6-year molars are coming in!

I went to the dentist today and he pointed out that my 6-year molars are already coming in!  They are still really hard to see, but the edges are just poking up through the gums.  I'm growing up so fast!

Leaving Chicago

It was sad to leave Chicago today - I didn't want to leave my new friend and cousin Lissa!  Late last night, her older brother Ross had come in town and so I got to meet him too.  Mommy was very glad to see him, since Lissa and Ross are her only two first cousins - all her other "cousins" are more distant.

It was far too short of a trip, and I hope we get to come back again!

Brunch with more friends and relatives

This morning we headed out to meet some more of Mommy's family for brunch.  And Cousin Nancy, who I met when we visited her in Los Angeles in January, happened to be in town too!  I was very happy to see her, remembered her right away, and ran over and gave her a big hug.

I got to meet cousin Herschel too.  He's cousin Nancy's son, and at first I was a little scared of him.  But he wasn't scared of me!  In fact, I warmed right up when he asked me if I wanted to help him make a pyramind out of the butter packets.  Yes!

Mommy especially had a great time catching up with everybody.  Here she is with Fern (Nancy's sister) and cousin Nancy. 

Cousin Nancy gave me a big hug for a picture outside.  It was really bright, but I opened my eyes just long enough for the picture!

After the brunch, we headed back to the house for just a little while before it was time to go to yet another barbecue, at Aunt Julie's mom's house.  There were lots of people there too (but only a few relatives), and she even had some toys for me to play with, so that's what I did.  The best part was when Lissa showed up!  She had several other graduation parties to go to, but she stopped by and mostly just played with me the whole time.  I loved it!

Right before we left, Daddy and I played around a little outside.  Mommy even got a picture!  Look at how high I am!  Daddy is just happy he can still throw me up this high (although not as many times in a row as he used to).

We're in Chicago!

Yesterday we drove up to Chicago, Illinois to visit Mommy's Aunt Julie and Uncle Bobby, and see her cousin Lissa graduate from high school.  It was a long drive, punctuated by a lot of traffic and potty breaks, but we finally made it.  And when I met cousin Lissa, I knew we were going to have a great time!  She was super nice to me right away, and was just like a big sister.  Even though this was her graduation weekend, she spent lots of time with me, reading, playing, teaching me things, just having a lot of fun.  And I loved it!  The first night we were there, we played with some Spanish word magnets and she taught me some new Spanish words!

I got to stay up pretty late at night playing - it was a vacation after all.  My bed was a futon, and I had brought two of my friends to cuddle with while I slept.  Daddy loved that one of them was his Teddy!  I picked Teddy first above all my other friends.  He thinks it's great that Teddy keeps getting a bunch of love! 

On Saturday I put on this pretty dress to go to the graduation.  I like giving big toothless grins!

Lissa was the salutatorian, and got to get up in front of everybody and give a speech.  I thought that was pretty neat.  After the ceremony, I gave her a lot of big hugs.  She even took me around with her to meet some of her friends! 

It was really sunny, but I opened my eyes long enough for a group photo.

Once we got back to the house, we had a barbecue with some of her other relatives, and then it was time for more play!  She still had a lot of toys from when she was little, so we had a great time!

John Bryan State Park

We decided to do something different today and went hiking at John Bryan State Park.  We had never been there before so it was an adventure.  They have a lot of trails that wind along the Little Miami River, so we got to see some wildlife too. 

I got to practice my balance a lot trying to cross over some muddy parts and little streams.  I had to jump sometimes too!

We stopped right next to the river and had a little snack picnic.

It was a great day!

Tori and Alex came over again!

To continue with the fun day we're having today, we had Tori and Alex and their parents over for an afternoon of  barbecue and lots of play!  Our neighbor Bill and grandson Brayden came over too, so we had a lot of fun.  Mostly, we kids played on the slip-and-slide and in the sprinkler, since it was pretty hot.  We didn't want to do anything else!  Around and around we went, racing to the start of the slip-and-slide to be the first one down.  They even squirted baby oil on it so it was super slippery (and our skin was super soft)!

Of course, we took some breaks from sliding to splash in the water at the bottom.  Who needs a pool when you have a puddle?

My one remaining front tooth has been just dangling there, teasing me about falling out, but holding on anyway.  Well, Tori really kept trying to get me to pull it out, or wiggle it, or let HER pull it out - she really wanted to help!  Finally I agreed to take a big bite of watermelon - and out it came!  Finally!

By breakfast the next morning I was happily singing "All I Want For Christmas" which Daddy taught me.  I can say "S"es the right way if I try, but if I'm just talking normally I sound a little funny.  It's fun losing teeth!

Flying with Mommy and Daddy

Today was a great day!  This morning we all went flying down to a medium-large fly-in near Cincinatti.  Of course Daddy was really excited for us all to go, since it had been a while.

Before we went, though, as we were getting ready, I had a visitor at the window - Brayden came over from next door to say hi!  Daddy and Mommy thought this was pretty funny, I'm already having boys calling up to me through the window.  Just wait another few years!  You can also see my one front tooth that fell out last week.  The next one is almost ready to go, too!

