My girl's 6 year old pictures

I can't believe Faith is six. Seems like yesterday she was in her fairy wings dancing around the front room and seems like yesterday she was twirling around on her daddy's feet in the kitchen. Seems like she just should have started reading let along to be reading chapter books. Junie B Jones....what can I say about those books except they totally represent a child of Faith's age. Faith's pictures represent lots about her this year as I always try to do for her yearly pictures. This year it is her tree in our backyard, her swing that she loves to stand on, her Junie B books, flowers for picking and smelling and pretty dresses for church. She has me wrapped around her little finger with her preciousness. Thank you dear friend Jennie for photographing her.

Friend

Faith received her church magazine, Friend, in the mail on Saturday and today she put it in her backpack for individual reading time at school. This is a church published magazine filled with lots of uplifting stories of children her age and slightly older going through tough choices just like her. I don't quite know what to say to her when it comes to religion. I can answer her questions but so many other families in church have a deeper understanding of the scriptures. I wish I had a greater desire to read the scriptures. It's not that I don't want to follow Jesus's example because I do. I just feel that at this point in time in my life, I'm not as close to Jesus as I could be. I continue to pray for guidance each day to be a good mother and make right choices however each night I realize that I have failed in several ways and here I am asking for more help. One day Faith will follow Jesus and so will Champ. One day they'll be baptized and they'll be an example to all their friends. Reading is a tough task to accomplish in our house. I am tring to look for fun ways for Faith to enjoy it. I feel like I have succeeded temporarily in this with a new magazine each month.

Surprise reader

March is National Reading month as I already posted earlier this month. Andma has been visiting for the last few days and today she made a surprise visit to Faith's school to be a surprise reader. Yep, Faith was sure surprised. She didn't see that one coming. What was also nice is that three of her friends had already met Andma at the birthday party and were excited to see her again. Andma read Pinkilicious Pink Around the Rink. Pinkilicious gets a new pair of ice skates and colors them with cotton candy pink marker. Little did she realize that each time she fell the marker washed off little by little onto the ice making her skates return to the original white color. However she realized that she loved to skate despite not having pink skates and her mom started her in lessons. Lots of the girls had read this story before and even the boys liked it because of the crazy love of pink that she had. I sure look forward to Andma moving here with us. Today it really made me realize that this is what I want for my family. I want them to have memories of their grandma and grandpa visiting and spending time with them. I want Faith to talk about the time that her grandma surprised her on her birthday at school by reading a book to her class. I love my mom but I love her even more as an Andma.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Faith. As a now official 6 year old, I am happy to say that you finally made it. Being the youngest in the first grade classroom is never easy but it has just become a little bit easier. Now no one can question, "You are only 5?" She may be the youngest one in the class but she is the biggest sponge of information in that class. I am happy to say that you are the sweetest little girl imaginable and I love you. I never thought that last week at age 5 that you would be reading your own One Happy Little Family blog book from a few years ago. I knew you were a great reader but I never imagined laying down for reading time and you reading to me about your life. Faith, you make me proud to be your mommy. You are going to grow up to do great things with your life. For now, you continue to surprise me everyday with your desire to learn new things. Today, it was roller blading and golfing. I think that you were extremely excited about these two gifts however you loved all your gifts.

The swing

What child doesn't need a swing. When we bought our new house the first thing that I loved was the big weeping willow tree in the back yard. The tree was covered in green leaves still. I could see us all under this tree during the hot days of summer just watching the branches sway in the sky. I could see Faith and Champ swinging on a swing and sitting in the branches of it. I couldn't ask for a better tree. As the weather warms up I am excited to see the tree come to life again after being dormant all winter. I will gladly pick up all it's branches and twigs that fall over the winter just so we can all be able to enjoy it's beauty right now. I couldn't wait until Faith's birthday on Monday to give her the swing. The weather is just too nice to have another day pass without being able to enjoy our weeping willow. Who says a birthday only has to last one day. It is so more fun to devote a week to celebrating.

Mud pies

Spring has sprung and not a day too early. Despite the groundhog's best effort to predict the highly unpredictable weather, Spring has arrived right on time. Today Faith had a half day at school and it couldn't have been a more perfect day. After eating a picnic at the metro park, playing on the playground, jumping on rocks, and going for a bike ride we headed home so Champ could nap. I knew that we all wanted to spend more time outside but a nap was a necessity. I'm not sure how we made it to mud pies in the woods but we did and it was so much fun. What started off digging the moss up around the rock bed turned into let's dig up some mud and add some water and rocks. What little kid doesn't enjoy getting muddy? What kid doesn't love having their mother say, "go and play in the mud." Today I had to have been the best mom. We ventured away from the digging in the yard and headed to a nearby patch of woods. It was there that Faith made up funny songs about digging up mud for mud pies. As she added a rock or stick she would sing about it. When her brother passed gas she sang about it. I just find her so amusing. What was even better was that I was able to catch this singing on camera. It is days like this that make me so happy to be a stay at home mother. Who needs anything else when I have two wonderful kids and a great husband to make this wonderful life I have.

