Princess in Training

The very first princess dress-up that we bought for Arielle has been handed down to her baby sister, Averi.  When we bought this Mermaid costume for Arielle she was two and half and it was a little big on her.  Averi is 19 months and it fits her very well.  She is ALL belly!

Arielle is graduating from Kindergarten in two weeks...I can hardly believe it!

Arielle is six!

My baby girl turned 6 years old earlier this month. She wanted me to pick the theme for her birthday and surprise her so I chose a Pajama Party!  The girls (and one boy) had a pajama fashion show and each one got an award. 

Birthday girl holding her cousin, Flat Ty!

Little sister enjoying the balloons!

Each girl got to decorate pillow cases with strips of ribbon.  This was a great craft and thankfully I had a couple extra set of hands to help me iron them on with no-sew hem tape. There were a lot of little girls running around the house that day...perhaps too many which I will remember in future years. 

It was a lovely birthday party!  A couple of girls left with tears in their eyes because they didn't want to go home.

A Note to Averi from Arielle

This note that Arielle wrote to Averi {on Averi's new chalkboard table} is so sweet.  It fills my heart with joy to know that Arielle loves her little sister!

Translation: 

"Averi, I want to thank you for being a good sister"

Averi ~ 11 months & Arielle ~ First Day of Kindergarten

Averi is 11 months old! 

Here are some updates:

-Her scooting turned into actual CRAWLING on her hands and knees on the day she turned 11 months old and she is getting quicker as the days go by!  We installed a gate on the main level that blocks her from the basement and upper level stairs.  We still need to install one upstairs but for now we just constantly watch her when we are up there.

-She is still drinking about 22 ounces of formula a day (2 bottles and 2 sippy cups).  She doesn't like to finish her sippy cups at home for some reason but I'm told that at school she drinks it all up!  She is starting to drink small amounts from an open cup at school as well and doing a very good job of it.  The ladies at school even took a picture of her doing it for me.

-Averi is still eating practically everything in sight but now she is doing some funny stuff when she eats!  She likes to sort out her food, especially if I mix veggies with it.  She'll pick them up one by one and put them in her cupholder or drop them on the floor.  She'll eventually eat them (if she hasn't thrown them on the floor) if they are the only thing left on her plate.  She really doesn't like it when I try to feed her because she wants to do it herself but sometimes she'll let me feed her yogurt.

-Still taking one 2 hour nap at school but taking two naps at home on the weekends.  This allows us more flexibility for getting stuff done on the weekends.  She definitely sleeps better at home than she does at school.

-Bedtime is still between 7-7:30.  She is now sleeping with a receiving blanket AND her froggy stuffed blanket.  She gets a 6 ounce bottle at bedtime and doesn't cry at all when I put her down if she is tired.  I'm going to cut that bottle out when she starts drinking real milk and there will be no more bottles for Averi.  She almost always wakes up at 6 am and talks to herself in her crib until I get her out at 6:15.

-She is wearing 18 to 24 month clothes but since she started crawling in the past week she has started noticeably slimming down.  She no longer has "knee rolls" and her "back rolls" are starting to dissapear also.

-She is starting to try to pull herself up onto things but is not very steady at all and always has one of her feet turned sideways when she is standing.

-Averi loves holding stuff in her hands, especially bouncy balls and plastic eggs!  She is very good at playing ball too.  Some other things she loves are splashing in the bath (a lot), playing peek-a-boo, swinging on the playground, chasing the dogs, BITING (trying to nip this one in the bud but she thinks it's hilarious when she bites and I say "no"), kissing with her mouth wide open which usually turns into biting.

-Averi doesn't like having stuff taken away from her at all!  Or waiting for her food while she sits in her high chair.  These two things make her cry...a lot.  She also gets pretty fussy when she is tired at which point she tosses her head back and if she is sitting on the floor she'll bring her forehead to the ground and cry. 

-Funniest thing she does is say "DOG DOG" whenever she hears someone calling for the dogs (which means she knows their names) or when she sees one of them.  She isn't really saying any other words at this point other than Mama, Dada and Ball.  I thought for a while she was saying Sister but I'm not certain of it now.  She sure does like to babble a lot though especially in the car!

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Arielle started Kindergarten!

