Happy extremely Belated Birthday Bea!

Wow, I really dropped the ball this year!  Well, it's amazing how easy you are to please.  I cancelled your hula party because it was freezing cold and was supposed to rain, I didn't even write you a blog post or take Birthday photos! You did get a new pink bike, a Lego friends yacht, some Legos and make-up from your grandparents and a new outfit from Nanna B.  You are the happiest girl in the world!

Well, what can I say about you? You are such a fun girl.  You have a very friendly personality and you like everyone you meet.  You have been able to make friends in Kindergarten this year very quickly.  You wake up every morning, get a cute outfit on, and want me to put a side ponytail in your hair, which is the new craze right now.  You just learned how to ride your bike without training wheels and you are doing well at reading.  I held you back a year so you would have an easier time in school, especially with the Chinese coming up in first grade.  You are doing very well and you like being the oldest in your class. 

Bea,  you are such a big helper.  I know the Lord gave you to me because you like to do many things I do not like to do, which usually has to do with cleaning the house.  My favorite thing you have said to me is, "mommy, my favorite things to do are clean and work!".  That makes one of us! You are constantly cleaning and humming while you clean.  You help Fabi, our friend who cleans our house, all the time and she's amazed by how much you love to clean.  You would like nothing more than a spray bottle and a rag and freedom to go wipe down the entire house.  You cleaned your entire MESSY room last Friday for an entire hour and it looked amazing.  You have the ability to focus and do whatever needs to be done. 

Bea, you have started playing piano and violin.  You don't mind piano, but you really are disliking the violin.  Well, I'm going to take the advice of EVERY SINGLE PERSON I KNOW  and I'm not going to let you quit anything you start.  Our friend Alina, who is the national fiddle champion hated playing violin until she turned 12 and then she started loving it.  There is always that element of difficulty when you start something new, but I know someday you will love playing fiddle with your sisters!

You have such a big heart.  You love babies and are always playing mommy.  You take care of everyone around you and wish we had a new baby in the house.  You are so cuddly and sweet and always like me to sing to you and cuddle in bed.  You always claim to stay up all night long, but you are the first to fall asleep and you're the last to wake up.  You are my best sleeper for sure. 

Bea, you love your brother and sisters so much.  You fight sometimes with Henry but mostly you are both just bugging each other because you both have that tendency to be a tease.  You like to control your sisters and luckily they trust you with most everything and are happy to go along with whatever you want to do.  Your favorite things to play are a game called, "mommy, sissy and sweetie" (which is a mommy, sister and baby), anything dress up, playing in the play kitchen, Legos, and you love to dress everyone the same and do the cha cha cha. 

Bea, I love you so much and I'm so glad you're in my life.  You are so beautiful and so kind hearted.  I know you'll be such a great mom someday and I can't wait until you've grown up and we can be best friends.  Happy Birthday my little sweetie.

Love,
Mommy

Toothless and cute

How glad am I to see these teeth fall out. Woot Woot! Henry's first teeth didn't fall out until he was 7 and I was dreading her teeth for two more years, but gladly, her two bottom teeth pushed through and the first one has already fallen out!  The ones behind are so close to being behind her front teeth and I'm just praying that when her top teeth come in they'll be in front of the bottom ones.  I need all your prayers that it happens.  

As usual, the tooth fairy didn't come the night after she lost her teeth.  I am seriously the worst tooth fairy in the world.  We told her it was because she didn't write her a letter.  We also got a cute little tooth fairy pillow the next day and put it all under her pillow together and it was more climactic anyway.  At first she tried to get $5 for her tooth and I could tell she was excited about possibly getting anything she asked for, but in the end she was still excited about the $1 she got.  

As you can see, her front teeth are way behind the bottom teeth.  We're going to the dentist next week to discuss if her top stubs of teeth should be pulled as to not interfere with her permanent teeth.  Poor thing.  I actually love how she looks with her tooth out and she enjoys me paying attention to how cute it is.  I love my sweet little girl!

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.   

Visit with Grandpa

Papi came for a visit this weekend to see Lucy perform with Mountain Strings at BYU.  She's pretty much the star of the show.  Bea had so much fun with grandpa.  One morning they went to this huge new sports store, Sheels, and rode on the merry go round.  We also went sledding a couple of times and spent a couple nights just hanging out around the fire playing games and eating treats.  We're even listening to Christmas music already.  It's so fun!

