Lily is 5

Maybe it's not the perfect day to write this, as Lily was a pain from (and well before, reports suggest) the moment I got home this evening.  But this family doesn't stop for one kid's bad day so neither should the blog.  Ok, it's been a little longer than usual since the last one, but whatever.  We'll fill you in on all the happenings around here another time, because today the topic is our newly minted five year old.

I think this was the first year she really knew that her birthday was coming and was really looking forward to the day and to her party and everything associated with the big day.  But if I looked back to a blog from a year ago I might read the same sentence, who knows.  For the moment I'll smile and appreciate our little girl getting a little less little.  When she woke up on her birthday she hopped right out of bed and got to work making herself a birthday crown.  Just to emphasize the point of the day she wrote a number four on it, crossed it out, and wrote a number five.  And she wore that crown all day, including to a pizza restaurant dinner with the whole family including Oma and Opa who were in town for a long weekend to celebrate.  They actually arrived the day after Grandpa and Grandma flew home from their pre-birthday visit.  We had a great time visiting everyone but we'll get to that next time.

Our new five year old is quite a kid.  She cracks jokes with the other kids while figuring out how to hit a tennis ball softly versus her usual smash, her drawings have evolved from stick figures to full-fledged characters with earrings, dresses, hats, whatever pops into her mind.  Speaking of POP, that is her favorite word to write for some reason.  She's curious about spelling words and what three and five make, she loves riding her bike fast with her butt off the seat for that extra oomph on a hill.  She's a ballerina and a sprinter, she climbs ropes to the point of blisters on her palms.

I wish we had enough time every day to fill her brain up with as much new stuff as it could take, but there are only so many minutes of the day and there are two other towheads demanding some attention too.  Lily is excited to make that big leap into Kindergarten (the American version that is) in the fall and from the look of things she's just about ready to make the leap.  In the meantime we're getting ready for a big family vacation next month and figuring out which day camps will keep Lily engaged and keep her parents from pulling out their hair.

Here are a few pictures from Birthday Week.