Peter’s best friend, Jacob, celebrated his 5th birthday with a train themed party - combined with his sister’s 8th birthday.
His mom, Angelina, asked if I would design the invitation. So I designed an invitation. And then Mike re-drew it because I suck at drawing. Angelina loved it. And I loved Mike’s cows. I think I may redesign this website around those cows.
Jacob/Jenna’s birthday was a huge affair with over 80 invitees. They had a jump house:
And they had a train. Of course that was a big hit:
Peter’s preschool friend, Laird, also celebrated his 5th birthday this summer. He threw a pool party. Peter also got to see some old preschool friends he hadn’t seen in a year.
Peter’s 6 weeks of swim classes have come to an end. Frankly, I’m kinda glad. Having to take him to class 4 days/week for 6 weeks gets tiresome. This summer he didn’t advance a level. He’s still in level 3 (4 is the highest). He still needs to perfect his breaststroke and backstroke before they pass him. I’m just glad that he can actually swim now and tread water from a safety aspect. Although I don’t have enough confidence in his skills to let him swim unsupervised or in deep water without a vest. But overall, I think he did real well. Peter would like to continue swimming during the school year but that would involve going to a pricey indoor swim school so he may just have to wait until Spring.
Besides swim class, we’ve also been going to the pool almost every weekend this summer. Next year, I’ll definitely invest in a family pool pass. Mike and I have enjoyed the swimming as much as Peter. And we all have tans now to boot.
It’s been a very busy few weeks. I had volunteered a lot for Peter’s preschool. I took the graduate/undergraduate/group pictures, created the yearly slideshow, and designed/burned a photo CD for each student. The single shots of all the kids were difficult enough just getting them to look at the camera and smile. The group shot of all 25 kids was a nightmare. I definitely will not volunteer for something like that again.
Of course, Peter wasn’t looking at the camera in his picture:
The graduation ceremony was last week. It went really well. And I made it through without getting teary eyed. Mike’s mom came down so she could attend as well:
Best friends: Jacob, Peter, and Nicholas
Watching the slideshow:
Video: (Peter is 3rd during walking; 3rd from the right during the singing)
This closes the preschool chapter of Peter’s life…
Baseball class first started off a little rough. Even with only 4 other kids in the class, Peter was intimated and acted shy on the first day. I had to join along side him for the first 10mins just to get him to participate. But after that, he was fine and had no shyness the rest of class. He really seemed to enjoy the class especially running the bases.
Then, the following week his best friend from Preschool, Nicholas, joined the class. So now he’s really having a fun time. They will be going to different Elementary schools in the fall so we’re hoping to get them involved in a sports class together so they can continue to see each other. Nicholas always wants to hold Peter’s hand when they are near each other. It’s pretty cute. He’s an only child as well.
Easter was pretty low-key for us. It was just the 3 of us hanging out on a cloudy/sometimes rainy day. It started with Peter searching for eggs in the morning. Mike had hid them the night before. While collecting the eggs, Peter said “Mom, the Easter Bunny did not do a good job. He didn’t even hid them.” I guess Mike needs to work on his hiding skills for next year.
His Super Mario-themed Easter basket made up for the easy hunt:
I think Mike was as excited as Peter:
Peter telling me about his new toys:
The rest of the day we spent doing some Easter crafts:
And we rode bikes to the park (something we’ve been doing every day when it’s not raining):
We walked in our local St. Patrick’s Day Parade with Peter’s preschool. It was a first for all of us. Peter had a blast and wants to do it again next year. All the parents helped out with making the float. I spent about 6hrs on making the green tissue paper grass. One of the dad’s built the wood float platform. He engineered it so he could move it like a Flintstones car and have steering control from inside. We had the only float that wasn’t being towed by a vehicle. I guess you could call it a “green” float. Unfortunately about half-way through the parade, the steering cable snapped so they could only control it by pulling and pushing it. Still overall we had a fun time!
Inspired by the movie Up!:
We had lots of balloons:
After the steering cable snapped, Mike had to help the dads by pulling it:
At the start of the parade when the float worked great:
