope, and she told me, 'well good thing I got one, cause I'm a scientist!'.
Haha. Yes, I am raising a science nerd. :)
A quick thank you to everyone who sent cards & gifts for Kaira's birthday. We are working on getting thank you notes out in the mail, but in the meantime, I wanted to thank Judy (aka Grammy), Mom (aka Mia), Oma, Aunt Donna, Uncle Michael, Uncle Mike, Uncle Kevin, Elsie (aka GiGi), Gayle & Lokei for all of the birthday wishes that made this a very special year!
Kaira posing at the entrance to the place, next to the scarecrows
The Corn Maze
Duck Races
There was also a place set up with old fashioned water pumps that the kids could pump water from to try to race ducks down a ramp. Kaira had tons of fun with this and we spent quite a while racing the ducks back and forth. Towards the end, she decided to see just how many ducks she could pile up all at once and still race down the ramp.
The 'Crop Hopper'
It was just this giant inflatable jump pad. Kaira got up and started bouncing on it. After a minute, I decided it looked like too much fun and had to get up there with her. Jacqueline seemed a bit skeptical, but after watching us bounce for a minute, she too decided that it looked like entirely too much fun to miss out on. At one point, we looked around and there were about a dozen adults, and about 2 kids on the thing. The grown-ups definitely had a lot of fun on this one. It's rare to find a jump pad large enough to be able to support so many adults too. It was a blast!
Horse Swing
Face Painting
Kaira got her face painted while were there too
Hay Ride & Pumpkin Patch
After having all that fun, we finally decided to get down to the serious business of picking a pumpkin. There was a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch, and then we got to tromp through the patch to pick our own perfect pumpkin.
Birthday presents from daddy...
Maggie Lee for Good Day
Last summer, a group of kids, teens, and adult chaperones went on a church trip - and many of the kids were from Kaira's school. In a very unfortunate turn of events, the bus carrying the church group got in an accident and sadly, one of the girls who was a 6th grader at Kaira's school died a couple weeks later in the ICU from the injuries. To try to make good of a bad situation, the school decided to honor her birthday by having all of the students do good deeds for other... Maggie Lee for Good Day. Aside from being encouraged to do nice deeds outside of school, each class also picked a class project for this day as well. As Maggie Lee was a dog lover, Kaira's class decided to all bring in dog food, treats, towels, blankets, etc to donate to the local animal shelter. Kaira and I volunteered to drive the supplies down to the shelter to drop them off. As a side note, we will soon start volunteering at the shelter - Kaira tried to talk me into taking some of the animals home. Seeing as we already have a full house, I agreed instead to come play with the animals at the shelter, but not take any more adoptees into our house (2 dogs and a cat is enough!). So more pictures on that to come soon! The picture is of Kaira and her class and some of the stuff they collected to donate to the shelter.
A couple other pictures from Kaira's school... the 4th graders performed a skit for Kaira's class - Little Red Riding Hood. The picture is of the actors sitting with her class afterwards. And the second picture is of Kaira's class, the Star Bears, enjoying some quality bear time! :)
Kaira's class also did a creating writing project where they were each sent home with a paper frog to cut out and decorate, and then they had to write a story to go along with it. They were to 'dress up' their Froggy for halloween and write a story about what happened with froggy on halloween. Then they had a Froggy Halloween party to celebrate. Kaira's Froggy and story are still at school on display (I didn't think to take pictures before she turned them in), so will have to get pictures of them later when they come back home. But this is a picture from their party...
Jack-o-Lantern
We got a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch (above), and of course we had to carve it for Halloween. It was a joint effort - I drew the face, and Kaira helped to design it (she was the one who decided on the crazy buck teeth and the curvy nose).