-She hurt her big toe the first day of school, on the second day she fell on the rocks and got a big bruise on her thigh and a cut on her elbow and on the third day she bumped her head and got a big bump and bruise.  Other than that things are going well and she is really enjoying it!  Tonight she did her first "Grouch" homework page.

-Arielle has been writing her own stories lately and she LOVES to read books.  We have been going to the new library down the road so she can get a variety of books to read. 

-Her "boy" friend Levi from Pre-K didn't move up to Kindergarten but she still gets to see him when they are playing outside.  I wonder how long it will be before she gets a new crush in the Kindergarten class!

Time seems to be flying by soooo fast...

~Desiree~

A Letter to the Tooth Fairy

Arielle lost her first baby tooth about a month ago and I mean that literally.  She was on a field trip and tried to open her pudding with her and teeth which made the tooth fall out.  Apparently everyone including her teachers looked for the tooth but it was nowhere to be found.  At the suggestion of one of her teachers, Arielle wrote this letter to the Tooth Fairy explaining why she did not have her tooth to put under her pillow {or in her tooth pillow that hangs from her bed post as the case may be}:

Her spelling is pretty good for being five and not getting any help but for those of you who need a translation here it is:

Dear Tooth Fairy,

My tooth fell out and I'm not sure if you know or not or if you saw or not and I hope you know.

Love,

Arielle

The letter worked and the Tooth Fairy left Arielle a very generous amount of $5! 

Good thing I remembered to take a picture of the letter before the Tooth Fairy took it away ;-)

Here is a picture of Arielle with her newly missing tooth.  She has three more loose teeth on the bottom and her new one has already grown almost in full!


~Desiree~

Spring at our house

I found these beautiful pictures on my camera the other day. They were taken by my five year old daughter, Arielle. She has such a passion for flowers. In fact, she is struggling on learning to ride her bike because she is more focused on picking all of the flowers along the way {mostly dandelions}. In the past week, I have pulled the car over three times to pick wildflowers for her. It would break my heart if she didn't get to see them up close and smell their wonderful aroma. Yesterday she started two books, one a Nature Guide of Wildflowers and the other one for Leaves. She is drawing all of the ones she finds and writing their names. I am thankful for the warm seasons because I know I will always have a freshly picked bouqet of flowers, courtesy of Arielle, to cheer me up!

My iris are going crazy this year! They have gotten so tall and multiplied times ten. I have a lot of work to do this fall to divide and replant them. These are some of the easiest bulbs to maintain. I have some planted on the sides of the garden bed but most of them are planted in the rocks along the fence. They do well in both places. Good thing our fence is long because I am going to need lots more room to replant them. I'll probably offer some to my neighbors as well.

~Momma to Bug n' Bear~

Bedtime Blues

For the past week now Arielle has had a very difficult time falling asleep at her regular bedtime. I would go upstairs and walk by her room to feed Averi between 9 and 10 pm and find that Arielle's bedroom light was on. Upon opening the door she would be sitting up in bed with a pile of books on her bed and on the floor. She would just say "I can't fall asleep." I spoke to her teachers and asked them not to help her fall asleep at nap time because my hope was that any sleep during the day would be the cause of her not being able to fall asleep at night. Turns out that she didn't nap most days this week but still couldn't fall asleep at night.


I'm actually quite amazed at how well she is handling this because I would have expected her to come downstairs throughout the course of the night and make a fuss to sit with us. However, to my delight there has been no crying, whining, fussing, yelling, screaming or any other tantrum-like episodes thus far. Of course, I'm not at all too happy about this new little routine that she has been settling into but I think we are doing a good job of handing it.


Last night I decided to take a new approach to the situation. I told her that she couldn't turn the lights on after we left her room but she could use her flashlight to read one book. After that she had to try to fall asleep but whatever she did she couldn't turn her bedroom light on. I think having the light on will make her less likely to fall asleep which is why I made this rule. I know for sure that she didn't turn her light on last night because I checked often but I never went in her room to know if she read more than one book or what time she fell asleep. I'm crossing my fingers that the "No lights on" rule will work and she'll outgrow this soon.

~Momma to Bug n' Bear ~

Bug is Five!

