and a half!

Simone is, as she will tell you, 3 and a half! One of her latest things is asking when she'll be 5 1/2, 7 1/2, etc. or, "When Noemi is 2, how old will I be?" I'm trying to use this as an addition/subtraction lesson! She is also really into how tall Noemi is when measured on her body. She doesn't seem to quite get that she is growing, too, so Noemi might measure up to her mid-chest for quite a while.

Simone still enjoys being a big sister though some of the novelty may have worn off. Here she is pushing Noemi in Noemi's first time on the baby swing:

I just like this one of them together...Ezer is hoping they don't both get mom's tv gene:

Simone also enjoys being around big kids. Our friends visited from Ottawa and Simone wanted to be just like Anna:

While she is talking much more at school, Simone's stand-back tendencies still come out. This is about as close as she came to the animals at the Children's petting zoo...her approach was to throw the food into the pen:

And here she is going down the slide with daddy because it was a bit tall and dark in there:

Last Saturday just Simone and I went to see an Eric Carle story puppet show. It was nice to have some one-on-one time together. I get one-on-one time with Noemi when Simone is in school but the reverse is more rare. Here she is with the butterfly and caterpillar she made pre-show:

She loves to create things. Here she is with two paper dolls she dressed herself with our paper doll kit (paper and stencils) - nice cutting skills and use of color!

Posing with a present:

And wearing a pretty spring dress:

The other day she was riding her scooter to gym class and it struck me how little she still is, my big girl. I pray that I will be a good mommy to her.