Cassee the Ladybug

Little Cass decided to be a ladybug for Halloween this year. Thanks to our neighbors who had a suit big enough.
She was also a ladybug for her first Halloween 4 years ago! Not sure where that picture is!

Cassee and Books

Cassee loves books. She can sit with a pile of books for an hour and "read" through each one. I recently got a few books with matching CDs. We put the CD player in her room and showed her how to work it. She is always going in there to listen to one of the books.
Today right after we got home from church she went in there to "read" a book.
We have so many books and it makes me so happy to see my kids actually enjoying them!

I am a Child of God

Here's Cassee singing "I am a Child of God".

ND Trip

Cassee had fun playing with her cousins at Nana and Papa's farm.
Who actually needs to play pool on a pool table??

Sam is the cousin her age. Here they are playing with his new puzzle

We found some ripe raspberries next to the house. They were yummy!

We also went to see Grandma Gietzen in the nursing home.

Reading Books

Cassee often likes to "read" books to herself. Today she "read" a book to Adam too.

Start of summer party!

Grandma McDaniel, the grandma from the "Grandma School" that Cassee went to on Friday's threw a "End of School - Start of Summer" party at the pool in Bloomfield.
Here's a few pics of the kids having fun.
We love the floaties! Go Emmee!!

Thank you Shauna for holding Cassee the whole time. Cassee is happy in the water, if and only if someone holds her the WHOLE TIME!

Adam jumped right in before anyone noticed. Good thing there were people near us watching. They rescued him before I even realized he'd jumped in!!
He sure loves his Daddy!!

Preschool Graduation 2010

Today was Cassee's preschool's graduation day. Since she is going back in the fall, she didn't really "graduate" like the other kids in her class. (The ones sitting behind her with a little cap and gown.)
They sang a few songs, which Cassee claimed not to know and therefore couldn't sing along. Yeah, right!
This is her little certificate for the year.

These are the aids in her classroom. Miss Dessie on the left and Miss Sheri on the right.
And this is her teacher Miss Jan.

Cassee's 4th Birthday video clip2

Cassee's 4th birthday Video clip 1

More of Cassee turning 4!

Cassee had a quiet little party at home for her real birthday.
Due to the fact that we don't have a kitchen right now, I had to buy a cake at the store. This is what Cassee picked.
She blew out the candles all by herself!

She got most of her presents in Utah over the previous weekend, but we saved a few from Mom and Dad.
Here's "The Prince" from SnowWhite.
And this is a little table with two chairs. It has a dry erase marker topper abilities. FUN!
And thanks to Uncle Dennis and Aunt Karen for the card and money gift!!!

Cassee's Utah Birthday Party

We celebrated Cassidee's 4th birthday in Utah over Mother's Day with the Riskedahl side of the family. Cassee's cousin, Sam, is only 11 days younger. So as usual they got to share a party celebration!
They are pretty cute together when they play. Here they are looking a books together.

Here's Papa giving horsey rides.

They actually got leftover Kylee-baptism-cake for their cake.
Who cares as long as you can stick candles in, right?

Adam decided they needed a little help blowing out their whoppin' 4 candles.

What four year old doesn't love presents!

They were so cute. They actually took turns opening their presents one at a time.
Thanks for the new nightgown Ronda. She loves it.

Thanks for the other new nightgown Jill. She loves that one too!

And thanks Aunt Sally for the fun hat and other things.

Thanks Nana and Papa for your gifts too!
And Grandmama, who took Cassee shopping the next morning!

Eperanza Preschool

I started the process of having Cassee screened for preschool in Feb. hoping to be able to get her into a fall class. We found some hearing problems in the process and found she also qualifies for articulation speech therapy.
Instead of waiting until fall, the teachers at the school decided to start her immediately. She goes on Mondays and Thursdays.
This is Cassee (by the front door of our home) on her first day of preschool on April 12, 2010.

This in the front door to the preschool. Adam helped her get to school.

Here is Cassee at the door to her new classroom. Her teacher was actually sick that day.
She loves to go to preschool. She was supposed to ride a bus, but because of the distance and other schedules, she would only be able to ride if she was in the morning class, which she is not. So, for the rest of this year, I will drive her every time. Next fall they will put her in the morning class and then she will get to ride the bus. She is VERY excited to ride the bus!!!

Eating Noodles

Last night Mommy was lazy about making dinner, so the kids had one of those 'Cup o' Noodles'. There is broth in it, so they had a spoon to eat their noodles. However, the noodles are rather long and tend to slide off before reaching the mouth.
Cassee fixed that problem. At one point in the meal I looked over and saw this:
her method of fixing the 'noodle-falling-off-the-spoon-problem'.

