The Pattern Fair Project

I wanted to sneak one more school/art thing in here with regard to Ella. Again, this happened at the beginning of November and I've been meaning to post about it since then.

Ella came home one day with an assignment sheet for a family project to create a pattern of some kind. There were no boundaries really. They gave suggestions like "make a beaded necklace" or "string popcorn and cranberries". Well, I didn't really want to give Ella the examples they had listed because I wanted her to be creative on her own and come up with something.

I gave her several pieces of different colored paper, crayons, scissors, and a glue stick and just let her be. I told her to just play around and see if she could come up with something. I came back several minutes later and asked her what she was working on. She'd created a strawberry, banana and some grapes and said she wanted to make a pattern out of them. So I worked with her and she came up with her fruit pattern. I asked her if she wanted to put her fruit pattern in a fruit bowl and she said yes. So I helped her make the fruit bowl and she actually came up with doing two MORE patterns on the fruit bowl. So her project had a total of three patterns on it. Then Andrew helped us mount it all on a piece of poster board.
Now, when I heard that they were having a "pattern fair" at school in the cafeteria. And parents were invited to come at a certain day/time to come see all the kids' projects. I pictured them hanging these things up for everyone to see on the wall. So we all had it in our minds that the project should be BIG. Well, ha ha, that wasn't exactly how it went.

The kids all sat at the lunch tables and the parents walked around to see everything. There were three kindergarten classes there. And the funniest thing was that they were supposed to sit in their class order...which is alphabetical by first name. Which means that Ella is #5 when they line up that way. BUT, she had to sit all the way at the end of the table because her project was soooo big! LOL! It worked out all right though because she got to sit next to her friend Vivian which was a special treat because they are never in line together.


I just have to point out that Lily dressed herself on this day and did so in patterns just for Ella, because she knew we were going to the Pattern Fair! Isn't that cute?! (you can't see them very well, but her leggings have a pattern on them as well)

You could tell, Ella was soooo proud that her project was the biggest and that she had to sit in a special place. I'm glad that she's not old enough to be embarrassed by that yet. :-) And I have to say, I do think hers was the most creative project there. ;-) Luckily, Ella didn't want to do a paper chain (what Andrew had suggested) because there were at least three other paper chains there. ;-)

The Ella ART Report

Oh wait, I'm not done gushing! I forgot, I was going to talk about Ella's art! I know I'm a parent and have an incredibly biased opinion. But I truly think Ella is gifted when it comes to art. I am continually amazed at what she comes up with all on her own.

It always makes me so happy to watch her just grab some paper and markers or crayons or whatever and sit down and start creating! Of all the gillions of Christmas presents she received this year, I believe it is safe to say her absolute favorite has been the crayola art set she received, just like the one pictured on the left. She has this open almost everyday. And we put it away when guests come over to play so that it can stay her special thing.

I've been keeping a stack of Ella's artwork for awhile now (since last summer) meaning to scan them and get some posted on here. But we never got around to getting them scanned. The sun happened to be shining beautifully on our kitchen table the other afternoon. So I grabbed my camera and just took photos of them (next time, I'll have to remember to put white or black foam core under them on the table). I was actually inspired to do this when Ella brought home her first artwork from the after-school art class she just started.
The assignment was to draw the windmill from a drawn picture of a windmill they were looking at. It's funny, both Andrew and I asked her separately if the teacher helped her draw the black lines at all. And she said no! She did it all! Ella also told me that is a doghouse in red to the left of the windmill. Anyway, I'm hugely impressed, but again I'm biased. :-)

I'll continue to feature her art class works in the next few weeks.

