Sawyer Smith

Before/Afters

Here are three before/afters from all the spring activity. Jurgen also helped with this front bed.

The garage was all me (including the color selection).

Front Bed before (with Jurgen at work)

Front bed after

Back vegetable garden before & after:

Garden improvement 2012

Garden improvement began early in April, with Sawyer helping me improve the soil of our raised beds.

Not long after that, Uncle Jurgen flew out in mid-April for a weekend of hard labor - and the garden was majorly improved. Thanks for all your work!

We started with this spring garden.

We had a dinosaur-themed birthday party this year. We had a dinosaur egg hunt in the front yard, pin the horn on the triceratops, a t-rex pinata, and of course, diplodocus cake. It was awesome.

Here are some pics:

4th Birthday!

Sawyer had a fabulous 4th birthday. We started out slowly: french toast and presents. Then we made cupcakes and Sawyer tried out his new scooter! His party came a few days later (next post).

Catching Ducks

We played this hysterical game for at least an hour before we began filming. First, we set a trap for bunnies that we thought had snuck into the house. We placed carrots in an open trap, propped open with a stick, and tied a bell to the trap to alert us when a creature had tried to get the bait. Then we went bunny hunting. And then again and again, we would end up with a carrot missing and a bunny in the trap. By the time we were filming this, we were on to catching ducks.

Drawing & Writing

Sawyer has been doing a lot of drawing. I has been interesting to watch him begin to create representations of creatures.

For many months, Sawyer has refused to draw in coloring books. He was so concerned about drawing outside the lines that he absolutely refused. While we were fine with it, as long as he continued to draw, we soon began to see that he was also losing confidence in his drawing. And then it all changed. He decided he was ready to color again and he was fairly confident that he would stay in the lines - and of course, he did.
The exact same thing happened with his writing. He started to learn his letters last year. Then he absolutely refused to write any letters. We decided not to push the issue because it upset him. Then one day it all changed. He started writing with confidence and he could write all his letters. No problems. With both of these cases we are learning that he doesn't like failure, he doesn't like for people to see him struggle, and that he is very self critical. Learning this is helping us parent accordingly - he is clearly pushing himself and he will perform when he feels confident. It remains our job to just support him and let him tell us when he is ready for big developmental steps.