Closing out the year!

 

December has been a fun and busy month for us. We started a marble jar in November and Lily really rose to the challenge.  She earned marbles for being caught being "good".  Once her marble jar was full she was able to pick out a large prize from the toy store!  We were really proud of her.  She really worked hard to get dressed and brush her teeth in the mornings and evenings, be nice and helpful to her brother, and overall be a good listener to her parents.

She really has been an amazing big sister.  She is so good to Ashton.  Playing with him and occasionally assisting with his care.

Her reading continues to excel.  I think she is on a 2nd-grade level now!

She is such a sweet girl to others.  Always thinking of others and wanting to give things to others to show them how special they are to her!

I pray that 2013 will continue to be a year of growth and maturity for our little princess!

Terrible sixes

I often don't post non-encouraging stuff in Lily's blog, but honestly, age six has been a tough one.  Lily is a very strong-willed young lady and she gets very angry when she does not get her way. She occasionally will explode into full-fledged temper tantrums complete with screaming, crying, stomping, door slamming, door kicking, etc.  We have tried things to curb the tantrums including rewards, consequences, and teaching her anger management skills, but sometimes it all seems futile. She does well for a small time and then a few weeks or days later she falls apart again.   I wonder if this is normal.  I wonder if she has some deep-seated anger issue that we need to explore in therapy?   I often fear for the future, wondering if this is some foreshadowing for what lies ahead.  I lie in bed many times at night calling out to God for guidance and wisdom in raising and disciplining her.  I remind myself how I begged the Lord to let us be her parents, and how he has given her to train her in His ways.  But I have to be honest when I say I am feeling really discouraged. 

I know her strong-will will serve her well in life, but man is it tough to parent!

She is very good at school and around others.  I have to give her credit for that!  It's really just at home.

In other news, Lily is really becoming a fluent reader. It has been so fun watching her read to herself in bed just for fun!  Reading is becoming more natural for her!  I love it!

Girl Clown

Today we got all dolled up for a family photo shoot.  I dressed up and put make-up on.  I asked Lily if she thought Mommy looked pretty.  Lily replied, "Mommy you kinda look like a girl clown."  Ouch...It will be fun to see these pictures!

Notable quotations

The sentence and inflection of the week has been "damn it....." and "damn it,  sucks when I wear the wrong color."  The first time it caught me off guard.   Besides the word damn it...I  can't remember the rest of her sentence.  I immediately demanded to know where she heard that.  Anyway, she didn't know and I told her if I heard it again there would be some unpleasant consequence

Then today she tried sentence #2 with Daddy.  I think the combination of damn it and sucks really caught us off guard!    I don't know how Olav managed to keep a straight face.  Tonight we had a little talk about those words and how to convey feelings without using those types of words....too bad this is only the beginning.  While talking about it she asked me what the worst bad word was....I told her she would learn that someday.  She begged me to tell her...promising not to tell anyone else...NOT!

Fun Days!

Lily has been having a lot of fun this fall!  This past Friday, Lily went to work with me, since Maryland schools were closed to students due to the MSTA convention.  Anyway on our way to an appt. Lily and I stopped briefly into an Old Navy.  While there Lily had to use the restroom.  I figured while she was using the bathroom, it would be a perfect opportunity to try on some of the t-shirts I had grabbed from the clearance shelf.  Many of them had the Old Navy logo on them.  As I am trying them on, Lily says to me, "Mommy does that say, Old Lady?".  LOL.  The things that come out of kid's mouths!

In other news, we had a super fun weekend with our friends the Murphy's and the Henry's.  We did Graver Farm on Saturday and today we did Lily's 1st ever 5K.  The Color Run down in National Harbor!  What a blast it was.  Even Ashton participated as I ran, walked, and jogged with him in the stroller!  Lily did really well!  The race just flew by!  You didn't even realize you were going 3.2 miles.  Towards the end, Lily started to complain about her leg hurting, so she rode in the stroller with Ashton for about 1/4 mile and then she was recovered and ready to run. 

