Five years old!

A- turned five on the 10th but we had her party on the 9th. Three friends came over and we made a little picture frame craft (gotta love my Usborne books for craft ideas!), had lunch and cake and a pinata that A- has wanted for two years and we finally remembered to include. Oma and Opa were here to help her celebrate.

What a great birthday - she was so excited about everything.

Afterwards we went to the park to celebrate Valentine's Day with some playgroup/La Leche League friends. The weather was great, just like it was on the February day when we brought her home from the hospital.

Her big present was a guinea pig whom we named Oreo. She has wanted a pet for months (years?) so she was quite excited. And neighbor S- had even gone with us to the park so she got to go with us to pick out the guinea pig!

Really almost Christmas

I can't finish Christmas until the girls fall asleep and that is taking... awhile. So I might as well put up some pictures from church this afternoon. For once, A- didn't fight me on what to wear. G- of course did because she had to wear a diaper and she's been diaperless during the day the last week or so. We went to the family service at 4:00 and had a busy day before that making Rice Krispie treats and sugar cookies and playing hide-and-seek.

Here they are after church:

Can you feel the sisterly love?

This was G- yesterday helping her new stuffed animal to go potty:

Almost Christmas

It's almost Christmas and I never posted about Thanksgiving! R- was working so the girls and I went to Ohio. We seem to be on a once a month plan. The weather was unseasonably warm when we got there but turned colder. G- got to see her favorite horses again.

The girls are playing with rice in the laundry room right now. Unfortunately, they poured kool-aid into the bin of dry rice so it's sticky now. I'm ignoring it for awhile before I throw them in the bathtub to de-sticky. They both have colds, and I think A- has pinkeye, but it does look a little better today than yesterday.

We (meaning me) did a lot of cleaning yesterday and today made some chocolate covered pretzels for gifts. I'm psyching myself up to make some sugar cookies. We're also babysitting a friend's beta fish.

I've been wanting to record G-'s word list. It goes something like this (not necessarily by frequency of use or emergence):
mama
dada
more
nur-nur
stepstool
uh-uh (for "no")
no
baby
ball
guh-guh (for "car")
two
bye-bye
'lo (for "hello")

Halloween

Halloween was exciting this year. Net-Net was here and the girls dressed up like Ohio State cheerleaders. A- wanted to trick-or-treat with her neighbor friend so we met a bunch of kindergarteners at another neighbor's house and A- went with a big pack of 5 year olds.

This is the girls before we left for trick or treating. G- is trying to smile for the camera.

We went with Net-net to the Pumpkin Patch for our annual picture with the measuring stick.

On Saturday evening, we went to Trunk-or-treat at church. A- got her face painted and we got this awesome picture of her and daddy.

Miscellaneous

Some recent photos:

The girls loving daddy reading time. Sometimes he even reads the actual words.

Preschool, daddy helped her make a stairstep with the number rods.
From the child that used to never be able to play by herself. "Look mom, I made a ship." Looks more like a train to me, but if it's a ship, it's a ship. The counting bears are passengers.
Completely on her own, from the idea to the execution, I swear. She learned to spell exit while on airplanes to and fro from Ohio.
On the Pumpkin Express train last weekend.
G- on the Pumpkin Express. She got woken up to get on the train so not her finest moment, but boy, doesn't she have pretty eyes?

G- today. She took the carriage from the Fisher-Price castle and drove it all over the house. Then disappeared. I heard noises coming from the vacuum closet and opened it to surprise her and got a gorgeous smile so I talked her into hiding again so I could capture it. Yes, she's wearing a bathing suit in October. No, it's not warm outside. Yes, she has purple paint on her chest. I was cleaning and left some paint out that A- was using while G- napped. G- decided to use it to paint her left hand, her chin, and her chest. Yesterday, the girls were playing in the car where I had inadvertently, and stupidly, left my purse. G- got my lipstick out and had it smeared over one leg and her face and A- had put some on her lips, sort of, and had gotten A-n-n-e written out on her leg by the time I got there. Hey, at least they were sharing.

New words

G- has some new words:
dauto is auto (German for car)
high-wo is hello, she really likes this one lately
squeak squeak sound is bird, she says this when she wants to read her Find the Bird book
poo-poo, really means potty, she says this when she wants to read her book with the girl sitting on a potty

Can you tell we're into books lately? A- is also enjoying reading books. Her favorite lately is Puzzle Town when she has to do something on each page to help the kids find the party. Last night we didn't get to bed until late so I told her we didn't have time to read but I could do a quick story. She requested the story be about Katy and Tim (the characters in the book) and I said what was on each page and she pretended to do each action in the dark (e.g. match up the people with their shoes in the shoe store, or find the cakes and cookies on the sign with the cakes in the bakery).

And of course, we have some ballet books to look at because A- is in love with ballet. Every day she asks how many days til ballet class.

Crazy day

Our A/C has officially bitten the dust. So today we've had an indoor temperature of 83-86F. Needless to say, we didn't spend much time here, and have all been a little cranky because of it. We have a new unit being installed on Friday so we only have to make it through one more day of this.

We visited the dollar movies and R- very nicely took the girls to see Evan Almighty while I went to see License to Wed . G- Slept through their movie and A- liked the part where the guy kept growing a beard "God made him, but I don't know why."

Our bedtime, while of course a little edgy (86F at bedtime), had it's usual cute moments. When I tell them a bedtime story, A- always wants it to be about a bad guy taking something and she has to think what he takes. While she's thinking, G- says "bah bah" because she wants it to be a ball that he takes. Then the girl needs to have a "conversation" with the bad buy (which A- thinks means an argument) and G- says "ba ba" for the girl saying to give it back. And "no no" for the bad guy saying no. It's kind of an interactive storytelling. Meanwhile A- interjects things like "make him have a mean voice" and "make her find evidence."