Harper's end of school festivities

Harper attended a fantastic (and free!) preschool program this year through LAUSD.  She went to class for 2 hours and 20 minutes four times a week.  She loved it.  

Harper and Jonah before preschool graduation.

Here is a video of the kids walking in.

IMG 1304 from Erica Jackman on Vimeo.

And one of them singing.

Harper's preschool graduation from Erica Jackman on Vimeo.

At the end of the ceremony they had each of the kids say what they want to be when they grow up.  Most of the girls wanted to be ballerinas or teachers and most of the boys wanted to be police officers or firefighters.  Harper wanted to be a taxi driver.

There was an afternoon class and a morning class (Harper was in the morning) so these are the kids from both classes.

 Harper with her teachers Ms. Esther and Ms. Ana.  

They also had an end of year party at a local park. 

Harper with her friend Konrad.  He was actually in the afternoon class but he was in our ward so they are good friends.  

Harper loved preschool and she is VERY excited to be starting Kindergarten in a few weeks.

an old update

Someone (Tom) has been bugging me about updating the blog.  I am behind.  So here are a few photos from a couple months ago.

Two peas in a pod.

Jonah with his favorite toy, Cuppy.  This was actually a stuffed animal that my Mom got for Harper when she was a baby, but Jonah has adopted him.  

Me taking a photo of Harper taking a photo of me.  

The kids at Roxbury Park doing "Superhero Swing" with their friends Zoey and Dean.

I will try to catch up with what's been going on over the next couple weeks.

Skirball Museum

After living in Los Angeles for almost 7 years, we finally visited the Skirball Museum.  Tom's aunt Judy emailed a few weeks ago and organized everything (thank you!) so that we were able to go with family.  The kids had so much fun.

I don't know why Jonah insisted on doing that weird squat for the photo.

At the beginning of the exhibit they tell the story of the Ark and some history of the exhibit.  Look at those well behaved children!

All of the animals are made out of recycled materials.  There were so many things to explore about each one.

Many areas of the exhibit were interactive and meant to be climbed or pulled.

Jonah and Bob sitting on the turtle (tortoise?  I have no idea).

After you exit the ark there is a big room with a rainbow and an Ark art project.  We were there for story time.

Outside there is this big mister which Harper loved.  She got pretty soaked.

Afterward we went to an Indian restaurant called Bawarchi.  It was amazing and it isn't far from our house.  We will definitely be going back.

Harper is 5!

On April 22nd Harper turned 5 and she was SO EXCITED SHE COULD HARDLY STAND IT.

So here are a few things about Harper . . .
1.  We think she has outgrown her milk allergy!  She has been having a little cheese here and there for a while, but she has recently been drinking milk with no problems.  Now if she would just outgrow the rest of her allergies.
2.  She has not outgrown her love of goldfish crackers.  They are still her favorite food.
3.  She always wants to have a "fun day" and is constantly asking what we are going to do to make the day fun.

 4.  She loves the spinning thing at the park in the photo above.  When we get to the park she runs straight to and it and attempts to monopolize it the entire time.  She also loves tire swings and does not seem to get dizzy.
5.  Now that she is 5 she likes to pick her own outfit every day.  Actually several outfits throughout the day.  Tom says she dresses like a bag lady.
6.  She is a little bit OCD.
7.  She wants me to add that her favorite candy is candy corn.

 8.  While she still prefers chicken nuggets and goldfish to anything else, she has become more adventurous with food and she likes olives, mushroom, broccoli, and carrots.  That is huge progress.
9.  She is very literal and does not like to do much pretend play.  Jonah will pretend to be a tiger and Harper gets mad and tells him he is not a tiger.
10.  She likes to ride her bike.

11.  She loves pink and green together and does not care for orange.
12.  She is very bossy (I'm sure she gets that from me) and she loves to tell Jonah what to do.
13.  She is fairly small for her age.  She is 42 inches (39th percentile) and 36 pounds (25th percentile).

14.  We are in the process of registering her for kindergarten and she asks about it every day.
15.  She is very concious of her allergies and she constantly asks to make sure that nothing has peanuts in it.  She had a fairly severe reaction to cashews a few months ago and I think it really scared her.
16.  She is very sweet and kind.  The other day we were going for a walk and the kids were eating granola bars.  Jonah dropped his on the ground so we threw it away and he was really sad.  Harper gave him the rest of her granola bar.  She does things like this pretty often.

17.  We got her a watch for her birthday and now she always needs to know what time things are going to happen.  She will ask when her quiet time will be over and will come out of her room at exactly that time.
18.  She loves to make up songs.  She will go on and on singing about random things.
19.  She loves to read and be read to.  She does a great job of making up stories based on photos.

20.  She loves to sing primary songs and is one of the loudest singers in the primary.
21. She is much more social than I am and really enjoys being around other people.
22.  She is a total Daddy's girl.  When he is around she doesn't want anything to do with me.

23.  She still suffers from horrible eczema that seems to come and go with no real explanation.
24.  She remembers EVERYTHING.
25.  She is very good about helping clean up and generally cleans up Jonah's mess as well.  She is such a great helper.

We love Harper so much.  The evening of her birthday I was explaining to her that the next day wouldn't be her birthday anymore and she got really distressed.  It turns out she thought I was telling her that she would have to go back to being 4 :)

utah trip

Earlier this year we found out that my sister Kara was going to be in Salt Lake during Harper's spring break, so we thought that was a good excuse to head up there for a week.

When we got to my Mom's house, my grandparents were there so we got to spend a little time with them.  My Grandma got on the floor and played cars with Jonah for about an hour.  He was in heaven.

Since I wasn't going to be able to spend much time with my brother and his wife since they both work and Chase goes to school, we met them for breakfast at Kneader's.  I love that place.

my Mom and Harper

Kelly

Makay and Chase

Afterward we were able to go to the brand new Natural History Museum at the University of Utah.  It is GORGEOUS and I highly recommend it.  So do the kids.

She was having fun even though you can't tell

digging for dinosaur bones

Jonah was in awe of the dinosaurs 

he is such a ham

but so cute 

My Mom got the kids some glow sticks from the gift shop

On Friday we drove down to Provo to pick up my sister from her dorm.  She lives in the new Heritage dorms and they are SO MUCH nicer than the old Heritage dorms.  The kids picked out some new hats from the BYU Bookstore and have been wearing them constantly.

 On Saturday the kids' cousins came over for an Easter egg hunt and some egg dying.

and some cupcakes too

When I booked the trip I didn't realize that we would be there for Easter Sunday, but the kids had fun going to Grandma's ward in their new Easter clothes.  Someone didn't cooperate for a photo.

We miss everyone and wish we lived closer, thank goodness for facetime and skype!

easter egg hunt

The week before Easter several wards in our stake had an Easter egg hunt at the ball field behind our chapel.

Since it is a ball field, there are not many place to actually hide the eggs, so the egg hunting took approximately 3 minutes.  It was still fun though.

 Especially the eating candy part.

more biking

We have been trying to go place to let the kids ride their bikes more often.  Harper is still a little scared and there are always lots of tears, even though she usually ends up doing really well and she is generally glad that we went.

Jonah likes to ride is bike but he needs more practice.  He gets a little frustrated that he can't really glide on the bike.

Here is Harper after some tears.  She is getting better, it's just so hard to get practice when we have to lug the bikes all the way over to the busy park.