It's still hard to believe but my first baby girl turned 5 years old today! I could tell when I picked her up after work that she had a very special day at school. For starters, she got to wear her pink sequin tierra headband all day long! I asked her if they did anything special for her since it was her birthday and she told me they served her a cupcake with sprinkles, her class sang the birthday song to her AND she got a goody bag which the "birthday man" hid for her to find. When she got home Daddy surprised her with balloons then off they went to the airport to pick up Gaby. Then it was my turn to surprise her...this time with another sprinkled cupcake! Tonight before she went to bed she told me, "Thank you for the special cupcake, I love you!" It was so sweet and so "big-kid-like".

Arielle has grown up so much in the past year. We are proud of her for so many reasons. She is a kind, caring soul that is very good at making friends. She loves her baby sister with all of her heart and is so good at talking/playing with her. She gets excited to help her Mommy and Daddy and constantly tells us how much she loves us. She truly amazes us with her desire to learn and ability to learn quickly. I'm going to miss the younger years but at the same time I'm looking forward to the next phase of her life....grade school, crushes, best friends. How exciting to share all of this with her!

Happy 5th Birthday...we love you, Bug!

~Momma to Bug n' Bear~

Why yesterday was a good day

Yesterday was a good day! It all started when I got home from work and almost immediately after I walked through the door Averi started to cry. Why is this a good thing? Because it means that she missed me and she was happy to see me and wanted me to give her attention. I held her tight and felt all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that she feels this way about me.

After that Arielle came out of hiding from her bedroom {which is unusual for her to be alone in there during the day in the first place} and told me to close my eyes because she had a surprise. When I got up to her bedroom door I closed my eyes so she could open it to reveal the surprise. It was a "hair accessory shop" that she set up! She had neatly placed her pretend makeup, hair clips, brushes, mirrors, lip gloss and cell phones around the perimeter of her bench. She also put her "jewel" treasures on it and told me they were different colored hair dyes and asked me if I wanted her to dye my hair. The dye stick was the end of a very large fake flower that she likes to play with. It was too cute and I now wish I had taken a picture of it.

The very best part about yesterday was that Averi {sort of} slept through the night! I had fed her before she went to bed and three hours later just as I was going to bed because she woke up again. This was around 10:30. At about 12:30 she woke up again and I knew she couldn't possibly be hungry so I decided to let her "cry it out" and see what happens. Zak decided to get up and see if she would fall back asleep for him but as usual, this only made her cry harder and the whole time he was holding her she looked around for me. Since holding her didn't make her stop crying he put her back in the crib after a while. She only cried for about five more minutes and then she went back to sleep. Next thing I know I'm waking up to the sound of her crying and I look at the clock to see that it's 5:30 am. She went 7 hours without eating! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this wasn't a one time thing and she'll start sleeping through the night from now on. If not, I think adding baby food to her diet in a couple of weeks when she turns 6 months old will help do the trick.

~Momma to Bug~

Dissapearing words and warning signs!

I love how the 4 year old minds work...if only I could peek inside and see the wheels spinning! Last night Arielle was reading the label on her kids mouthwash bottle {she reads everything in sight these days} and she asked me "When it gets old will the new go away?". I had absolutely NO IDEA what she was talking about so I said "What?" like three times before I finally understood what she was getting at with her question. The label on the mouthwash bottle had the word "NEW" on it so she thought that once the bottle got old that the word would disappear! I then tried to explain why the word was on the label in the first place and the only way that it could "go away" but sort of gave up because it was rather difficult for her to understand. Plus she got distracted by the fact that the label was removable and all she could think about was getting it off so she could have a new sticker!

A few days ago she also asked me why there was a sign that said "BEWARE OF DOG" on somebodys fence. It wasn't hard to explain why but this came just days after she asked me if burglars are real or pretend {just in books}. I had to lie about this one and there is a good reason for this. When I was a child I had a reoccuring nightmare about somebody breaking into our house. I didn't want this to happen to her. Do you blame me?

~Momma to Bug n'Bear~

Remember this...

This morning Arielle had this to say about jumping out of an airplane:

"If you jump out of an airplane and you don't have a parachute, you might land in the middle of the street and get hit by a car and hurt yourself."

~Momma to Bug n' Bear~