Light at Home: My 2013 Girl

Showing posts with label My 2013 Girl. Show all posts

Daddy Daughter Dance

Posted by My Heart Song

3/9/2020

My husband and 6-year-old daughter enjoyed our church's Daddy Daughter Dance last week.

My girl chose a new dress, wore pantyhose for the first time (her reaction was humerous), got her nails painted and chose one of my pearl necklaces to complete the look.

Relaxing on a couch at the dance.

Some of the desserts at the dance. Yum.

My daughter's overall impression was: the music was a bit loud, the disco ball was cool to watch, and the desserts were delicious! :-)

0 comments

Kitchen Help

Posted by My Heart Song

2/26/2020

My littlest people have been enjoying helping in the kitchen lately. My 6 year old daughter especially has been eager to learn how to make her own cup of tea and how to brown hamburger meat.

Also, this girl is taking a class at our co-op called Cook and Book. The students are learning some basic cooking skills (like making tacos, making pancakes, decorating cookies, popping popcorn, making homemade ice cream).

So she's an even more equipped kitchen helper now!

0 comments

My Littles

Posted by My Heart Song

2/10/2020

My 3 little ones keep my life very full these days.

I am very thankful that the moments of all 3 of them playing together in harmony are becoming more commonplace!

The princess (age 6).

The goofball dreamer (age 4).

The "I just want to do whatever the big kids do" kid (age 2).

Sure do love them and am thankful God blessed our family with them. Never a dull (or quiet) moment around here! :-)

0 comments

Missing Tooth

Posted by My Heart Song

1/15/2020

Breaking news: my 6-year-old lost her first tooth!

She feels like such a big girl now!

0 comments

Happy Birthday, 6 year old girl!

Posted by My Heart Song

12/16/2019

My youngest daughter has just turned 6!

Our tradition involves letting the birthday child choose the meals for their birthday, so breakfast was homemade cinnamon rolls! She also loves pizza and ramen noodles.

We skyped with Grandma K in Wisconsin, so that she could watch the birthday girl open the gift she'd mailed.

A Mrs. Potato Head!

Now we have a whole Potato Head family - so fun!

We went to Build-a-Bear to create "Shimmer."

But one of the best parts of her birthday is having her birthday twin Addy come over! They share a birthday and are great friends. They dressed up like princesses and we decorated Christmas cookies together.

They had a gift to open together too. Having a birthday twin is great fun!

She received a fancy red dress from Grandma R, which she immediately put on. She remains a girly girl who loves all things beautiful, shiny and bright, glitz and glamour.

There were other gifts to open from mom and dad and other siblings.

Here is her older sister with her gift. The biggest gift she received were two goldfish. She'd been asking for these for quite some time. She named them Goldie and Long-Tail. She received some aquarium decorations as gifts then from her siblings. One was a castle, which she loved.

Here was one fun gift - an easle with a chalkboard and dry erase board (that's magnetic too). She also received a big girl bike (no training wheels).

This girl's birthday is the last one to come during the year and it's hard for her to wait. But we try to keep it just as special in the way we celebrate, just like the other birthdays in our family. This year we waited to decorate for Christmas (Jesus' birthday) until her birthday was over, so she was not overlooked.

There have been some gorgeous sunrises lately. She woke up early enough on her birthday to see this one so I snapped a picture of her taking in the scene. Her heart loves all things beautiful. She told me for the first time recently that she cried looking at something because it was so beautiful.

And just like that, she's growing up!

0 comments

Swim Lessons

Posted by My Heart Song

8/6/2019

The last few weeks, two of my kids participated in swim lessons at a nearby gym. I am highly satisfied with the results!

My 5 year old girl takes to the water like a fish. She has been asking to take swim lessons for months and months. She loved the lessons, smiling the entire time. She had no concerns dunking her head, blowing bubbles under the water, etc. She did great and is begging for more swim time and more lessons.

My 3 year old son is a different story. Last December he had a near drowning incident at a hotel pool. He remembers this vividly, though not in a terribly negative sense. He talks about it calmly, but nonetheless connects all water with "that one time I went in the deep water and couldn't see anybody and threw up all over Dad's shoulder."

So it was understandable that he was hesitant about swim lessons. He cried. He repeatedly told me that he didn't want to go. He pouted. For the first few days, anytime we made eye contact, he would pout and give me a big thumbs-down sign to show me how much he was not enjoying lessons.

However, by day 4 (halfway through the 8 days of lessons), things had changed. He started to smile a little bit during lessons. He wasn't as fearful. He was enjoying himself a little bit. And by days 7 and 8, he was laughing and joking with his instructors. He would smile at me when I looked his way. He gave me a big thumbs-up sign.

He's not able to swim on his own yet. But he is able to replace his entirely negative water experience with a positive pool memory now. I'm well satisfied with the swim lesson experience and the instructors who didn't give up on my boy, though he was definitely the toughest kid in the class.

We celebrated with ice cream after this big turnaround!

One of the great things about this particular gym/aquatics center is that they allow parents and younger children not taking lessons to play in the rest of the pool, children's swim area and lazy river. So I was hanging out with my 2 year old son in the water the entire time lessons were taking place. He, of course, loved this.

Big thumbs-up for swim lessons!

PS: I know the pictures in this post are not great. Oh well. They are the best we could do at the time.

0 comments

Girl Time

Posted by My Heart Song

6/5/2019

My 5-year-old was feeling left out recently, as all of the other children had some special things they got to while she was too big or too little to participate.

So, she and I enjoyed an afternoon out together.

Just us girls.

We enjoyed some shopping. She picked out a new swimsuit and new shoes. Both very sparkly and bright with sequins and jewels. She's one who loves everything flashy!

And she got an ice cream cone too, which was perfect for our hot afternoon out!

Love you so much, Rosebud!

0 comments

Being 5

Posted by My Heart Song

4/25/2019

I have a five-year-old girl. Five is fun!

One of her favorite things to do is play with her good friend, Jolene, who is also five years old. She and Jolene have enjoyed lots more outdoor playtime now that the weather has been warmer and more spring-like. Jolene's mom captured this picture and shared it with me.

She is learning to read. She loves that! She asks to "do school" almost every day. Now that she can sound out words, she is writing things down.

Here are a few samples of her writing.

This one with dozens of hearts on it was written to me on a really bad day. I was super frustrated and it showed. She's only 5 but she picked up on it. She wrote "Mom, I love you. I hope you are not frustrated." She does have a tender, compassionate heart that reaches out to those in need or hurting. I could see her doing well in a field like nursing as a career some day.

This one says "Weather. I think the weather is going to do a tornado." So maybe she'll be a meteorologist! She seems especially fascinated with tornadoes these days.

This is a sample of a painting she did at our homeschool co-op. It's cherry blossoms and then cherries in a bucket. Perhaps she'll be an artist or painter.

She enjoys helping in the kitchen. She loves to mix batter or pour ingredients or roll cookie balls or even help do the dishes after all the baking fun is done. Maybe she'll be a baker or chef someday.

She loved the carousel at our local zoo. Smiled and waved the entire time.

In fact, she really does smile almost all the time. Other people have noticed this and pointed it out to me. "Every time I see her she is giggly and smiley. Is she always so happy?" Of course, not always, but generally she is a happy child and usually wears a smile.

If you ask her, she'd tell you that she wants to a princess when she grows up. She continues to love all things beautiful - dresses, jewelry, fancy hair bows, bling. We are trying to teach her that what makes her most beautiful on the outside is her smile - more than anything else she wears. I think she's taking this to heart! :-)

You're precious to me, Rosebud!

0 comments