day at the playground

Last week, we had several days of gloriously warm, sunny, springlike weather. Sarah has had a fantastic time playing outdoors with her ball, her sandbox, or just her own two feet, running around. Saturday we headed to a playground in town that was built just last year. The former early childhood teacher in me loves this place. It has all the swings and slides and climbing structures a playground should--and more! It was designed to be for children of all abilities, so there are also ramps leading up to the slides, a clock on the side of one structure that has Braille, etc. Plus, part of the playground is an outdoor classroom, with a garden, a collection of rocks and turtle shells, and a stage! The playground will eventually have stations set up according the Chronicles of Narnia, but that isn't finished yet so I don't know what the vision there is. Should be interesting! Anyway, here are pictures from our day.


Sarah crawling through one of the tunnels to get to the smaller slides...







You didn't think she'd stay at the smaller slides, did you? Here she is having climbed a bit higher...





A cool musical instrument...





Heading up one of the ramps...





Riding on a seesaw with her new found friends. No, she didn't know these girls prior to climbing on the seesaw, but when has that ever stopped Sarah?





Just a swingin'...

Having fun playing the marimba...

This slide is designed with rollers so a wheelchair could go down it..

Being in East Tennessee, the warm weather did not last. (If you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes, and it will change!) Sunday was cold and wet. Yesterday wasn't a whole lot better. Hopefully by the end of the week, we'll be back into spring! :)

Oh, and Sarah continues to be obsessed with Roger Miller. I have listened to his music more in the past week than I think I have in my entire life. It does have an upside though; last night Mr. Miller's songs were able to "soothe the savage beast," so to speak. Sarah was in an absolutely awful mood, and dear old Roger got her out of it!

books, books, books!

Today Sarah and I headed to Johnson City to visit my favorite used bookstore. I walked in with a bag of books to trade. I walked out with $13 in store credit, $5.40 in CASH (gotta love that!), and three new-to-me books. Sweet! :)

Sarah wasn't eager to go to the bookstore at first. But once we got there, she had a great time looking at (what else?) a book of princess stories! (I think she's going to milk this princess thing to death!). She kept getting the name of the store confused though. The store is called Mr. K's. Sarah kept saying, "We're at Mary Kay's!" Lol.

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On Saturday afternoon, we went to get our taxes done (yeah, we procrastinated this year). We have gone to Liberty Tax for the last several years (they're able to figure out all the complicated Mary Kay stuff for us!). :) The branch nearest our house has a fun playroom set up for kids, and Sarah was able to watch part of Shrek 3 while we did the forms and such. When we were done, Sarah got to take home an official "Liberty" crown.






After all, we don't have enough crowns already, do we? :-p

On a different note, we have had wonderfully warm springlike weather since Sunday. We have enjoyed driving around in Nelson's convertible (the "red shiny car," as Sarah calls it). Sarah has gotten to play outside a lot, enjoying her sandbox and our large backyard. I hope the warm weather holds, but this IS East Tennessee--we could still see snow before May! :-p

Oh, and if you're wondering about the subject line, that was Sarah's doing. ;)

Here are more of her musings (she especially likes typing for Aunt Tara!):

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play time

Yesterday Sarah got a new castle. It came with figures from Sleeping Beauty (Princess Aurora, Prince Philip, etc.). She has had the best time playing with it. She's been in her room for awhile tonight, happily concocting story lines for her new playthings to follow.

But apparently something went wrong. She came into the living room to inform me, "I put Aurora in the crib."

"Oh, really?" I asked.

"Yes, she's in time-out," Sarah confirmed.

"Why is she in time-out?" I questioned.

"She was crying," Sarah said disdainfully. Then she brightened. "I think she's stopped now. I better go get her out!" She headed back into the bedroom.

A few minutes later she returned again. "Now Prince Philip is in time-out," she said mournfully.

It's funny, and I think all children like to play that "authority figure" and hand out punishments to their dolls or stuffed animals or whatever. I've gotten a real kick out watching and listening to Sarah this evening!

Oh, and she continues to enjoy the "chicken CD." She likes the song "Dang Me" the best. With amusing lyrics like "I lack fourteen dollars having twenty-seven cents" and "Roses are red; violets are purple. Sugar is sweet, and so is maple syrple," who can blame her? ;)

Robin Hood and Roger Miller

Some of you may have seen Disney's Robin Hood (released in 1973). If you haven't seen it, animated animals are the characters in the movie. Robin Hood is a fox, for example, and Little John is a bear. The minstrel is a rooster, played by Roger Miller. Sarah recently watched Robin Hood at my parents' house. Earlier this week, my dad gave me a CD of Roger Miller's greatest hits ("King of the Road," "Dang Me," etc.). We listened to it later that night in the car.

Today we met my parents for lunch in Kingsport. When we got in the car to go home, Sarah said she wanted to listen to the "chicken CD." It took us a minute, but we realized that she was referring to the Roger Miller CD! We had mentioned briefly last week when we got the CD that Roger Miller played the rooster in Robin Hood. She didn't remember the artist's name; she just remembered that he had been the rooster! And I guess she enjoyed his music, since she asked for it again today!

Dr. Sarah

I am frequently amazed by Sarah's memory. Sometimes it seems that she never forgets anything! It has been around 4-6 weeks since I had to take Sarah to the doctor. But today she was playing doctor ("docking" me, as she says), and she was using an earpiece as a stethoscope. She also put in my ears to check them out, just as the doctor had checked hers at the time of our last visit. "I'm looking for butterflies!" she said. This is what the doctor had said to her as he examined her. And even though it was only an offhand comment that was made weeks ago, Sarah still remembers it!

more about red hair

I have already written one post about the weekend of my grandmother's memorial service, but this weekend kind of added a postscript to both that and the saga of the red hair. :)

The weekend of the service, Sarah had a terrific time playing with my cousin's son Dillon. Dillon is an adorable little red-haired boy, and he and Sarah got along really well. Sarah was kind of bummed that my other cousin didn't bring her daughter Bella, but that didn't really put a damper on the fun. Sarah asked about Dillon for several days afterward, but eventually she understood that he had returned home to Florida.

This past weekend, Sarah and I ventured to the mall on Saturday evening. We ate supper together at Subway. While we were eating, a young couple entered the restaurant with a little baby boy--a redhead! Sarah lit up with a grin. I thought perhaps she was associating the baby with her buddy Dillon. But no, Sarah had another red-haired family member in mind! She squealed in delight, "That's baby Uncle Dave!!!" She has seen pictures of my brother as a baby at my parents house, and I guess the little boy in the stroller DID resemble her uncle as baby. Sarah was trying to figure out how Uncle Dave went back to being a baby again! Lol.