It was so funny to us, we had to take a picture. Of course this snowballed into Emmalynn and Adam wanting to eat their noodles that way with a picture taken to accompany it.

Not the best of dinner manners, but it did make dinner more fun!

Watching and Waiting

This is a typical scene in the morning and in the afternoon. Adam and Cassidee love to watch for the bus. Also, they are very excited every afternoon for Emmee to get home from school. (If only that love and excitement would last for many more years to come!)

Preschool for Cassidee

Hurray! Hurray!!
Cassee qualified for the school district's preschool program! After Cassee's articulation screening, in which the lady recorded Cassee and her's conversation, she decided she couldn't understand enough of Cassee's words. (I'm glad she couldn't, because no one else can either.)
So, not only will we not have to pay for preschool for Cassee, she also gets speech therapy and they bus her to the preschool, I won't have to take her everyday that she goes! Bonus for mommy!!
We still need to see an ENT to find out what is preventing her eardrums from responding.

Cassee's Ears - Update 1

We went to an audiologist on Wed. She found the same results. After cleaning out Cassee's ears (which took almost an hour for both ears - thanks to Papa for having very small ear canals) the Audiologist did an ear drum test.
Cassee's ear drums didn't respond any better when clean vs. ful of wax. Therefore, we are now going to an ENT (ear, nose and throat doctor) to see what he has to say!
Hopefully this next week we will hear back from the articulation screening too.

Cassee's Ears

We've had a speech screening for Cassee done for preschool this fall. She didn't pass the hearing tests (she's now had two). It could be why she doesn't annunciate her consonant sounds when she talks.
Tomorrow morning she has her articulation screening to see if she qualifies for the district preschool (FREE!) and in the afternoon she sees the audiologist at the hospital. (We were scheduled for the 4th of May, but today they had a cancellation for tomorrow!!)
We'll keep everyone updated on the "Hearing of Cassidee" Saga.

Cassee Outfits

Cassidee truly has her own way of how she wants to be dressed. I can only make her change to normal clothes when we actually leave the house. I won't take her otherwise.
She loves play dress up clothes, but she loves real clothes too, maybe even more. She just doesn't wear them appropriately all the time.

Today she is wearing a slip. She loves this slip and has worn it for the past week. (It came to us the night before Julia's wedding thank to Dorothy and Holly, who had outgrown it, to Emmalynn to wear under her dress. It now fits Cassee very well.) She wears it under her clothes, over her clothes, all by itself (quite often) and has worn it under her pj's the last few nights. She also loves to wear tights. She wore those black tights to church yesterday, all day long and to bed with her slip and nightgown. She hasn't taken them off yet today and it's already almost 4 o'clock pm.
You can't tell but she also has on a black and orange Halloween skirt under her slip. She's wearing a shirt over the top because she was complaining to me earlier that she was cold. Imagine that! I told her to put a shirt on and that's what she picked. How warm huh?
She also loves her white sandals that she got from Grandmama for her birthday last year. She would wear them everywhere if I would let her.
Here she is in her latest and greatest nightgown (from the Ryan's for Christmas, good job Dorothy).
If you look closely you can see the pink lip gloss that she applied all over Adam's head and hair. How nice for her to have someone to let her practice on them! I wonder how long he'll last as her practice dummy!

"Someday my Prince will come..."

This morning Cassee started singing this song. When I tried to sing with her she said, "No, like this." And she sang it again swaying to the song with her arms also dancing to the song. She does love SnowWhite! (Sorry about the darkness. This was in my bedroom and our three light-bulbed fixture has two bulbs burned out! How many Joneses does it take to change a light bulb? Apparently more than the five that live here!!)

Grandma Mac

Cassee has found another grandma. And she loves her already.
A woman at church called and told me she has a little grandma school. She does it to spend time with her 3 year old granddaughter Claire (a little girl from church that Cassee plays with) while her 4 year old sister is at preschool. She just does it Friday mornings from 8:30 to 11:00 am. She has another little girl from church join as well whose grandmas also live far away.
Yesterday, Grandma Mac (McDaniel) called to invite Cassee to join her grandma school. Today Cassee went. They did puzzles, talked about snowmen and snow, made footprints in the snow and cut snowflakes with scissors. They also sing and have snacks too. Cassee had a lot of fun and is already calling this woman grandma. I'm so glad Cassee has a weekly outing now. She needs to play with friends and learn to talk better!