43 Months

To get J ready for her new school she will be attending this fall we enrolled her in their summer camp, she spent three weeks at camp from 9am-1pm daily (insert happy mommy here). It was not "school" (where I would tell C we were taking J) and if I called it school she quickly corrected me and told me it was "summer camp". She had a great time and each week they had a different theme (animals, holidays and music). They did lots of fun and neat activities with the kids and every day she brought home a slew of things she made (artwork was distributed to family members). When I asked her what she liked best about camp she said "playing with the biggest doll house ever" and "splash day where I went down the big slide". She really enjoyed the doll house at her other school too, maybe what she will be getting for Christmas. I hope she is going to like her new school, which doesn't start until September 2.

The one week she didn't go to camp we had Mom's Camp week and spent the week with friends. We went to the Mote Aquarium and saw the animals, swam one day in our pool, went to Chick-fil-A to eat/play and we tried out a new place, Bounce Down Under where the kids jumped until they were exhausted. I'm usually not a fan of play places but this place is clean and well kept up and gets an "A" in my book! J had an "awesome" time there playing and had no hesitation going down the big slide, she climbed right up and slid right down like a pro! Mom on the other hand went down a smaller slide and my heart was in my throat! I see us frequenting this place on non-school days to wear them out (it will ensure she takes a long afternoon nap!).

Their sisterly love is like a Dr. Jeckel/Mr. Hyde episode, one minute they love each other, the next they are fighting and screaming at each other! While J tries to help with C, C is Little Miss Independent and wants to beat to her own drum and not J's, except for when J has something she wants, and that is usually what starts the episode and J's whining and C's screaming. I think it is time for a sound proof room (I'm sure my mom is laughing as she is reading this, dad they will get boxing gloves when they are older!).

Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles, I feel I write a lot about them.  I look forward to the day we can work on a 1,000 piece puzzle together, at the rate she is going that won't be long. The week she was out of camp I took her to buy two new puzzles since they were BOGO at the toy store. She picked out a new 48 piece puzzle and I said what the heck let's get a 100 piece while we are at it. She put the new 48 piece puzzle together in probably 10 minutes and then was bored. She was to the point where she could do them with her eyes closed so we pulled out the 100 pieces, which are done in about 30 minutes now. We now alternate between the fish and animal 100 piece puzzles (I went back and bought two more) and have one more in the closet for a rainy day. We've also started playing go fish which is helping her to learn her numbers, we need to start on the letters next, she is rusty from the summer and not practicing.

We haven't done much swimming, it has been raining like crazy here almost every day, our poor yard has taken a beating from all the rain, there are days we could swim on the side of the house. I remember FL afternoon showers but not like this!

J is looking forward to going to Miami next month and having Portuguese lessons from Grandma, she is mixing up Spanish, English and Portuguese and creating her own foreign language!

Here at the pictures from the month.