Birthday Time

Well, we know have a grown up five year old at our house.  I just have to say that so far this fifth year has started out great!  The other day I asked her to do something for me and she said, "I know mom, I'm five so I can do it."  WOW...big change and one I am grateful for!  

The best part of the day was she was looking in the bathroom mirror and said, "I don't look 5, I still look the same."  So I asked her what she thought would be different and she thought she would be lots taller.
The saddest part of the day was when she thought she would be starting kindergarten soon because she was now five.  That was a hard blow when I explained she wouldn't start till next year.

 The night before when I went into her room to give goodnight kisses, she asked me if I was going to decorate the house like last year.  She even remembered the streamers that she'd walked through.  Apparently, this is now a yearly tradition!

The day or two before her birthday, she asked me to get her glow sticks, a treat and something else that I can't remember.  I figured I could follow through with two of the three items.

We let her open one present before dad goes to work so she has something to play with during the day. It was her very first tea set.  Right away she wanted to have a tea party so I told her she could invite a couple friends over. She spent the morning making invitations, deciding who she wanted to come over, and planning what food to eat. Seriously it was quite the ordeal.

And then the tea party began!

And these girls were so silly and fun.  They had me cracking up a few times.

Kissing their spoons...they thought they were hilarious!

Then Addy asked if we could play freeze dance.

She got some new lip gloss from one of her friends and they decided to cover the little man with it.

Then they decorated cupcakes.  A quick last minute decision since I still hadn't finished the birthday cake.

As soon as Mitch got home from work, she begged to open the rest of her presents.

New shirts.

Church shoes...with a heal!  She was in heaven with these.

And a big barbie...which is now her Marabelle doll.

Then we sacrificed and took her to McDonalds.

Followed by cake (which I hurried to finish) and ice cream.

We are so glad to have this little lady in our family!  She is so full of energy and I find myself truly exhausted most nights but we wouldn't have it any other way! 

I hope you enjoy your 5th year of life! We love you!

Another year of dance

Yep, this little gal was super-duper excited for dance to start back up!  And when she found out she was moving up to the next class, she told me in a very concerned voice, "Mom, they are going to want me to do hard stuff and I am going to have to do it."  Her desire to be the best at everything is good, right?

Celebrate Youth

Every year the school district puts on 'celebrate youth' the day before school starts.  They set up lots of different booths and games for the kids sort of like a carnival but the best part is...it is free!  This was the first year we've gone and I thought we would only be there for a couple hours but Addy was having so much fun we stayed all afternoon.

As we were walking past this bull ride, I casually asked if she wanted to ride. I totally thought she would say 'no way' so it was a big shocker when she agreed.  The guy running the booth went pretty slow at first but she hung on so he sped up and after a couple seconds Mitch asked if she wanted off and she nodded yes.  So she jumped off and then started crying. Oh well. At least she was brave enough to try.

You got to love the half closed eyes while sleeping. Creepy.

And this is when I put the camera away but she also got her hair fixed by the Paul Mitchell girls, her face painted and played on lots of bouncy house toys.  We also got lots of free stuff like books, bags, toothbrushes and little toys!  I'm thinking we will now be regular attendees.

Orthopedic Visit

As you can see from the pictures, after our visit with the orthopedic specialist he decided the best and quickest solution was to put our little man in casts.  He will wear them for six weeks but they will get changed every two to help mold his poor little crooked feet. It is just a sad thing to see such a tiny baby in casts, luckily they really don't seem to bug him that much.

Camping

One activity that Mitch wanted to do before summer ended was to go camping with the family.  After our camping adventure last year with the bears, I made sure we went to an actual campground so there would be several other people around to scare the bears away!  To be honest, I was a little hesitant about going because we'd been having so many issues with the Addy girl (just packing up was a nightmare!) plus we have a new baby.  Since it was only for one night and we were going with good friends, I tried to have a good attitude.  We went up to Island Park to a place were Mitch used to camp as a kid.  It was beautiful but next time we won't choose the site right by the highway, those trucks get pretty noisy at night! 

Addy helped set up the tent.

Spent some time coloring while we got the fire started for our tin foil dinners.

Mitch maning the fire with the little man.

He loves his hands...they are always a slobbery mess.

Playing a rousing game of Uno while we wait for our dinners to cook.

The kids even got to watch a show before bed while the adults played Canasta.

After our delicious breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausage we shared some lovely songs around the campfire.

Then packed everything up and headed up to Big Springs to see the fish.

Turns out we had a really hard time finding the fish. We had to look far under the bridge and we still only saw a couple.

This little guy was amazing!

On the trail to Johnny Sack's Cabin.

Hehe..I love this picture.
This is at the outhouse of the cabin and I told Addy to pretend like she had to go to the bathroom.

Our only family picture from the trip. Thankfully it is a pretty good one!

On our way back to the car so we could have our picnic lunch!

Turns out we need to go camping more often!  Our kids did awesome, meaning we had no melt-downs from the oldest or the youngest!  To top it all off when Addy was asked what her favorite thing was she said...spending time with my family!  Pretty big deal since lately we have been the worst family ever to her.  My attitude about camping has greatly changed.