Sophie: Age 5

Sophie and her best friend "Little Fuzzy"

 I feel like I just wrote the post about Sophie's 4th birthday. She's so grown up. She's always acted mature for her age, so turning five wasn't a total shock since she acts like she's 14 all the time.

Sophie had the idea of filling a bucket with sand and putting the umbrella from her sand table in it. Then they grabbed boxes from inside the house to use as beach chairs. Maybe we should get some real ones...?

Sophie's fun. She has great ideas and loves being in charge. (Luckily Ivy doesn't mind being bossed around a bit.) She's also very tender-hearted and gets her feelings hurt easily, but I think it's that sensitivity that allows her to be nurturing. She's very watchful over her little sister, and although they argue and fight sometimes, she's very protective of her -- especially when we're not at home. 

She's very girly and loves all things sparkly, pink, & frilly. She likes to read books, dance, listen to music, and often sings to herself (on key with pretty good vibrato, too.) Sometimes I think she's going to be my musical theater child, but then I remember how shy she can be when other people are around.

Drawing and coloring are also things she does often. The pictures she draws are sometimes people/family oriented with lots of flowers & butterflies. And sometimes she'll just draw an entire page full of circles in straight lines which brings me to her next interesting trait....

Sophie is all about symmetry and patterns. When she plays, her princesses/ponies/rocks/whatevers are often lined up or arranged in some pattern. (I can relate to that. Symmetry and patterns make me happy, too.)

Sophie's very curious. When she's interested in something she'll ask a million questions about and want to find a "movie on the computer" (aka YouTube) about it. (Lately it's been about sea animals... dolphins, whales, sharks, etc.) She's also very observant and has a good memory. She'll pick up on and remember very small details about places or events and bring them up at random times.

Lately she (both girls actually) has been supplementing her princess fetish with a bit of Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Pony. For her birthday cake this year she wanted the same cake as her 2nd birthday (this Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Cream Frosting), but wanted blueberries instead of strawberries. I sat down with her a month ago, she told me exactly how she wanted her cake to look and I drew it for her.

She wanted a Rainbow Dash cake. That hairy thing is Rainbow Dash herself. Don't those clouds and grass look so realistic? Sometimes I amaze myself.

Birthday cakes are a big deal around here. The girls talk about them all year long, and have them planned out for the next three years. (They always change their mind about a month from their birthdays, so I don't have to rely on my memory.)

We played it pretty low key this year. We gave her a choice between a party with friends or dinner and shopping with mom & dad. She chose dinner and shopping (much to my relief -- I'm not up to throwing a party for a dozen kids).

We're so proud of how much she's grown and learned the past year and can't wait to see how she likes Kindergarten this fall!

Oh, and did I mention she's grown FIVE inches since September? That kills me.

Happenings

Just a few little random pictures from the past month...

 "Look Mom! We're in a tortilla bed!" I love how food-minded my children are.

Did I mention that I have several furry grandchildren? My kids give birth at several times a week. 

Ivy just being her crazy self. I wish she would stay three forever. I love it.

 

Oh, and this happened. As much as I swore I'd never drive a minivan I'm surprised how much I like it. Like... really like it. The more I drive it, the more I like it.

We wanted to buy a used one, but because of issues with Steve's student loans we couldn't get a loan from the bank. So we ended up leasing a new one. This is the first time we've ever had a brand-new car... or a car payment... or that paranoid feeling that someone will give me a door ding. 

I totally understand why my dad always parks his cars in the boonies.

Easter

The Easter bunny was good to us this year. The girls needed something to to outside besides scatter branches and landscape rocks all over the grass. We're trying out this sand/water table thing. So far they've been pretty good about tracking sand in the house and they know to wash their hands when they come in. the problem now is that water ended up filling both sides making a soupy, sandy mess. We're waiting for it to dry out. 

(Mostly because I have zero motivation to clean out that thing. Or do to most things lately.)

Steve's parents came up on Friday and stayed the night, so we did our egg dying on Saturday.

I was super impressed that we didn't end up with dye all over the place!

Oh, and Steve had a weird flu the whole weekend. :( Poor guy. The girls got sick a few days later, but just for a day. I managed to dodge that bullet. 

Thank. Goodness.

Here are the girls in their Easter dresses. They're into matching lately. (And Ivy's into the "bored supermodel look" lately.)

 

The girls got their annual Easter box from my parents. (They look forward to those every holiday now and can spot a UPS truck several blocks away when we're out running errands.) They love their new dresses and Easter goodies! Thanks Mom & Dad!

Trip to Idaho

Here are the photos from our trip to Idaho in March!

My pretty little girls :)



My dad took us up to a sheep farm in Hamer to see the lambs.

 

(and the puppies wandering around)



Thank goodness Hillie had her camera out that day.

 

 We took an unexpected ride on the "gut cart" (yes, it's really called that) to gather up some mamas and freshly-born lambs.

 

I'm pretty sure this is the laziest sheep dog ever.

 

 These two were born not too long ago.

 

We got to see this guy pulled out of his mama. My kids have been asking a lot of questions lately about how our baby is going to come out. Things should be pretty clear now.




Luckily they won't strap me to a dirty cart and take me for a bumpy ride minutes after MY baby comes out. Poor mama sheep.

 







 
















There was a lot of relaxing at gramma's. 

And getting smooched on.

Keeping Busy

We never had much of a winter here. 

 

 

 The girls kept asking when they could build a snowman. Or make pomegranate slushies (pomegranate juice + clean snow).

The only "snowman" that was made was on our fluffy white rug. We might as well have been in California.

   

They had to get creative. Those may look like stickers, but they're not.

  

Anything long and thin that can be pinned to your head is hair. 

  

(By the way, this was their idea, not mine. Their ideas are way more fun.)