The pictures at the end really tell the story!  I absolutely love them!

High Flyer

Last night we had Lily's parent-teacher conference with her 1st grade teacher Ms. Riner.  Ms. Riner describes Lily as her angel and one of her high flyers!  Academically she is doing very well.  She is reading on level 14, which puts her about 3 quarters ahead of her grade level.  In Math, she can count up to 110 without errors, even though she only has to be able to count up to 70 to be on grade level.  She appears to love school and is doing well socially as well!  Her teacher did report that she had to move Lily's seat because she was such a social butterfly but that she has lots of friends and seems to interact very well with her peers.  She asked us to work on Lily's writing (placing letters on the line properly) and spelling stretching and sounding out words to spell)  as she knows Lily can do it, she just needs some coaching/encouragement to take the time to do it correctly.  Needless to say, we are super proud of our HIGH FLYER!!!!!  Way to go Lily.  You make your mommy and daddy super proud!

Always the fashionista

Lily definitely has her own sense of style.  The more colorful the ensemble the better.  Plus add patterns and texture and you've got yourself a true fashionista.  Last week she got all dolled up for church, complete with a pink frilly skirt, pink Hello Kitty polka-dotted shirt, red sparkly shoes, a red pink, and brown circular pattern Fedora hat, and to top it all off, pink butterfly wings, and her fashion sticker portfolio.  Today's outfit was a true standout!  Again her pink Hello Kitty polka-dotted shirt, yellow skort, rainbow leggings, and multi-colored black sparkle Sketchers shoes.  Apparently, she topped off her outfit with her beautiful Guatemalan camouflage-like jacket!

Super Swimmer in the House

So proud of our Lily Bean...she started the FAST pre-comp swim team tonight...while I wasn't there to see it, Olav reported she swam across the pool from the 3 feet to the 9 feet 2 times without any assistance. So proud! These are the moments I wish I could share with her birth family!

Lily's 1st fish!

 

Today was a fun special day.  We went to Greenbrier State Park to meet with some dear friends.  While there I received a text from our neighbors Jimmy and Cindy Trout.  The text read "We see you on the beach."  Jimmy and Cindy were out in the water on their boat fishing.  They invited Lily out to hang out on the boat with them.  Apparently they had been out their fishing for 2 hours and had caught practically nothing.  Lily came aboard and all of sudden they were catching large mouth bass left and right!  Lily had such a great time, she didn't want to come off the boat!  What an awesome day!

1st grader in the house!

Today Lily began 1st grade!  So hard to believe!  Of course as usual she had pre-picked her new outfit, however once on, she decided it was too large and opted for one of her more tried and true skort and t-shirts.  She has Mrs. Riner and she reported having a good day.

 

 Mrs. Riner even gave her a lollipop!  (Which I have learned any person who gives Lily a treat (i.e. popsicle, lollipop etc) automatically is a winner!  Lily loved gymnastics camp because they gave her a popsicle.  Lily loved art camp because they gave her a popsicle.  Lily disliked soccer camp...why....no popsicle.  So things are starting off on the right foot!

So proud!

So proud of our lily pad!  She just adores swimming!  Tonight with the help of her swim instructor she swam all the way across the teaching pool, twice!  Proud mama moment!

Independent!

Merliah, queen of the waves

Look, I'm pumping!

No fear Lily!

Lily and her best buddy Brooke

One thing I really notice about Lily nowadays is her sense of independence.  I can't pinpoint it exactly, but the areas we notice it the most in the area of her friendships, her love of reading, taking on more responsiblity at home and her  physical skill development.   She has developed some friendships with some neighborhood children and has really spread her wings. She plays with her new friends for hours.  Many times the importance of these friends, has superseded her family.  It has been an opportunity for us to teach many important skills.  Her love of reading continues much to our delight.  She is an awesome reader!  I love listening to her read in the car or in her bedroom to herself.  At home she has become much more agreeable in the areas of getting dressed, cleaning her room, and sharing reponsiblity for other areas in the house (i.e. basement, bathroom).  Not that it is all rosy, but compared to the past, we can really see an improvement!   Physically she has become so much more confident and willing to try a variety of new skills.  She has learned to do skin the cat on the trapeze, complete 3 rungs on the monkey bars, and pump on the swing.  Also, she has become a super awesome swimmer!   So confident!  At the ocean, she even went out into the big waves!  I love it!

