Olympic Fever

2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics has hit our home - BIG TIME! I was completely stoked to find out that a local tv station was actually going to air it this year - 4 years ago I was shocked at how little kiwis in general cared about the winter olympics. Even now, most people barely know its on.. but one tv channel has been my lifesaver and is airing coverage from 5:30am until 6 or 7 pm every day! Its awesome. Ok.. sometimes their choices of what to show are a little off.. but.. they're trying to sell their paid stations too.. so i can't blame them too much. (I did write a letter though.. )
We have a unique situation in our home where we can choose from several countries, when deciding who to cheer for. I'm quite obviously smitten for Canada, but I feel some small tug to let my family cheer for the country we live in.. so we gotta cheer for those kiwis - even though the chance of getting a metal is null and void. And the one thing Marco and I have in common is our dutchnewss.. plus they're pretty good at speed skating.. So.. there's the 3 countries we cheer for.

However.. just to show the world who I'm cheering for.. I did this while Marco was outside one day..  Note the little face peering out the corner.. :)

Anyway.. I'm having a ball with the Olympics. We do Olympic crafts.. wave flags, shout at the TV (which is currently on ALL DAY LONG - I'm probably destroying my kids brains).

Our normal routine is completely gone. Its gotten so bad that I've been putting off having people around for coffee 'cause  I know I'd have to turn off the TV. (true friends wouldn't make me turn off the TV). I get to teach Kelsey what snow is, what skating is, what skiing is... she doesn't really grasp it.. but we're having fun.
We've even created our own little medal board now and I'll have little medal ceremonies because well.. I'm a geek.
Please note the obvious lack of medals under the kiwi flag - losers. Ooh.. and one more gold to be put up tomorrow for Canada.

I finally completed Kelsey's video. I spent a couple days trying to catch her talking to me. It seems a bit dumb, but when she gets into "conversation mode" she gets this weird facial expession at times.. its hard to explain but I never did manage to get a video of it. Oh well. I did get some good conversations, even a bit of singing. Its a bit long.. sorry. Oh, and its from back in December 2009. Odd that its already dated.. oh well, that's life with small kids. Hope you enjoy.

Kelsey's First Day of Preschool!

So, today was Kelsey's FIRST day at Preschool.
I was SO excited!! Oh.. she was excited too.
Last week we dropped by the preschool to check it out. Its a preschool that I started looking into about 1/2 a year ago and was hugely disappointed to find that they only take kids once they're 2 1/2. They claim that, in general, they're not ready for the structure before then. In the case of Kelsey, I think she would've been more ready for the structure half a year ago, and is more likely to rebel and throw tanty's about structure now.. but they're the professionals.
Anyway, a friedn of mine sends her 2 girls there as well, so I asked her a lot of questions  and liked what I heard. Its a Christian preschool. And its fairly structured. 2 HUGE pluses in my eyes. So, last week I brought Kelsey for a look see and to see if they ahd any spots available. They had 1 spot available - a Friday morning. That worked out great since that's the day that my friend's kids go as well. So, for now she'll go one morning a week.
She has been talking about preschool ever since that visit. "Go to preschool today?" "Play with kids today?"
So, finally today dawned. It was the last thing she talked about before sleep last night and the first thing she talked about this morning. I don't know if I've ever seen her wolf down her breakfast so quickly. And it was the only mornings I didn't have to struggle to do her hair (ok.. it was a little lopsided, its hard, Alright?)
Marco happened to be home from work this morning, so off we went as an entire family for Kelsey's first morning of preschool.

As soon as she saw the building, she knew where she was.. off she marched from the car, confident as ever up to the preschool house with her backpack on her back. Inside, Marco met the main teacher - Mrs Maria. Mrs Maria showed Kelsey the "coat" room where Kelsey could hang her backpack. Then off to see the other kids. Kelsey's friends were already there and Hannah asked Kelsey if she'd like to go outside. So, off they went. I don't know if Kelsey even knew we were still there. After watching her play for about 5 minutes, Maroc and I decided to head off on a little date of our own (with Morgan, of course). So, a quick goodbye and all was fine. Mrs Maria took kelsey to see the swings to  make it a bit easier for us to get away but there it was. My firstborn is growing up and LOVING prechool.

I picked her up 3 hours later (it was the quietest morning - it was incredible!!) I'm a bit of a loser as I was so excited to pick her up that I forgot to even debrief with any of the teachers to see how she did. I tried to get some info out fo Kelsey - but it was hard to get anything useful out of her. I did learn that they played with water (mostly because her hair and clothes were sopping wet), she may have done some painting (there was paint on her shirt), she listened to a Bible story (I think Jesus was a baby), and the most important thing - she had fruit for snack!!
Iwas pretty embarrassed that I had forgotten to talk to the teachers, so I called them during lunch time (there's a lunch session and an afternoon session as well). Mrs Maria assured me that Kelsey did GREAT!  She says that Kelsey has huge self-confidence and the only problem was that she didn't want to stop playing when it was mat time - but she assured me that this is completely normal with the 'littlies' or newbies.
I'm so proud of my little/big girl and I'm SO happy that she can finally go to preschool. Now.. I wonder if we can manage a couple more mornings a week......