Student council

This year was the first year that Natalie was old enough for her class to be represented in the student council. Natalie decided to run for the post. She had to make a poster, and she had to do a speach in front of the whole class. She didn't get enough votes to get the position, but I'm still so proud of her for trying! Her poster is in the picture below. By the way, her school colors are black and orange, WDP is an abbreviation for her school district, and the scary looking ghost is their school mascot (they are the Phantoms). 

All about me poster

One of Natalie's first pieces of homework this school year was an "All about me" poster. She had to decorate a sheet of paper with pictures, stickers, and whatever else she wanted to describe herself. Here's the result:

 

A little bit of interpretation:

Natalie loves soccer, swimming, and the monkey bars. Her favorite foods are icecream, cupcakes, mac and cheese, and risengroed (a danish dish). She is American, hence the US flag, but her parents are from Denmark, hence the two Danish flags. Her family consists of Dad, Mom, and herself. Her favorite animal is a dolphin. And she likes peace signs and glittery things.  

Toys, toys everywhere...

Natalie's latest obsession is to make elaborate displays of her toys. Here's one using her dolls:

Arranged in groups by size, etc...

She'll even do it with her "friends" (a.k.a. stuffed animals) in her bed:

Fortunately, she still has room for herself, too - but just barely!

Scientific elephant

Natalie and I were working on a scientific art project:

An elephant!

We put a hollow area inside it and filled it with baking soda. The trunk has a straw inside it. We were going to put vinegar into the trunk and have the elephant sprout "water". We tried it, but the vinegar must not have reach the baking soda, or maybe we put too little in, because it didn't really work. But we sure had so much fun making it!

Mommy's Valentine

Since Karsten and Natalie went out for Valentine's Day, I got a Valentine's Day surprise on the Saturday after:

What would a Valentine's Day party be without candy?

My present from Natalie. She bought it all by herself! (I kept an eye on her, and met her at the checkout). There is a rose inside the heart shaped balloon.

We had pancakes for breakfast - and Natalie and Daddy made these special ones for me.

And here's a drawing I got from Natalie (and Karsten). The "b" is supposed to be a "d" - Natalie still get's them confused once in a while...

Since Natalie knows that I'm trying to be somewhat healthy, she made me this: An orange-banana smiley face!

Natalie's cake

One of Natalie's favorite things to do is to bake. And she is very creative with the decorating:

Cupcakes with frosting and sour patch gummi bears

Cupcakes with sky blue frosting, marshmallow fluff for clouds, and rainbow candy

And the artsy close-up...

The cake...

The cake had a special story, complete with rainbow bridges, etc. But Natalie can explain that much better:

Rubber band girl

Natalie got a rubber band bracelet maker for her birthday. She really, really liked it. So, here are some of her creations:

The cool picture...

... and the giggly picture!

Calendar candle

I told Natalie about the Danish tradition of a calendar-candle. The candle has numbers on it, and each day you get to let it burn down to the next number. 

Natalie made our own calendar-candle out of a plain white candle and some sharpies:

Very prettyl

I don't think that Natalie even know about superstition, but for whatever reason she skipped the number 13 - but I don't think anyone noticed... We really enjoyed this tradition  - we had the candle lit during dinner every evening in December.

Thanksgiving baking

We had a great Thanksgiving Day. We had lots of time to hang out and do fun things together. One of Natalie's favorite things to do is baking - and decorating the baked goods. Of course, we had to make a Thanksgiving-theemed cake:

Gobble, gobble...

Since we had more cake batter left over, we also made a bunch of cupcakes, and went to town  decorating them:

So pretty.

More turkeys, and some other crazy ideas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Legos

When Karsten was a kid, he had a lot of legos. Lately, his Mom has been sending them to us a little at a time. Natalie has been having a blast putting them all together:

Legos, legos everywhere...

She even wanted to make a little video for her Grandma about them:

Crazy hair day

Natalie had a crazy hair day at school. She did her hair all by herself:

The look from the front...

And from the back.

She even put the hair color in all by herself!

Natalie's halloween sign

Every year for Halloween, we leave a bowl of candy outside in case we get any trick-or-treaters while we are out trick-or-treating ourselves. This year, I asked Natalie to write the sign to go with the bowl. She was so proud of it that she decided to make a little video about it:

Word of the day

To encourage Natelie to read and spell, I got her a set of magnetic letters. I tried doing a "word of the day", and to start with, I put up the work "Love". Later that day, I came back out into the kitchen, and Natalie had added a few more words:

We build a zoo

Natalie's daycare was closed the first Friday in August, so we ad a great time at home. We packed up for camping (more on that later), but we also took time to do some "building":

We build a Zoo!

We used a bunch of Natalie's stuffed animals and toy animals, and all the building materials we could find around her play area. Natalie made sure there were lots of things for people to see in the Zoo!

Graduation

Natalie graduated from 4K! It was such a proud day!!!!

Here are some pictures from the big event:

Each kid walked into the room one at a time when their name was called.

Natalie, standing with her classmates at the front of the room. They made the graduation hats themselves. They sang some songs for us - it was super awesome! One was about how there were really small when they started, but now they've grown and they've gotten so smart. One was about going for a ride in a car, putting on sunglasses, putting on a scarf, putting on the radio, etc. Really great.

Then, they got their diploma. Each kid walked up to get it, and shook hands with the teacher. Just like it should be.

Such a proud girl!

After they got their diplomas, the kids sat with us parents and watched a slideshow the teacher had put together with pictures from the school year. It was really well made. The teacher made sure we got a copy of it afterwards, such a great thing to keep.


And after graduation there was a surprise for the kids behind the school - the icecream truck came! It was a perfect ending to a perfect ceremony.

The cupcake tower!

Natalie got a cupcake tower from her Aunt. She loved it! Of course, she wanted to make cupcakes the following weekend. And, of course, each cupcake had to be different, so we could really show them off on the new cupcake tower:

So Pretty!

When I grow up...

More artwork from school:

When I grow up, I want to be a doctor that helps babies.

In the picture, the baby is on the top left, and Natalie is the one taking a tool out of a drawer in the middle of the picture. 

I think she'd make a great pediatrician. 

Everyone should have one of these...

This came home from school the other day. Gotta love that girl's imagination!

A sculpture

About half a year ago, Natalie finally outgrew her beloved ballpit. We disassembled it, and put the longer blue pieces along with the yellow connectors (without the "locks") in a big bin. A few days ago while I was relaxing on the couch, Natalie pulled out that bin and made this masterpiece:

Pretty cool!

Sled artwork

Here's some of Natalie's artwork from daycare - such a great idea:

Sledding!