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  Many times the importance of these friends, has superseded her family.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!