When we got to the airport, we found that a family of birds must have wanted to move in to the tailcone of the airplane.  Lots of twigs back there.  Since I have the smallest hands, I went right to work digging it all out.  There was a lot!

When we got close to the traffic pattern at the airport, we could tell that it was pretty busy!  There were lots and lots of airplanes all over the place trying to follow each other down to land.  Daddy and I have an agreement that I get a quarter for every aircraft I see in the air when we're flying.  I made a killing today, three dollars!  Mommy and I were a great help to Daddy spotting planes.

At the fly-in, I really liked this airplane.  It was smiling!  And it's a Piper too!

This one was a perfect fit for me.

It was a nice time down there, but we had to get back because we were having company over this afternoon.  So we headed back, and when we landed, I helped Daddy put the plane away.  I like being his helper, and I'm getting really good at doing things like putting the cowling plugs in all by myself!

Planting our garden

Although we didn't go out and buy any more plants yet, we did have two already in the house that we decided to plant in our new garden - a pumpkin plant and a tomato plant.  I planted them both with only a little bit of help!  We'll go get some more later, but we'll see how these two do for now.

Of course, after we planted them, we needed to water them, and what does this always mean?  Water play!

I got him back though!

Happy Mother's Day!

I got to give my presents to Mommy this morning since it's Mother's Day!  I was very excited, and did a super job keeping secret what Daddy and I went to make last Saturday.  I love keeping secrets!  First she opened the card I made her at school.  She loved it!

And then she opened up the plantar box that I made last week.  She thought it was great!  The words "Mommy" and "Piper" on the sides, which I tried to write with glitter glue, didn't turn out quite as well as I hoped, but Mommy still loved it.  It's a little small to actually plant anything in, but she has been using it to keep things in on the counter!

The "highest number"

Today I asked Daddy, "Daddy, what's the highest number?"
He answered, "There is no highest number, sweetheart."
So I responded, "Daddy, why is there no highest number?"

He started laughing, and explained to me that when he was 6, he had exactly the same question!  He knows this because Grandma wrote it down in his baby book.  He thinks that I must be smarter than him if I'm asking this question already, and I'm not even 5!

We built a garden!

Mommy and I have wanted a garden in our back yard.  But since we rent the house, we couldn't do anything permanent.  Then Mommy found these "above ground" gardens that we could assemble.  So today we got right to it.  And our neighbor's 2-year old grandson Brayden came over to help too!  it was very easy and fun to assemble, but even more fun to play in! 

But soon enough Daddy put me to work.  Actually I really like helping and insisted he let me do the raking.  So I got to show Brayden how to rake.

Now we just need to get some plants to put in it!

Daddy and I are doing more math!

For the last few days when driving in the car, I've been asking Daddy if we can do math!  He of course was happy to, and so he would ask me a math problem like "what is 2 + 3" and I would tell him the answer, then write the answer down in my notebook.  I really like doing it and keep asking him for more.  We've mostly done addition, but he taught me a little bit of subtraction too.  I don't quite get the hang of that yet, but I will soon. 

Last night I wanted to do some more math at home, and he told me he could write out some problems for me.  He did, and I copied the problems and then wrote the answers too (not really in any special order, though, just wherever they seemed to fit along the top)!  My first math homework!

Making a Mother's Day gift

Daddy and I were super sneaky today!  We went out to Home Depot where they were having a "Kid's Workshop" and I got to make a planter box for Mommy for Mother's Day!

All dressed up and ready to go.

Trying to align it just right... Grandma Roslewski would be proud.

Just a little more glue, I think.

Now the fun part - the paint!

I painted all the sides myself (Daddy helped with a little bit of touch-up) and picked out some stickers too. 

Now the hard part - keeping it a secret for the next 8 days.  Actually, I'm really good at keeping secrets, I think it's fun watching Mommy try to figure out what something is - but I'm not telling!

It was a lot of fun to make the box, and they do something different every month. I'll be back!

Playing with Daddy at recess

Every day when Daddy picks me up from preschool at the end of the day, it's recess so we're out on the playground.  He almost always lets me stay until recess is over, and he plays with me and all of my friends!  Everybody knows him as "Piper's Dad", and he loves being called that.  It seems like all of the girls like to play with him, probably because he's a "girl's Daddy", not a "boy's Daddy", although recently the boys have started playing more with him too.  He loves it!  It's a constant barrage of "Piper's Dad, watch me!" "Piper's Daddy, look I can go all the way across the monkey bars now!" "Piper's Dad, can you be a big monster and chase us?"  There is always a LOT of monster chasing, it's our favorite game!  We usually hide in the little tunnel and slides where he can't easily get us.  We also like for him to be the mean troll who tickles us if we can't get all the way across the monkey bars, but sometimes he doesn't want to be mean and is a nice troll who gives us high-fives or hugs when we do make it (and especially when we don't make it)!

Sometimes we'll even chase him, and he might have 15 3-5 year olds running after him all around the playground!  Since he often goes for a run before he comes to get me, he's all worn out and we can usually catch him if we try hard enough.

Today when he walked through the door into the playground, two of the girls saw him first.  The one said to the other, "It's Piper's Dad", and the other answered "Yay!"  They didn't know he heard them, but it sure made him feel pretty good!