Here are a couple more of my favorites and what Ella had to say about them:

"Fruit Bowl"--Ella just wanted to "decorate the whole page"."Grapey"--Another from Ella's Fruit Bowl Period.
(The whole fruit bowl fascination started with Ella's Pattern Fair project.)
"Lil"--This is Ella's first official portrait. One afternoon, Ella said to Lily, "Okay this is what we're going to do. You sit here like this." She had Lily sit criss-cross applesauce. And then proceeded to draw Lily sitting there, looking up at Lily every so often and then drawing what she saw. So what Lily is wearing in the picture is what she actually had on that day. And then she "just wanted to make a polka dot background."
"Me and Daddy Golfing"--This is Ella and Andrew mini-golfing at Golf Zone in Chaska, MN. Golf Zone is a regular Daddy/Daughter hangout all year long. They have both an indoor mini golf course as well as an outdoor course. Here's what Ella had to say about the picture, "I have the pink ball and daddy has the red ball. It's outside by the water." That is the rock wall there in black in the foreground.
"Untitled"--Ella made this during art at school. There were papers with different shapes on it and they could pick whichever shape they wanted and draw whatever they felt like out of it. Ella told me the turquoise is a waterfall. And the girl is Ella walking across a bridge over the waterfall.

And now here is a slideshow of more artwork by Ella from August through now:

The Ella Report

This post is very long overdue. I've been meaning to write up an Ella Report ever since school started in the fall (and of course, I will get to a Lily Report as well--but probably not until next weekend, after her conference this coming Wednesday).

When we got Ella's teacher assignment in the mail last August, I was thrilled to learn she had Mrs. Fogarty as her teacher. I'd heard fabulous things about her from other parents and she seemed so sweet and caring when we visited during kindergarten open house last winter. She bent down and talked to Ella and gave her a hug back then and it just really stuck with me. Well, we have not been disappointed in Mrs. Fogarty at all. She has been a fantastic kindergarten teacher for Ella. So nurturing and kind. She LOVES Ella. She tells us every opportunity she gets how wonderful Ella is. How she wishes she had a whole classroom of Ella. How Ella is a perfect student. Isn't that the most wonderful thing to hear about your child from their teacher?

At Ella's conference this past week, Mrs. Fogarty said Ella was the most conscientious, happy, kind student. She perseveres. If something is difficult, she works through it. She never gets frustrated. She is so nice to all her friends. She is so excited to learn everything. Mrs. Fogarty also said she believes Ella is kind beyond her years. So much more so than an average kindergartner.

As far as Academics, Ella has improved in everything from the fall. She could only verbally identify 15 or so of her letters when asked in the fall. She has them all now. She knew how to write several letters of the captial alphabet in the fall and now can do all of them capital and lowercase. She can write her numbers all the way to 39 now and can actually count to hundred and count to a hundred by tens. There was a phonemic quiz (having to do with reading skills) that she only got 4/24 in the fall and got 24/24 this time. Also, rhyming was an extremely hard concept for Ella this fall and we worked and worked with her on it. Now, she has rhyming down with now problem! (And so does Lily from listening to us work with Ella!).

Her reading is coming along spectacularly. Amazingly actually! She reads to us at night now! And the other night she read to Lily at bedtime.

And all of this from a kindergartner!! I'm constantly amazed at what is expected in kindergarten these days. I remember painting on big easels with tempera paint in kindergarten. I remember filling out worksheets where you wrote the word "cat" over dotted lines and then colored a picture of a cat. I remember playing and doing puzzles. I don't remember doing anything close to what Ella is doing in kindergarten.

The final thing I asked Mrs. Fogarty was how she felt in terms of Ella being prepared to move on to first grade next year. Mrs. Fogarty said she had no doubt that Ella was completely prepared to move on to first grade next year and will do great!

So enough gushing. Sorry to go on and on. We are just so proud of Ella! And I just wanted to get this down before I forgot some of it.

More Kellan Photos

As if I haven't inundated you enough already with photos of Kellan, I have updated the Lily Bella Photography blog with MORE.

Go here to read the post I wrote over there.
And here to see the photo album.

If you know anyone with a newborn, I'd love to get more experience taking newborn photos, it was so fun! I'd love for you to send them my way.

Enjoy the photos! And if anyone out there (grandparents? family?) want larger prints of any of them, just let me know which ones and I'll get them ordered for you.

Happy First Month!