Tooth fairy visits twice and Lily finishes kindergarten

Well this was a very busy week for the toothfairy.  She had to come to our house twice in one week!  Ashton's head bumped Lily's mouth and knocked out her first top tooth.  Then while sucking on a water bottle with a lid, Lily's 2nd top tooth fell out!  Of course she looks super adorable!

Two Front Teeeth!

Last Day of Kindergarten

Hard to believe yesterday was  her last day of kindergarten.  It went by so fast!  She had a fabulous year!  She loves to read and is reading above grade level.  She loves to do math, especially shapes and addition problems.  We are super proud of her!  Her teacher Mrs. Shaffer said, "It has been my pleasure working with Lily this year!  She is such a delightgul, kind child and I am grateful to have had her in my class!"

Lily's first really bad word....sadness of innocence lost

I knew it would happen sooner or later...but honestly I was really hoping for later....especially since when I was growing up no one around me used bad language or I was oblivious. In fact I didn't know any bad words until my babysitter's son taught them to me in 4th or 5th grade.  Anyway Lily came home the other day sharing that she learned a bad word.  Now frequently she has shared learning bad words, but the words are along the lines of stupid.   But this one took the cake!

So apparently Ethan (a boy in her class)  was doing -ick word families.  Well you can imagine when he added a d- to his word family, what he taught the rest of the kindergarteners in Ms. Shaffer's class!  On seperate occassions both daddy and  I asked Lily if she knew what it meant and how she knew it was  bad word. To daddy she said no and I explained to her that it was a not polite name for a boy's private part or that sometimes it could be a person's first name. Apparently somewhere along the way she had some understanding of it being a boys private part, because then she went onto to show me her further understanding of the word using hand motions.....one hand with an okay sign....the other hand using the pointer finger to go through the okay sign....GREAT....just great!  Oh well....I guess this is JUST the beginning!

Spring Fun

Spring has been super fun and super busy! The last week of March we got peeps! Lily has really enjoyed them, even though she is a little rough on them! Here favorite is fuzzy, who is the "runt" of the brood!

A Big birthday bash!

All partied out!

Today we threw Lily a super big 6th birthday bash! I think she really enjoyed it! About 22 friends came and shared the occasion with her! It was great. My friend Val Monroe came and did face painting! That was a huge hit! My friend Joey Decker came and did a parachute! So fun! We also had two arts and crafts tables with coloring and watercolor painting!

Best Big Sister Ever

One of my favorite things about being a mom to Lily and Ashton is to watch them play together and laugh!

Lily is the most amazing big sister! She is constantly looking out for Ashton and willing to help out as needed! Ashton loves to play in Austin's water dish, but Lily frequently saves the day! Ashton loves to walk, and Lily enjoys walking him. One of their favorites is playing in the tent. Their laughter warms my heart! I hope they always have that special sibling bond!

Becoming Worldly

I guess we knew it was coming....our daughter has officially become wordly. I guess school does that to a kid! I am not suggesting that it's all bad, but you can definitely tell Lily is growing up! The other evening she put on a show/concert for us. She doned a brimed hat and a microphone and shook her thing. Of course not having t.v. in our home, I know she hasn't seen it on t.v., but school...that's a whole another ballgame. She even knows all about the Baltimore Ravens even though we don't even follow or watch football. Last weekend we were at the bagel store and they had purple bagels for the Sunday football game. I asked her why they had purple bagels...of course she knew it was for the Ravens! "So they could play on the baseball field" she said! Then there was the cover girl again....she was in Walmart with daddy earlier this week and saw cover girl products. She said, "look daddy it's cover girl". Oh growing up....but I must say....I personally have really loved age 5...she has been so much fun!