Kiera Lately

“Lately” meaning the past year-oops! These are random pics and videos that I haven’t put in other blog posts…

Kiera is still a collector of “treasures”. She is especially enamored with downtrodden Charlie Brown-looking flowers.

Kiera’s cubby at school (filled with treasures collected at recess). Notice the cubbies on either side of hers are spotless.

Closeup. Broken balloon skin (lol)?!?

A “special” stick that she insisted on bringing home.

She often looks like a rag-a-muffin. She plays HARD.

At bedtime every night she asks for “super cold (sprudel/carbonated) water with ice.”

I LOVE this picture. The missing front tooth is killing me 🙂

See what I mean by playing hard? This is what she looks like most days when I pick her up from school.

she would walk through every puddle and climb every tree…

chasing leaves

 

I love how proud she is at the end of this video.

 

I mentioned in her birthday post how obsessed she is with dragons (she was one for both Halloween and Karneval this year). Here she is wearing her favorite shirt and boots.

Thank God I had the foresight to buy multiple pairs of these dragon rain boots. She’s already worn out a pair because she wears them almost every day.

carrying one of her MANY dragons while running errands

This lizard is another favorite toy of hers lately. She wanted it so badly that she used her own money to buy it.

She’s been sounding out words and writing independently more and more lately (it says “like a sweet dragon” in German). She mostly writes in German. I haven’t been working with her much in English since most of their schoolwork/ reading is in German, and that’s the focus now.

Here she was just putting together random letters (last year), and then asked me hopefully, “What did I spell, Mama?” She was pretty upset when I had to break the news that it didn’t actually spell a word.

she made a “vacant” sign for our bathroom door..

..and an “occupied” one also!

a piece of paper she folded to make a wallet (she loves making paper crafts)

The other side of the wallet says “candy hiding place” in German.

Here’s her paper wallet for coins

here’s her 1.50 euro bill (which obviously doesn’t exit- so cute!)

and paper airplanes, of course!

Most days she wraps up a “present” (usually a piece of candy) for Quinnie or her friend Louis.

Lots of painting and drawing. EVERY DAY. Her favorite thing to do.

she loves to help in the kitchen

LOVES Jello. It’s called Wackelpudding (wiggle pudding) here.

I love this shopping list that she made for Papa (of her favorite junk food)

When she’s upset she’ll usually draw about it first (above- she drew her broken heart 🙁 )

more broken hearts with lightening bolts and the German word for “dumb”

…and then retreat to her room and barricade the door

On better days she’ll occasionally make me a perfectly timed art creation (above and below). I treasure these.

One day on the way home from school she decided that she wouldn’t step on a crack the whole way home. Which was fine until…

…COBBLESTONE ! Let’s just say it took a long time to get home.

 

While waiting for Quinnie to get out of soccer practice she asked me to take these videos. “Look how fast I can run, Mama.” Of course she had a “special” stick in her hand…

 

“Look how still I can go.” (pretending to be a statue)

 

She thinks she’s SO hilarious when she puts underwear on her head…

making funny fish-eye faces

looking like a Princess who’s had a rough day

still loving this chair that I wrote about in this post..

Her new favorite hiding place- the windowsill behind our bed.

 

This video is from a while ago, when we were reviewing ABC’s. I love it because it really shows Kiera’s personality. She is very willful and definitely knows what she wants. She sure is a handful. Our girl has spirit!

Between her personality, her love of dragons, and her serious computer skills, I told Simon that I was worried she was on her way to becoming Lisbeth Salander (main character from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). Of course this only made him happy (she’s one of his favorite book characters).

 

Here are two videos of Kiera ice skating. She seems to really enjoy wiping out. As I was putting this post together Kiera asked if she could show the vids to her friend Maya, who was visiting. Kiera kept saying, “Maya, I am SUCH a good ice skater.  Maya watched the videos and said, “Um, you’re kind of wiggly…(lol!)” Kiera just let it roll off her shoulders. She’s perfectly happy and confident with her ability.

 

 

Here’s a video that I just realized I’d never posted here before. It’s from a few weeks after we first moved to Germany and Kiera had just learned a new song in German. I love her sweet voice.

Can you see the heart she drew?

Some Kiera quotes from the past few weeks:

After she nudged me awake: “Mama, when you wake up, can you make me some toast?”

“My hair tastes like rotten broccoli.”

“Papa, your breath smells like a dead pigeon!” ?!

She cracks me up (and I’m sure I’m missing funny things she says in German every day)! I need to start writing this stuff down more often…