I harvested my first cucumbers this morning! Yes, at 7:30 in the morning we sliced one up and devoured it. Even Pepper--who thinks the best way to serve a cucumber is to take it straight to the trash--enjoyed it! Both kids have a little container of sliced, lightly salted cucumber in their lunches. I am so excited! I think we'll be able to have homegrown salad tonight for dinner! The lettuce and scallions are ready today, too! This is FUN!

Thinking of Summer

I took Snapper out on a date a few evenings ago. We took a piece of paper and a pen and made a list of things to do this summer. After all, the last day of school is only a month away! This afternoon Pepper and I sat down and and talked about his hopes for summer. Matt and I added a few things, too. Here's our family list of things to do this summer.

• Read lots of books! Harry Potter series for Snapper. Magic Treehouse series for Pepper. I am looking for recommendations for good reads. I have spent the last year absorbed in adoption, foster care, and mental health books. I need some good fiction reading!
• Continue our evening family read-alouds. We're currently reading Redwall, by Brian Jacques. The kids are completely enthralled!
• Spend lots of time at the pool. Snapper will continue swim team throughout the summer. Pepper starts Level 2 swim lessons on Tuesday. His swim goal for the summer is to work his way through the lesson levels so he can start swim team in the fall. We also are getting a summer pool membership so we can enjoy lots of play time at the water park pool at our neighborhood aquatic facility.
• Have play dates with friends. This includes family play dates with families we love. Because I know you'll be reading this blog, Kathy, Pepper specifically wants to spend some time with Keller. =)
• Play our new piano! A fellow Cru staff family was giving away their old piano, so we picked it up! It is a small Stroud upright that needs tuning. We are thrilled to have a piano again! I am looking forward to brushing up on my musical skills, and Matt and I are going to give both kids lessons. They plan to do a lot of practicing.
• Play games! We have a whole shelf in our hall closet that is full of games. Pepper is old enough to enjoy board games now. I anticipate many sessions of Sequence, Life, Battleship, etc.
• Do art projects. This will include painting, drawing, building with clay, working with decoupage, and making collages. I also just bought a huge tub of new sidewalk chalk. We have an awesome driveway, so I expect to see lots of chalk masterpieces this summer.
• Cook together. We have a beautiful garden that will keep our veggie drawer well stocked this summer. Both kids want to cook with me. We'll also be trying our hand at canning and pickling.
• Craft. Snapper wants to make a quilt for her baby cousin Leah. Pepper wants to learn how to make good paper airplanes and do origami. I need to finish the quilt I've been making for Snapper. I also need to get our scrapbooks updated before we bring home new family members. Fortunately, I'm only a year behind in the family album, 18 months behind in Snapper's album, and a year behind in Pepper's album. I'm sure there will be lots of other fun craft projects this summer, courtesy of Pinterest.
• Correspond with cousins. Both kids plan to write letters and draw pictures to mail to their cousins in Washington.
• Play at home. Snapper and Pepper love each other and play really well together. They are already planning the games of dress-up, building with legos, making forts, and having sleepovers in each other's bedrooms.
• Ride bikes. Pepper has set the goal of learning to ride a 2-wheeler before his birthday in July.
• Go on fun outings. Our list of places to visit includes: SeaWorld (hooray for our season passes!), the beach (lots of evening cookouts in store for us!), fishing in the ocean and the many lakes in our area, the park, and roller skating.

Matt and I also plan to get the house ready for additional family members. This means rearranging bedrooms, painting two bedrooms, stripping wallpaper and painting the bathroom, buying and building two new bunk beds, and shopping garage sales to find a couple of dressers and two more chairs for our kitchen table.

We also are hoping to make a couple of trips up to Little Rock. It is looking more like we'll be selected as the adoptive family for the three little girls we've been pursuing for the last month. We are hoping to get the final decision this week. Then we can move forward with our preparations. We're not sure yet if we'll have to make an initial visit trip to see the girls, and then another trip to bring them home, or if they'll have us just come once. We'll have to wait and see.

