Grin

Bea, you are adorable in so many ways, but I must document your goofy grin for your own posterity to have something to laugh at until their sides hurt.  Bea, your crossbite is so bad!  The dentist said your teeth would probably correct themselves when you got your permanent teeth in, so I'm praying for them to come early!  Your front tooth will probably be worn down to nothing by then anyway, but I am praying for you so we don't have to do anything drastic in the future, like break your jaw or have serious head gear all through Jr. High (shudder).  I love you so much my darling daughter!  You crack me up!

On the ferry at Jenny Lake in Jackson Hole.  This one is the worst! hahahaha!

You can see how worn your top teeth are.  You basically have one front tooth in the middle. 

You always smile so big and I love it!

Here are you and Henry at Tuacahn Theater in St. George seeing Mary Poppins

5 years old going on 25

At her My Little Pony dress-up tea party

Happy Birthday Bea!  I am so thrilled that you are 5 years old!

Where do I start? It's been so fun this summer watching you in your various activities.  I am really not ready for school to start up again!  You took swimming lessons this summer and passed your level the first time and graduated up to the big kid levels where you have to swim for an hour.  You're the smallest one in your class and they won't put you up another level because you're so little, but you love to swim and I'm excited to put you on swim team next year with Henry! You also took tennis lessons again every day this whole summer, but I'm not sure if I saw you hit the ball even once.  I just have this memory of watching(on TV) a 5 year old John McEnroe hitting incredible spin around volleys at your age and you're not quite there yet. lol.  You love going to tennis all decked out in your sunglasses, rings, necklaces, headband, skirt, and silver shoes. Everyone loves your accessories.  If you actually learned how to play, you could bring a whole new style to the sport!

You and your sisters watching the pinata.  You look like angels!

Bea, you are a little mom.  Your baby killer days are officially over and you are such a nurturing and loving sister with a love for all things smaller than you. Even in just this past month you've stopped torturing your rats and whenever you hold them, they don't squeak out in pain anymore.  Yay!  I think you spend more than half of your waking hours pretending you're a mom.  Clementine is usually your sister and Violette is your baby.  Sometimes your pet hairless rats, Pinkie Pie and Muffin Cakes are your babies and your little sisters are your dogs.  You just love pretend play.  You call everyone "sweetie" and you cook and clean and put them down for naps. Your sisters love playing along too. 

Blowing out her candles.  It was picture perfect!

I've been waiting for so long to have a helper who likes to help me and is capable of helping me and that's you! You love to help around the house and can't wait to grow up to be a mommy someday.  Ever since you were little you would ask if you could clean anything for me, but in the end, I would just have to re-do what you "cleaned" but now you're actually great at cleaning and you are old enough to do it right! Heaven knows Henry isn't inspired to help me, so I really appreciate all you do around the house. The best thing you do for me is you wipe Violette's hands and face and get her out of her seat for me without even being asked.  You don't know how much that helps me, but it really does and I appreciate it. You are so perceptive and understand what needs to be done and you're so good at doing it without needing direction. 

Saylor, Chloe, Emma, Ava, Molly, Ksenia, Clementine, Emma, Manuela, Olivia, Bea and Violette...and Pinkie Pie

One thing that has been difficult in the past that is becoming a blessing is your independent spirit.  You love doing everything by yourself and you almost never ask if you can do things like put my make-up on, paint your nails, get food out for a meal or change into a crazy outfit.  In the past, it usually resulted in disastrous results, but now you're so much more capable that I don't expect a disaster every time...only sometimes.  I really love how independent you are and I know you'll be so capable and self motivated when you grow up and that makes me excited.

Boogie boarding at the beach in San Diego

Bea, you love ballet so much.  You are so flexible and can almost do the full splits.  You pride yourself on how high you can get your leg while doing an arabesque and your sisters always copy you, which is adorable.  You move with such grace and I can definitely see you as a dancer someday, something I have never been, so that's uncharted and exciting territory for me.

Every flower we found, we added to your hair as we walked around Old Town San Diego

You are close to riding a bike without training wheels and you love being outside.  You love camping and ask when we're going camping almost every week.  Recently you keep asking when we're going skiing again.  You're a great skier and can almost keep up with your brother.  I'm excited to see how you'll improve this year.

These things are so strange.  lol. 

 This year you'll do one more year of preschool because I want you to be more ready for Chinese immersion and not struggle with learning the English stuff while you're trying to learn Chinese.  You still need to work on a few things before you're ready for Kindergarten, so this year you and Clementine will be in the same class, which will be so fun for you both.  

You pretty much wear this shirt every day. Front ways, backwards, then inside out front and back until it's dirty on all sides

One thing I love about you is that you're a pretty adventurous eater.  You love wasabi covered anything, seaweed, and you just recently started loving mustard and pepper.  You'll try just about anything and you are the one who comes up to me when I'm eating an arugula salad with gourmet toppings and will eat it all out from under me.  Thanks for keeping me skinny! You love lettuce, tomatoes, artichokes, asparagus, Brussels sprouts and all other common veggies. 

We love you and all our accessories Bea!

One funny thing about you is that you love being beautifully dressed with lots of accessories, but you're constantly covered in dirt or food that has fallen on your clothes.  Your face and clothes are always a mess, so you change your clothes many times per day.  I'm trying to teach you how to be cleaner, but you're like a little "rag-a-muffin" as my grandmother would put it.  Your hair is growing out and you won't let me blow dry it or anything, so it's usually a snarly mess too.  I usually put it back in a messy pony tail and every once in a while I will do braids, but you're always in tears by the end because it hurts your head so much.  You love gathering the eggs from our chickens and are becoming quite a little farm girl.  

