Clementine's first day of kindergarten (and a *BONUS DAISY*)

It cannot be, it absolutely cannot be, but it IS. My last child starting school! Oh how I wish I had ten or twelve more coming down the pipeline. (I would be a hundred years old and completely out of my mind by the time they graduated, but never mind that.) But if there must BE a last kindergartner, surely there could be no better one than this bright-eyed, friendly, curious, happy little Clementine! Oh that every teacher in every school could have a class full of girls like her! They would work for free. (Hey…I work for free!) It's so fun (if occasionally a little alarming!) to see what she thinks and what she decides to do about what she thinks!

The words "Don't come in! I'm doing a surprise for you!" are not uncommon ones to come from this little cherub's mouth. (Sometimes the surprises even involve cleaning up instead of…more messes!) She loves to plan out little ideas and carry out little projects and feels very grown-up as she does them! It comes of watching everyone else in the family at their work, I suppose: she likes to have her own work too!

I'm sure she'd be reading by now if I could have gotten my act together enough to teach her. She has picked up so much on her own about letters and sounds, and she writes all kinds of words just by sight-memory and watching Gus. I myself was already a voracious and advanced reader by age 5, thanks to my mom's undivided attention and all my brothers being at school. *Sigh.* I hope there are other compensations for my negligence in not making Clementine into the child prodigy she surely could have been!

She's certainly smart, though, and "sweet and good and clever," as I sing to her at bedtime every night. (You didn't think I'd sing all that rot about Clementine being "lost and gone forever," did you? Of course not. "You are sweet and good and clever, oh my darling Clementine" is much nicer, and truer too!)

Jumper in a jumper!

Gnomie backpack

Hooray for Clementine and hooray for kindergarten and hooray for Clementine in kindergarten! May she be just as bright and happy as this on her first day of college!

* BONUS * BONUS * BONUS * BONUS * BONUS * BONUS * BONUS * BONUS * BONUS * BONUS *

Speaking of "sweet and good and clever," Daisy had her first day of BYU last week (as the "youngest student ever," as my brother called her, haha. Surely not, but she is only just 17!). It's fun that her first day and Clementine's could overlap like that! It's only happened one other time in our family (with Abe and Teddy), and I suppose it will never happen again! Technically maybe we could also count Gus and Malachi, but Gus started in the Fall of last year and Malachi wasn't really in college till January. And Seb was still in high school when Ziggy started kindergarten. So enjoy this rare occurrence while you have the chance!:

Two new schoolgirls!

I needed a backpack shot, of course. It's a little bigger and heavier than her kindergarten one!

Such good sisters, twelve years apart. Someday that will seem like nothing.

Gus and Clementine sat outside to wave goodbye as Sam and Daisy drove off to their first day of school.

I hope these two don't grow up and go to college anytime soon! (But I know they will! 😩)

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Starting ballet, and a few other things

Summer came to a close sooner than anyone wanted (actually not true; Junie had read every book in the house and was bored out of her mind and couldn't WAIT to start seminary again, but it was sooner than I wanted!). We had kind of a "soft start" with new ballet classes starting in early August, math classes and seminary in mid-August, and piano lessons (with a new teacher!) at the end of August. I guess it was good because we could get ourselves on schedule bit by bit.

Because the ballet teacher said she would put the classes right next to my big girls' classes, I let Clementine try out ballet this year. She loves it, of course (though she keeps saying "When do I get to do real ballet?"—meaning dance on a stage in a costume) and is so cute hopping around, leaping, and doing pliés with a look of serious concentration on her face.

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The Three August Birthdays

Three good children born in August. At LEAST three. Daisy turned 17! Her sisters made her a birthday crown.

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Little Collections of Things

Living with Clementine is like living with…I don't know, a bunch of little squirrels or something. Except instead of hiding nuts, she puts together little collections of things. Same-colored things, same-shaped things, whatever kinds of matching things.

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Birthdays, Buildings, and Back to School

There's always some birthday or other going on here. Since we were in Oregon on Sebastian and Clementine's birthdays, we saved their presents until we got home, and they had a joint birthday dinner. Seb gave me a guava cake recipe he wanted me to try, and since Clementine had asked for "strawberry cake," we just put those on top! It also felt appropriate for us to wear gnome hats for the occasion.

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IV. Birthday at the beach

Clementine turned four while we were staying by Netarts Bay. It was a weird house with the kitchen on the top floor, a beautiful living room and dining room view, and a lower-level bunkroom with towering three-high bunk beds. The outer corridors smelled so strongly of Dog that Daisy and Junie couldn't even sleep in the bunk room and had to move upstairs to couches! But it was a lovely place to stay all the same. We stayed in this same neighborhood in a house with Sam's parents when we came to Oregon in 2017, and we loved watching the tides come in and out of the bay so much that I looked for a place nearby so we could do it again. If you want to play in the waves, you have to walk out past the waters of the bay to the real ocean, but the bay beach is peaceful and beautiful in its own right.