It is shaping up to be a great summer! I'm really happy that we don't have any big trips planned. We had hoped to get out to Spokane this summer to visit Matt's family, but that isn't going to happen. This will be the first summer in 7 years that we haven't had to make a major trip. It will be good just to be home.

Primping...A Follow-Up

Let me just outline a few events for you.

• Monday. I catch Snapper hard at work with brush and sparkly lip gloss in front of the mirror in the morning before school. Primping.
• Tuesday. Melt-downs over the "pressure" of finishing homework. I must add that she had one math page, one easy Social Studies worksheet, and a 3-page section of her Social Studies book to review for the test. Still, it was a mountain in her mind and it took her 30 minutes to pull herself together enough to even begin her homework...which could have been finished in the 30 minutes she spent fussing about it.
• Wednesday. She picked a super cute outfit for school--skinny jeans, a cute tank top, and a coordinating shrug. She asked me to braid her hair in pigtails. She wore earrings to school. On Wednesday night, she rubber banded her Awana shirt in the back because it is so long that when she wears shorts with it, it looks like she is only wearing a shirt. The way she tied the shirt back was very cute...and way more appropriate than leaving it hanging.
• Thursday. When she came home from school, she shlumped into the house and sat in the patio with her back to me, shooting signals with her entire being that she needed me to get off the phone and talk to her. She didn't speak, grabbed me by the hand, and dragged me into my room and closed the door. Commence the sobs and wails. Everything went wrong today! I was itchy all day. Mrs. N took away our commenting privileges on Edmodo.* And I just know that something has gone wrong with the shipping of my new glasses. The box is lost or it got crushed or something and they're going to have to start all over and make me some new glasses. I can't handle the pressure! And now I have a pile of homework and then I have to go to swim team and then I have to go to bed. I quickly realized she couldn't be reasoned with, so I just hugged her and offered to help her with her homework. While she was getting her books together, I explained why the 4th grade lost a day of commenting on Edmodo. They need a class meeting to discuss more specific guidelines on Edmodo before comments will open again. I pulled up the tracking number on Snapper's glasses and found that they are due to arrive on Monday. We finished homework in 20 minutes. When I dropped Snapper off at swim team, I encouraged her to put some of her emotions in the pool and swim it off. When I picked her up, she was energized and refreshed, and felt a lot better, just as I knew she would. Then I took her out for sushi, just the two of us, and we talked some more about growing up.
• Friday. I just got home from previewing the video Snapper's class is going to watch in science on Monday. It is a video about puberty. The girls will watch one video in the library and the boys will watch another video in the school theater. It talks about the amazing changes a girl's body is about to go through. It also discusses hormones and how they affect the brain and the emotions.The video said that girls begin to experience the first wash of hormones between ages 8 and 10, with the emotions starting to swing around 9 1/2. They tend to cry easily and get overwhelmed by small things. It also said that girls will begin to really notice their appearance around that time, and looking good becomes more important. Hmm... Happily for me, the video stresses the importance of having good communication with mom during these years, eating healthful food, exercising, getting enough sleep, and good hygiene. I was reluctant to let Snapper watch the video, but after screening it, I feel it will serve as reinforcement for what we've already been discussing.

Is my little girl really growing up? Oh my goodness, how the time flies by!

P.S. There's no special boy right now. The newness and cuteness of the boys in her class wore off around Christmas time. Now they're just boys, and Snapper is pretty consumed with the girls in her world. Her two best friends happen to be boys, but there's no special interest on either side...they just think on the same wonky wavelength and love to hang out.

*Edmodo is the online classroom Snapper's class is using. It's pretty cool, actually. Mrs. N. poses challenge math problems, asks brain teaser science questions, and posts videos for the kids to watch at home. The kids log in as part of their homework, post replies to the questions, and engage in online discussions about the brain teasers. They absolutely love it.