Kellan is ONE MONTH OLD today already! Some new photos....
He's smiling a bit now when you coo and talk to him. Just in the last day or so he's starting to having longer periods of being awake. He took what I would clearly say is a morning nap and an afternoon nap yesterday. AND slept for a five-hour stretch last night. Yay!!

Where in the World is Andrew?

Andrew is actually in Tampa right now for the IDEA conference. He gets back tonight. No new photos from there, but here are a few more from his shoot in San Diego the end of last week. These three are all at Petco Park on the second day of shooting.

Adjusting Well

Jeez, Kellan is almost a month old, I guess I should probably update this blog, huh? Now see, that's why I got all those updates up while I was in the hospital. I knew as soon as I got home, I wouldn't get around to updating this for awhile.

We seem to be adjusting pretty well to being a family of five as opposed to four. The nice thing about new babies is that they sleep ALOT so they sort of ease you into life with them. Kellan is a little gem who sleeps pretty well (though better during the day than the night, I would love to get that switched around) and eats TOO well. I say too well because the kid doesn't know how to tell himself he's full and he actually overeats. This causes quite the spit-up situation and I've been nailed on multiple occasions. But we're slowly adjusting to that and figuring out how to deal with it better. Though Kellan gets quite angry and dramatic if I decide he's had enough and he clearly thinks he needs more.

We figured out the overeating thanks to the nurse practitioner at the Ped. office. When we told her about all the spitting up he was doing and judging from the fact that he had gained back some weight just a couple days after coming home from the hospital she suggested he was overeating and helped us figure out what to do. At his two-week checkup, Kellan was up to 8 lbs, 2 oz. And she said he was eating like a "Rock Star". We also had quite a bit of the spit-up situation under control.

I can't believe he's already almost a month old! Crazy how fast time is going and I'm cherishing every second I can hold and cuddle him because I know it'll be gone too fast and he's my last baby.

Lily is in love with Kellan. She loves to hold him, and is always curious what he's up to. She wants to talk to him, sing him lullabies, help "watch" him if I run out to the mailbox or take Ella to the bus. And Ella loves him too, wanting to hold him when she gets home from school. But she's not quite as intrigued as Lily. Perhaps Ella has more of a "been there, done that" attitude even though she was only two when Lily came along and probably doesn't remember much.

The girls are doing well besides dealing with a new baby in the house. They both have conferences coming up so I'll be sure to update on their school progress...which is actually something I've been meaning to do for months. And as soon as I can get Andrew to scan the images for me (I've asked about 5 times!), I can't wait to show you some of Ella's latest artwork.

Without further ado, here are some photos of the grandparents with Kellan and then a slideshow of some more photos from Kellan's first weeks.

B-Pa made these shirts for him and the girls to wear when they visited us in the hospital! Too cute!

Nana Mary visited us for the first week of February to help out while Andrew had to take a business trip. She was so fantastic cooking us meals and helping chauffeur the girls around.

Kellan meeting his maternal great-grandmothers Betty and Mazie for the first time. :-)

Just as Nana Mary was leaving us Grand Pat and Bubba arrived for a visit for a few days. As you can see, Kellan is not lacking attention or arms to be held in!

The heart above is from Ella's kindergarten class. Each of her classmates signed it and they gave it to her. We sent some photos to school with both of the girls and Lily's teacher made the poster above and hung it outside her classroom. Wasn't that so nice of the girls' teachers?!! We now have them hanging in Kellan's room.

Where in the World is Andrew?

I haven't done a WITWIA post in awhile. He was in Baltimore last week and this week he's off to...
Sam Diego! For a shoot with the Padres on the USS Midway air craft carrier. That would be Adrian Gonzales in the second photo. Ah man, I am sooo jealous of the warm weather in San Diego. I'm sooo tired of the snow and cold here. Andrew is lucky he gets to travel to warm parts of the country. He's off to Tampa on Monday and Tuesday. Like I said, so jealous! I'm living vicariously through him. :-)

Lily Bella News!

Just wanted to share a link with those who are not on Facebook or linked to the Lily Bella Photo blog through Google Reader...

Check this out when you get a chance! :-)