Convocation center

Convocation center is such a fun word to say. Faith had her gymnastics meet at one at EMU yesterday. It was such a fun way to watch her. I could get really close to her as I traveled around the bleachers looking for the perfect spot to watch. Faith got her first blue ribbon on bars as she was rewarded for doing her stride circle; something she has never been able to do up till now. I am so proud of her. She got blue on floor, red on vault (a hard judge she had), and red on beam due to her one fall on a pivet turn. For Faith's third meet she did awesome. I can't wait till her next one. I took a picture of all my ribbons, medals and trophies. I sat behind them for the picture and then gave all my trophies to the trash man this last Thursday. I was sad to see them go but as time goes on I realize that it is the memories that are important, not the trophies. There will be more trophies coming into this house to replace mine and a celebration will occur for all of those new ones. But for tonight we celebrate Faith and her continued improvement of her level 3 routines.

No shoes, no problem

What do you know, the weather gets warm for two days and what happens to Faith's shoes? They are off her feet of course. I don't blame her. I hate wearing shoes too. I could be just fine if I didn't have to wear shoes all summer. Who really needs them. They are just in the way of getting muddy, wet and smelly. I picked up Faith from school early yesterday to go to the beach. Faith and I wanted to stay down at the beach but the wind was blowing too hard. It whipped the sand around and it literally felt like needles were being thrown at our legs. So maybe another day when we go it will be nice and not so windy. Seems like it is always windy when we visit the beach. We headed to the playground however Faith decided she didn't need to wear her shoes. After all they would have got dirty when she ran through the mud. Feet wash more easily than shoes. So I was thankful that she decided to keep her shoes off. We sure had fun running around and climbing on the monkey bars. We both look forward to the warm Spring weather to come.

A couagu...what?

Polymer clay is consider a couagulant. It was Faith's first experience with something that can be both a solid and liquid all at the same time. We visited Imagination Station in Toledo, OH on Sunday and this was a wonderful museum filled with activities for all ages. Faith loved the polymer clay. She had fun punching it and making it a solid only to pick it up in her hands and have it run through them. It is amazing what two substances can do when put together such as cornstarch and water. It was messy but a totally amazing science experience. Faith also liked riding in her first simulator ride in which she was a race car trying to win a race. We stood in hurricane force winds and looked through a periscope. I love science. It is so amazing to learn about different things and observe them. We will definitely go to this science museum again.

Thing 1

Friday was Dr. Seuss day in Faith's school like most schools across the U.S. Each child was to dress up as a Dr. Seuss character. Of course I never have anything to transform her into so we always end up going to the store and buying something only to never use it again. Thursday night's purchase ended up being a $3.00 long sleeve t-shirt, $3.27 blue fabric paint, and $.97 black puffy paint. Not too bad if you ask me. So I painted her a big blue oval on the front of her shirt and wrote Thing 1 on the front since she is the oldest of her and Champ. She loved it and even wore it to school on Friday. I'm always worried about things that I make for her. Are they hip enough and cool enough to be seen on a first grader? I guess this one was. What was even better was that it came home clean. A white t-shirt on a kid is not a good combination. She came home with a smile and in the end, that was all I needed. Faith kept her face painted as a butterfly however she was a little apprehensive walking into school out of fear of being made fun of. However everyone loved the butterfly painting. She wished she would have painted it red and white stripes like Cat in the Hat's hat but I'm glad she chose the butterfly.

Butterfly spotted 4 months early

The weather is still cold here on the island. I'm not sure how this beautiful butterfly managed to find her way into Walmart on Thursday. She told me that she wasn't a real butterfly. She had visited Big Bear Lodge where this fun clown painted her face and transformed her into a butterfly. She also had a butterfly balloon that was on her wrist. I wish there were more beautiful butterflies like this out in the world. It sure would make the cold winter months more manageable.

National Reading month

March is national reading month. Faith's teacher has encouraged each child to read for 20 minutes on their own every day at home. To tell you the truth, this is very hard for us. Faith and I would much rather cuddle up together and read something a little more fancy than a level 3 reader. However, I am trying to do my part as a mom to encourage her. We are going to do three days of reading Fri, Sat, and Sun and then choose two days during the week to total five days a week. Faith still continues to succeed at reading. It is like she was born to read. I find her coming home with Junie B. Jones books. She often tells me she read 9 or 10 pages at school that day. Thursday she came home and decided it would be funny to read to the fish. What better story to read to the fish than Dr. Seuss's One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. Although the story was read only for the pure enjoyment of photography, it was all her idea.