Claire convinced Molly to do a blind taste test today. Their nanny, Sarah, sent us this picture of the fun with the caption, “Blind taste test was fun. Molly was a great sport!”
claire
STAAR Wars
Claire finished her first major standardized test today, the dreaded STAAR test. It is a two-day test, fours hours each day, mandated by the state of Texas. Claire and her fellow third graders have spent most of third grade preparing for this test. Parents brought snacks and drinks to keep the kids sharp and refreshed. But once the doors close, it is fully locked down, with no visitors of any kind. It is pretty serious. A sign in Claire’s classroom says:
STAAR Wars — May the Scores Be With You!
We don’t know Claire’s test results yet, but to celebrate just finishing this monster test, we took her out to dinner and let her pick a dessert, a rare and substantial treat for our sugar-starved Claire.
Bringin’ in the Easel
We cleaned up the back yard today, and in the process discovered the old art easel that had been forgotten out on the back patio for a while. It was covered in dust and pollen. The girls took it upon themselves to bring it inside and refurbish it. They tackled this job with enthusiasm. I did nothing but give them some rags and cleaner. Molly and Claire got the easel in perfect shape, carefully wiping it down, removing every bit of dust and pollen and arranging the easel in its old spot.
Once the easel was in place, they put it to work. Claire started drawing on the whiteboard side, and Molly took over the opposite blackboard side. Claire draw a bunch of random cute things and titled it “Random Art”, and Molly drew a house. It is amazing how far Molly’s art skill has progressed. It really looks like a house! And it even has some writing on it. Here is the fruit of their labors.
Spring Break / Jumpoline / St. Patrick’s Day
Grammy Joyce was in town for a few days while I went to South By Southwest Interactive 2015 and the kids started Spring Break. With Joyce around, I could stay at SXSW and not hurry back to get the girls. Plus the kids just like to see her.
Today, our nanny Sarah took over watching the kids for the rest of the week. They kicked things off with lunch at Jason’s Deli and a fun trip to Jumpoline Park (see photo). That was a good way to kick things off in a week where most of the girls’ friends have left for vacation and we’re stuck here at work.
Also, it was St. Patrick’s day. Don’t the girls look good in green?
Claire Tree Art
Wow! Amazing abstract art from Clairey. 🤩
Sleepover
Claire’s absolute most favorite thing in the world is having a sleepover with her friends. We host sometimes but tend to get a little worn out juggling Claire’s friends’ needs with Molly’s, and with our work often bleeding into the weekends and getting into the way. Anyways, here’s a rare picture of Claire enjoying a sleepover at her friend Susie’s house.
T-Shirt Idea
Molly has plenty of silly things to say these days, but she is not the only one. Claire can get pretty silly too. Here’s an example from the last few nights over dinner.
Claire has invented a character of a little girl, probably toddler-aged, who demands that her parents take her all over the world to collect random t-shirts. She wants to go to California to get a “California Cafe” t-shirt with a picture of a muffin on it. From Hawaii, she wants an “I Heart Hawaii” t-shirt with a picture of a pineapple wearing sunglasses. She wants to go to Paris for a shirt that has picture of the Eiffel Tower and says “Paris!”. She says “teeeeeeeeee” over and over until she gets the t-shirt. And you cannot order these t-shirts from Amazon; no, you have to go get them.
Tonight, Claire came up with an extra silly t-shirt idea that had her laughing so hard she could barely breath. It says “Ooooooooooh my gosh!” in big brown letters on an orange short. And then at the bottom in small print it says, “Pakistan”.
She loves the addition of “Pakistan”. We have been listening to Malala Yousafza’s book I am Malala recently and taking about it a lot. This is what made her think of Pakistan. What made her think of the other parts, I will never understand.
Enchanted Rock
We finally made it out to Enchanted Rock on this beautiful Saturday afternoon. The kids were tired by hiking up the rock but had a good time. I’ll just let the pictures do the talking on this one.
Top Things You Should Know About Claire, by Claire
For her book club, Claire and her friend had to compile a list of things people should know about them. Here is Claire’s list. Our Claire is a little hard on herself.
- Sometimes I’m mean to my sister.
- I love to sketch because I can get all my ideas out.
- Sometimes I watch too much TV.
- I think I’m bad at math.
- I love my family because they use their time and money to keep me alive.
- I love sleepovers because I get real time with my friends.
- The color blue makes me confused.
I asked Claire about the last one, and she said she didn’t know what she said the color blue confuses her. But we talked about it a bit, and we decided that Blue is confusing because really dark navy blue and really light baby blue are almost completely different colors.
McG Kids 