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.
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…
We’ve been hanging out a lot with Peter’s preschool friends, Jacob and Nicholas. I wish we had started this earlier in the year since preschool ends in just 2 weeks.
Our visit to Happy Hollow park & zoo in San Jose:
Roller coaster:
The very cool play structure:
Playtime at Chuck E Cheese:
Playing mini-golf in Jacob’s backyard:
At a park:
Even Peter’s neighbor friend, Hunter, showed up so Peter was among all his bestest friends:
We had another playdate at Jacob’s house. Most of the preschool class showed up as well. It was pouring outside so all the kids were stuck inside. It was 2hrs of chaos sans a few minutes when all the boys played trains together. You could hear a pin drop, they were so engrossed: (this is Jacob’s bedroom - it’s bigger than our living room)
Peter and his best friend from Preschool, Nicholas:
After we got home, I unwound by watching a squirrel try to get into the bird feeders. Unfortunately for the birds, he was successful:
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.
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:
Peter is still doing well in his art class. Here he is painting his frog drawing:
We had a playdate last week at one of Peter’s preschool friends. Their house was amazing and even more so were the toys! They had every toy ever on Peter’s wish list. And I thought we had a lot of toys. They had 3 playrooms. Crazy! This was one of Peter’s favorites - the Thomas train ride-on. Of course none of the kids would take turns so they rode together:
Another day I caught Peter dancing on video. He loves listening to music in his room:
And on a disturbing note… Peter was telling me about a nightmare he had last night. He said he was at his birthday party with all his friends and then a monster/bad guy told him when he made his wish for blowing out his candles to wish for all his friends and the earth to die. Spooky, huh?
I had a parent/teacher meeting recently about Peter’s progress in preschool. They evaluated him to see if he is ready for Kindergarten next year. He passed! Of course I was going to send him regardless since I already held him back a year. He still has some weaknesses like writing lowercase letters and mixing uppercase and lowercase letters within a word. We still have 6 months until Kindergarten starts so hopefully he’ll have it down by then.
I officially registered him for Kindergarten last week. What a pain filling out all those forms! You’d think he was buying a house. When I was handing in our forms, Peter was with me and he grabbed a sticky note and pen from the counter and wrote his first, middle and last name and handed it to the lady. Ha! If only it was that simple.
A lot of the schools in our district have lotteries for enrollment but thankfully our school isn’t one of them…maybe that is a bad sign. Well anyway I’m hoping Peter gets into the morning class (instead of afternoon) but we won’t know until June. The morning class will start at 8:20am so I’m not looking forward to waking up even earlier. Other than that I think I’m more excited about Kindergarten than Peter. Peter’s attitude is more like ‘it’s all good.’
Meanwhile…back in Preschool, Peter is now taking his first art class once a week. He stays at school for lunch and then I pick him up after art class finishes in the afternoon. He’s doing pretty good in the class. I’m surprised he will sit still and concentrate for the 45mins.
First drawing of a bird eating a worm:
Peter is enjoying eating lunch at school even if it’s just one day a week. I’m enjoying the extra 2hrs it gives me. It does feel weird having him gone for 5hrs though.
One thing his Preschool hasn’t been preparing him for Kindergarten is reading. So I’m starting to teach Peter to read. I guess I should’ve done it sooner but I didn’t want to frustrate him. He’s been able to read words here and there on his own so I’m just pushing it a little further. He’s doing pretty good so far with basic rhyming words. I guess maybe that is how you’re supposed to learn anyway. Hopefully he’ll improve his reading skills as well within the next 6 months.