Kids at at the zoo.  They love each other so much!

 The most wonderful thing about you is that you have a charm that draws people to you.  Younger girls and older girls alike just love you.  You have a way of making people feel special and loved and our babysitters and neighbors are in love with your personality.  You hug people with both arms and legs and tell everyone how much you love them.  You drag older girls around the house, and for some reason, they love it and come back to play with you all the time. 

Diary of a Pinocchio school girl

Bea with her make-up. It's the only time of the year the girls can wear mascara and red lipstick and they LOVE it! 

 Bea was a darling little school girl in the production of Pinocchio this last week.  She danced on Tuesday and came to the performance to watch Clementine on Thursday even while she had a fever.  She is a die hard ballerina!  Before the performance we all got manicures and pedicures and I got her a really snuggly pink rug to sit on while she was waiting around to perform.  She is so in love with the rug that she sleeps with it on top of her pillows now. 

Sisters, sisters, never were there such devoted sisters....

Bea had two parts in the show.  First she walked across the stage as Pinocchio was supposed to be going to school and then she came back out to perform in her part which was trying to convince Pinocchio to come back to school.  I have to admit that I didn't love the dance they choreographed, but Bea loved it because there was a lot of finger waving which is her most favorite move, although I'm not sure finger waving has anything to do with dance.  If it does, I'm a self proclaimed professional dancer. lol.  She had a darling white hat on with white gloves, but her hat was a stage hat and she wasn't allowed to keep it. Darn. One thing I really loved about this show is that much of the music was Italian so it was fun to sing along in my head to the few songs I knew.  People don't know this but Pinocchio means "pine eyes" and one of my favorite vegetables, fennel is called Finocchio in Italian which means "the end of the eye" and if you cut off the bottom of the bulb, it looks like an eye with the nerves going back.  I just love how everything has meaning in the Italian language.  Her part was just a few minutes long but she loved being up on stage with the real ballerinas and she remembered some of the moves, but just like Clementine, needed to be reminded by the other little girls.  We need to work on paying attention during practice:)

They are best friends...most of the time

Aunt Lucy, Tracie and Meg along with cousin Lincoln came to watch her perform and even though Justin was also late, Bea's part was later on in the performance so he didn't miss it.  Everyone left early so it was just me and her on the way home. I forgot to get her flowers so we stopped at the grocery store and got her a bouquet of flowers and a little cup of dip n dots to eat on the way home.  I've never seen a happier little girl.  I had so much alone girl time with Bea this week and it was so fun to just be with her.  She has such a sweet and funny personality that everyone loves.  She's just so wonderful(when she's not teasing Henry). 

Singing and twirling at the same time

 Bea is such a natural dancer.  I wish they would just let her do her own moves and dance what she feels because she comes up with some really nice and graceful moves.  She points her toes and extends her body out so well.  I don't know anything about dance, but she looks really beautiful to me. 

Another interesting spinning move

One thing I like about the dance place we go to is that their costumes and dance moves are all classic and appropriate.  I know so many women who have gone to other dance performances where young girls are doing suggestive moves and are wearing very skimpy outfits and I'm just so glad to see no offensive content in all the costuming and choreography. The girls who dance in our company are also all different sizes and I think it's nice to see that you don't have to be a toothpick to dance ballet and if someone isn't naturally a small size, they don't need to be discouraged, especially if they love it.   Plus, a lot of girls go on to dance in college, so it's a great program. 

The End

The production was really well done and I enjoyed it, even watching it a second time.  Bea, you are a wonderful little ballerina and I know you can be a real ballerina someday if you want to! 

Bea laying on her rug with a fever after Clementine's show.  Poor thing!

Becomming Mommy

Bea holding the Y she colored for the Mother's Day gift for my mother-in-law that said We Love You Gammie.

Bea dreams about the day she can become a mother.  She and Clementine carry around their hairless rats like little tiny babies and Bea talks about the boys she's interested in marrying.  One night we were talking before bedtime and she asked me when she can get married.  I responded maybe in 15 years or so.  Bea lamented, "what! That's going to take, like, 80 years!" Then she wanted to marry her cousin, Eli, but I told her she would have to find someone else.  She was pretty disappointed at that one as well.  Life does go slow when you're young and nothing goes like you want it to.  She is getting really good at helping me and monitoring what's going on.  She is just like a little mommy, even at 4 years old.  I can't wait for this next year when she'll really be able to help me because heaven knows Henry won't think about changing a diaper or washing a dish!

I'm sorry that I haven't updated your blog for a while sweet girl.  All you need to know is that all you want to do is play with your hairless rats, Pinkie Pie and Muffin Cakes.  I also spend a lot of time looking for them and praying to the Lord that they haven't been eaten by our barn cats.  You take them on our playground and you put them inside the tire swing while you swing around.  Clementine colored one of them with pink chalk today and you are always making them hang on to stuff.  I'm getting rid of 80% of your toys because you don't play with much else.  

Also, you're not going to kindergarten next year and I'm not even sure you know your alphabet yet, but you're getting there!  My goal is to get you reading before you start in 2014 so you're all ready for Chinese Immersion in first grade.