Clementine was up early on her birthday, and promptly put on her new strawberry dress, which I'd gotten for her at the strawberry farm we'd picked berries at near Hubbard. (Smart of them to sell cute little dresses there. I certainly couldn't resist them, not when Clementine had already proclaimed, "I'm a strawberry girl!")

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Matcher

 

This little Clementine is so funny. She doesn't really have a special animal or blanket like some of the kids have (though she does have quite a collection of gnomes!). There's not one thing she has to have before she goes to sleep or anything. But she just loves everything! She wants to dress up every animal, match every doll, carry around everyone else's favorite things and claim them as her own. She loves giraffes, turtles, ducks, Hat Monkey, all the bunnies that look alike, sad little Angus Sheepie that had to have his head sewn back on…all of them. She cannot stand not to match someone! And she wants me to take a picture every time!

(Not matching anyone, but I love this dress!)

Gus needs his moment too

All the matching doll dresses the girls collected over the years were not really meant to have other stuffed animals…well…stuffed into them. I always say, "Oh, Clementine, I don't think Creamy will fit into that dress!" 

"She will fit," Clementine says firmly, and then she stuffs her in. I don't know how she does it.

Just a cute pig Clementine drew

She is quite fond of this dress/skirt combo and wears it often. The skirt doesn't even fit.

Ah well. She is a good little poppet. We love her!

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Some of the field trips

I told you we were doing weekly "field trips" this year. So far the trips have all been to Thanksgiving Point (where we have a membership), since it is free and fairly close! There is a lot to do there and it's been fun to do it at a more leisurely pace, knowing there is no hurry. I love watching and being with these little kids, and I love the talks we have together. I hadn't realized how often the older kids monopolize the conversation (not intentionally, but just because they have so much…I don't know, so much going on and so many thoughts about things and so little time for the often inane things small kids want to go on and on about)—and it's been very sweet to slow down and talk with these little ones and hear their surprisingly perceptive gospel questions and see their curious minds at work! I love them so much.

Playing "animal doctor"

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Clementine's birthday, DIY Ballet, Fireworks

We had two birthdays right in quick succession when we got to Quebec. (If Seb had been here with us, we would have had three! Not that he didn't have a birthday of course…but he didn't have one HERE.) I was excited about the birthdays in a new place because I thought it would be fun to see what different little exciting things we'd have to come up with to do.

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Gnomengarten

I have what I would consider a reasonable amount of gnomes. My brother gave me these julenisse, which are gnome-adjacaent, I think.

And I have these guys.

And these.

So that's it! All fairly straightforward. I also have three little Fall gnomes, which I had out for Thanksgiving. And while I had them out…Clementine learned what they were called. (NOMES.) And she started asking for them. And trying to take them with her to bed at night. And jumping up and down and squealing with excitement when she saw them. And saying conversationally every five minutes to everyone she met, " 'member NOMES?" (To which the only accepted answer was "I do remember gnomes.")

When I got out the Christmas gnomes she just lost her little mind! She was asking us to get them down for her all the time, saying in great earnestness (while taking them), "these Mommy's nomes," and then carrying them all over the house. So one day I saw a little soft gnome ornament at Walmart, I thought, "I should get that for Clementine so she will stop taking my gnomes." And I did.

When I gave it to her it was like she had been reunited with a long-lost sister. She hugged it rapturously and said, without prompting, "That TEMentine's Gnomie!"

And just like that…our entire family developed an absolute mania for gnomes. We can't help it! We love them! We exclaim at them when we see them in yards or in stores. We point out "BIG gnomies!" and "Tiny gnomies!" We draw gnomes. We call Santa hats "gnomie hats." We have gnomes on the mind and in the heart. You could probably sell me a rattlesnake if it had a gnome costume on it!

And now when you ask Clementine what her favorite animal is, she says…"NOMES!"

I bought these little gnomes at the same time as her "Gnomie."

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Tiny toddler

We're all so charmed by Clementine now that she's walking. She seems too tiny to walk, but she does—and even runs now! She's so sure of herself, like she knows she's a person and this is how people get around. But then she can still be so wobbly and bumbly, like when she's walking on grass or up a hill or on dirt. I wish I could draw well enough to capture every shape her little body makes as she teeters and stretches and stumbles and catches herself. Sometimes she walks with her hands behind her back like a tiny lecturing professor, or rocks back on her heels like someone admiring a painting in a museum. It's too much!

The girls helped me take some pictures one lovely afternoon after we had a picnic in Payson Canyon. I haven't been there for a few years, and had forgotten how lovely it is! The leaves were at their peak!

Our picnic area was lovely too. There is nothing I like more than a picnic in October in some beautiful place!

The little yellow dress Clementine is wearing is from my counselor in primary, who went to Guatemala this summer and brought it back for her. It's one of my favorite dresses any of my baby girls have had, which is saying something! We had squeezed Clemmie into some too-tiny boots (why is it that all of her shoes are either too tiny or way too big?) and then we tried to get her to walk to us instead of wandering off into forbidden paths—a difficult task!

Oh she was cute, though!

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