Lillian's 2nd and 3rd week at CCC

Hi Emily and Alan,

The past two weeks have been so busy and fun here at CCC. We have been enjoying lots of summer activities like water play, outdoor play, and enrichment classes. Last week, we made fruit smoothies for our cooking class, it was so great to help add the ingredients to the blender and even better to drink it up! This week, we made our own vanilla ice cream! We were so excited to make this, but our little arms and hands got tired very quickly from all of the shaking, so our teachers had to shake it up for us. We really enjoyed eating our ice cream, though!

Enjoy!

Simon starts DayCare at CCC with Lillian

Simon's last day of Pre-K with Ms Zairel was on Tuesday. He started at the same day care that Lillian is going to on Wednesday, CCC (Children's Creative Center). He has been there 3 days and they've been doing great. I didn't realize how much Lillian would enjoy having Simon there. She plays with him all day and when they go to the park he pushes her on the swing. It makes me so happy that they have this time to bond together. 

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Hi Emily and Alan,

Simon has had such a great first week here at CCC and we are so thrilled to have him. He became acclimated right away and already has a good friend he looks forward to playing with. Simon has enjoyed working on summer art projects like painting with bright colors that we will later turn into a flower. He also enjoyed his very first enrichments classes and especially had a great time with making ice cream in our cooking class!

Enjoy!

That is Lillian right next to him!

Simon's Last Month of Pre-K

Some pictures from Simon's last month of Pre-K.

Simon and Abby - his future wife.

Mimi, Simon and Lucy

Finally Simons birthday project.

Because he was sick we missed Simon's birthday project at school. This year he asked if we could plant as a class. We brought basil plants and pots to school and Simon got to hand them out while the kids played in the dirt. Ms Zairel squeezed in his project on the second to last day of school! 

Father's Day weekend

We had planned a Father's Day weekend of camping, but with Simon being so sick the whole week leading up to Father's Day and our fear that Lillian would catch it, we decided to hold off on camping. Instead we went to Ikea and got lots done around the house, setting up and cleaning up. Of course we had some fun time around the pool too! 

Simon showing Lillian how to eat an ice cream cone

Hands on instruction.

Fell asleep on the way home!

Both kids fell asleep on the way home from Ikea which meant to us that they must have been really tired and it was probably for the best that we skipped camping. Hopefully we'll do it some time soon!

Fell asleep on the way home!

Water play!

Happy Birthday: Simon is 5!

Simon is 5! How is it possible that the tiny little boy who made Morla faces when he was tired turned into this handsome and kind boy? He was sick all week and missed 4 days of school, including his actual birthday. But despite the fever we still did a small family birthday party. 

Here he is discovering trick candles for the first time. Both kids thought it was hilarious! 

On his actual birthday with a fever of 102.

Some info about Simon as he is turning 5: 

• Simon absolutely loves Wild Kratts. He wants to grow up to study animals and 'creature adventure' in the wild. He knows a ton about animals already and loves talking to everyone that will listen. 
• He is very familiar with the alphabet and the letter sounds and has started sounding out words. He still doesn't do it independently, but when you sit with him he'll get through whole sentences pretty quickly.
• He can count to 100 and do basic finger math. Though he's impressed me a couple times in the past week or two when he says really quickly 'that means we have 3 left' or something along those lines. 
• Simon has loved school and really flourished with his amazing teach Ms. Zairel. He is a kid that others seek out to play with. Even though many people ask for play dates with us, Simon isn't really one to ask for play dates at people's houses. He is as content playing by himself as he is playing with the friends. 
• He is very into super heroes and is often playing Iron Man or something similar. 
• Simon has really become a great big brother. They definitely still have conflict, but he is more often than not generous with her and enjoys helping her. He usually will hold her hand to help her down steps, or push her on the swing in the park. 
• He is funny and fun and generally a great kid to be around. 
• He has started going to Auntie houses (Colleen's and Jenn's) for sleep overs and really enjoys the one-on-one times.
• He normally goes to bed around 7:30 and wakes up around 6 with no nap. 

Pictures of Lillian - First week at CCC

Hi Emily and Alan,

Lillian has had such a great first week here at CCC and we are so thrilled to have her in our program. Here are some great pictures of her engaged in various activities this week. We had a great time moving our bodies and dancing during our movement class on Wednesday. We made guacamole for our cooking class on Friday and absolutely loved eating it! We painted suns for our bulletin and will put them up next week so our parents can see our wonderful work. We also had water play on Friday - that was so fun! Lillian had a great time making new friends throughout this week, playing outside and learning about our butterflies.

Enjoy!

Subhana Khaja