Baton Twirler in the house

Sometime this fall or winter when Lily was with her Abuelita she saw a parade with a majorette.  She came home and told us she wanted to learn to twirl a baton like the girl in the parade.  Well, luckily we found a baton twirling class not too far from our house.  She started this week.  It should be fun to see how she likes it!

Sensitive little soul

Today Lily comes upstairs from watching The Cat in the Hat with tears in her eyes.  She says, "Mommy I have tears in my eyes from the Grinches heart shrinking song".  Oh, what a sensitive little soul!  All we can do is hug and hold her as she cries her little heart out.  Of course, we tell her she can turn the movie off and that the Grinch is just pretend, but of course that doesn't help.  Eventually, she gathers herself together and returns downstairs to put another movie in the DVD player:)

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!