Super Marcelo turns 5!

Marcelo has been feeding me his birthday party demands since the moment his fourth birthday party was over. Expectations, I couldn't possibly meet. The problem is, he has an incredible memory and I knew he would remember each and every one of his requests. A few days before his birthday, he drew me a picture of him with his birthday cake. It was a 3-tier cake! The day before, he offered to help me by writing a to-do list. I told him I would have a nervous breakdown if he did any such thing. He really, really wanted to help though, so I told him he could put a total of one item on the list. He wrote, "Mom make cak".

 

  

Now that he has outgrown some of his food allergies such as milk, soy and eggs, I can no longer hide behind the excuse for not making him a cake. So this was to be his big I-can-now-eat-cake birthday party. My inspiration was a visit to the library a couple months ago, where he and Sofia discovered a bunch of capes on hooks for dress up and imaginative play. They couldn't get enough of them. The kids got to put together their own capes using sticky felt cut-outs.
 

Marcelo had tons of fun playing in the back yard with his friends. Even his paramour from dance class was able to make it.

Ethan, Miles, Marcelo, Adriel, Wesley, Sofia, Indie, Lydia, Autumn, Ashton

School work

Marcelo's first official homeschool assignment.  Drawing.  A selft portrait. A+

I knew he would love this assignment involving scizzors.  It's a creative logic exercise and aside from not being able to read the labels yet, he did awesome.

Kindergarten reject

Since Marcelo misses the Kindergarten birthday deadline of age five by Sept. 1st, we are naturally starting Kindergarten at home(school).  He is pretty excited and hasn't mentioned anything about his previous disappointment over not getting to play on the Kindergarten playground at Sofia's former charter school, Quail Run.

He should be well prepared for Kinder, which we plan to start next week. He graduated from the UPSTART preschool program last month with beginning reading skills in phonics and decoding.  My only concern for his teachability factor is that he seems to like writing in reverse, from bottom to top, right to left, and often with the mirror images of letters.  Hopefully this goes away during the year and doesn't point to a more serious issue.

I'm excited for a full year of homeschooling without the distractions and energy-sapping issues of public school we had last year.  I'm a little nervous about how it will go with two students.  Little steps.  But, teaching Marcelo can't be any harder than teaching Sofia, right?  Right???

Summer Olympics

The Americans can be such poor losers.  Way to ruin the award ceremony for every body.

Puppet Show

Soooooo cute ... to me.

GQ

You haven't had a GQ moment for a long time.  Here you are, a bit under the weather, on your UPSTART Preschool graduation day.

Shirt:  Pattern: Ottobre 3/2012 #19
          Fabric: Joel Dewberry "Modern Meadow" JD37 Honeycomb Pink quilting cotton $6.00
Pants:  Pattern: Ottobre 3/2012 #20
           Fabric:  JoAnn Fabrics, poly-cotton linen look blend, $6.00
Belt:  BabyGap gift wrap ribbon, re-purposed, $0.00
Shoes:  Gap  ~$14.00

Spring Recital

Spandex.  I knew this day would come.

with the entourage