I'm 5! I'm 5! I'm a big girl now, I'm 5!

Happy Big Birthday to Xiomara!

What a great day! We had our traditional pancakes with ice cream and syrup for breakfast. They were a little disappointed when the pancakes didn't have smiley faces on them but I didn't have time for that - we slept in a little and had to make it to the library for story time. She did get to open her birthday card from Grammy and Gaffa after she was done with breakfast.

Then we packed up and went to the library. It was another good story time with a painting craft. Gotta love it! Then we went home to enjoy the spectacular lunch menu - cold cereal! Yes, that's what she chose. At least it was quick. For dinner we had homemade crepes with fresh strawberries and blueberries and whipped cream! If they didn't take so long to make I'd have them once a week! Delicious! We got showers taken before Grandma and Grandpa Nichols showed up with the birthday cake. Then we all sat down to enjoy presents and cake together. She asked for clay so that's what we got her - and so did Grandma and Grandpa Nichols so she has a lot of clay to play with (white air dry stuff and lots of colored modeling clay that says it doesn't dry out). We surprised her with a new bike of her very own. She also received 4 Magic School Bus books and a big Children's Encyclopedia book about Planet Earth.

Some friends of ours called a week or so before Xiomara's birthday and asked if we wanted an air hockey table. I said sure and so we gave it to her for her birthday. It is now upstairs, in the guest bedroom.

Xiomara is very excited to be 5. She can read now and is getting better at simple math. She is also doing great at writing in her journal by herself. She loves playing with her siblings and is doing well at learning to play the piano. She is very friendly and loving and kind. We love our little monkey, XIOMARA!

I don't love that vs. I hate that

We have some words that we don't say in our house. Hate is one of them. We are not allowed to say it to anyone, about anyone or anything, or just because. Kemiah used to say it a lot at the dinner table - she has become a little picky. Fortunately, she understands now that we shouldn't say it, and she'll even correct her siblings, "You shouldn't say hate." Now she will say, "I don't love that." I think it's a fantastic change and I smile every time she says it. I asked her tonight what was something she didn't like (I wanted to get it on video for all posterity). I thought she would say a food that she doesn't like. She said, "I don't love something with teeth that can eat me." I'd have to agree with that.

Silly ducks!

Or is it silly humans? I was out tossing left over pancakes to the chickens (my kids won't eat them anymore), when I saw the ducks getting a drink from the water thing. I started to get mad at them because they spill the water everywhere and then it freezes. Not only that but it spills down to the sidewalk outside the gate and so now it is all very slippery and a little dangerous when I enter the yard to gather eggs and feed and so forth. So as I stood there watching them and getting a little irritated I realized something... They are only dealing with the horrible lot they have been given. We are not equipped to feed/water ducks. They don't have a pond so they get water the only way they can. It's not their fault it spills every where, and they certainly can't do anything about it. We were not prepared to have ducks. Neither was our neighbor... and that is why we have the ducks. Silly humans.

Ginormous

We go to story time at our local library every Tuesday. The librarian is fantastic and we love it. She has a craft for us each time, too. I count that as the kids main art source. I was really impressed with this last one we did... giant paper snowflakes. They are super easy to make and look really neat. I had to hang them up when we got home and I love to look at them. Of course, I couldn't stop there. I decided to try and make a smaller one for the Christmas tree (which is still up). It was a little harder to do but I'm glad I did it. Just a neat craft all the way around. I will have a hard time taking them down because I won't want to toss them out and, really, how would I store them any other way than hanging from the ceiling?

On her way...

New things she can do... She is 6 months old, you know, so she's ready to do more things. She won't pull herself up to this position but she loves to just stand there. She even got very brave and let go with one hand, then ended up kissing the chair.


Adorable!


This one she does all by herself, all the time now. She will then push herself backwards and moves all over the room. She turns on her tummy and loves to be in the same room with anyone else.

On the 5th I fed her some cereal for the first time. She took a few bites and then didn't want anything to do with it. She would clamp her mouth shut when I held up the spoon and would wave her arms around to reject my offering. She doesn't like the bottle either. Funny girl.

She joins the races.

Emily lost her first tooth today! (I'll try to remember to swap out the tooth for money when I'm done with this.) She has asked me to help pull it the last couple of days but it was never a good time to do it. Today she asked and it was a good time, so I grabbed the floss and a tooth pick and we were ready to do it. I hate this stuff but she said, "It has to come out. It's really bothering me." I hoped she would just pull it on her own, like Marissa, but oh well. I tied the floss around her tooth and pushed the floss under the back side of the tooth with the toothpick. She made a little noise so I told her to close her eyes. Xiomara was there to count to 3 and then I yanked. It came right out and went to the floor. We found it and Emily was beaming! She even reminded me to take pictures! I noticed her other front bottom tooth is also loose so it'll come out soon. Here's a look at her first hole.

Never do this...

I have a habit of putting my Cream of Wheat into a different container - I had to filter the bugs out when we were on the island - so I guess that's why I felt compelled to put it into jars. Well, I chose a newly emptied and washed salsa jar. Not a good idea because, as I'm sure you've guessed, it tasted slightly like salsa. I thought there would be trouble when I opened it and could smell salsa. I was right. I tasted it after it was cooked and it was really gross. We add lots of different things to our Cream of Wheat - cinnamon, syrup, cocoa, brown sugar, strawberry milk, etc. I will never want to add salsa and the rest of the stuff in the jar is getting tossed out. We all managed to eat it so I guess it wasn't that bad. Then again, after eating bugs in our oatmeal, could salsa flavored Cream of Wheat really be that bad?

Biggest Smartie Ever

I don't think this is really necessary but it's late and I just thought I'd share this because I've never seen it before in my life. While at our Christmas Eve party, we ended up bringing home the largest roll of SMARTIES candy I have ever seen. No really, they are huge. So here's a comparison of what I am used to seeing and this new size.


Anyway, just thought I'd share.