Bea's Ballet Dreams

Happy 4th Birthday Bea!(August 23rd)

These are the photos the two guys were taking when they first saw us in the piazza in Florence

This is very late, so sorry my sweet Bea!  This year you had a very special Birthday because we were in Italy. 

We bought some paintings from this man.  You gave him a cherry and he painted you a special picture just because you were so kind to him.

 Bea, you are an extraordinary little girl.  You have grown up a lot this year.  You have turned from a little girl into a big girl and I can't wait until you get bigger because you have such an instinct for mothering and cleaning that I will appreciate more and more the older you get!  You went from Babykiller last year to my sweet little helper.  You and Clementine are playing so well together and you and Henry are also able to connect more now that you are a little older.  You still fight here and there, but I catch you having more fun together than ever before and it makes my heart so happy.  Of course you love your baby Violette more than anyone and you spend so much time playing with her and thinking about what to do to help her every day.  Even though you make giant messes wherever you go, you don't mind cleaning up when asked and I still frequently find you in the bathroom or kitchen up at the sink, "cleaning" with water dripping everywhere and all my kitchen rags used and the towels all over the ground.  I look forward to the day I can utilize that desire to clean bathrooms and be confident the bathrooms will actually get clean.

Bea, your favorite activity right now is ballet.  You live for ballet class every week and you ask me why you can't go to ballet every day just like Angelina Ballerina.  If you're not at ballet class, you're dressing up like a ballerina, dancing ballet and singing about how much you love Ballet.  Your songs go a little something like this, "I love ballet, I love to dance and run around like fairies, but I have to wear my tap shoes sometimes even though I just want to wear my ballet shoes.  Ballet is so pretty and I can be a ballerina princess if I want to." You sing this an octave above most normal songs and you do all your ballet moves while you sings.  I have to say, you are getting much better at ballet and your movements are getting a lot more graceful, you're bending your body and using your limbs to do beautiful extensions.  I think you could be a ballerina someday if you really wanted to.

No matter what you're doing, your singing about it.  If it's not ballet, it's babies, or Henry or your family.  Just yesterday I got after you for not listening and you made up a song about how you got in trouble and that you didn't want to be in time out.  You even said I didn't love you anymore, which is usually what you say every time I send you to time out.  Just so you know.  I LOVE YOU GIRL! Clementine always copies you and constantly dances and sings about loving ballet, even though she hasn't done ballet in her life. 

You do love your Popsicles!

Bea, if you're not dressed in your ballet costumes you always have the same few outfits on.  Sometimes you wear the same blue dress until it's brown and you love your purple skirt so much that it has holes in it and paint stains on it, but you don't care.  You still wear it every day.  You used to change your clothes 5 times per day, but now you've changed and now wear the same thing for 5 days straight.  You really hate to have your hair blow dried and curled and I have to threaten you with a short bob just to get you to stand and get your hair dried and curled.  You always have dirt all over your face so in the end, you really look like an old fashioned farm girl in a dress covered in dirt.

Climbing the clostrophobic steps of the tower of Sienna. Over 300 steps in all

Bea, you really love animals! You aren't afraid to pick up chickens, touch the toads in our pond, collect cool bugs like the giant moth and mammoth slug we found in our yard.  You, however, don't have a problem killing bugs and now that I think about it, I haven't heard that toad in a long time.  Poor guy!  You have scared off almost all the cats so they won't come close to you anymore but our neighbor's dog still loves you.  I'm so glad that even though you are definitely girly, you know that there's a time to be pretty, but there's also a time to get dirty and we love it!

Swimming like a fish in the Italian Emerald Coast waters

 This year, all you have talked about at home is going camping.  Just about every morning you pack up every bag you can find with toys, clothes, stuffed animals and food and cart it around the house saying you want to go camping.  You even got a sleeping bag to complete your preparations from Grandpa and Grandma for your Birthday! This drives me crazy because there's nothing that takes longer for me to do than sort through everything you've collected from around the house and put it back where it belongs.  The playroom is 100% disorganized and no one can find any parts to any of the toys because of your camping adventures.  I just can't keep that place organized anymore! Now, since we have a giant apple tree, you go out there and cart hundreds of pounds of wormy apples into the house, eat one bite and throw them under the couch, under your bed and you hide them in your room...and then take them camping with you.

Playing with a friend you found in Ravenna.  You two were fast friends!

You also love playing with water.  When your hair is really bothering you because it has turned into a rats nest, you compensate by dunking your nappy head in a sink, which you always leave running, and slick your hair back and put a head band on.  I'm actually so happy you like head bands so much because your hair won't break off as easily with head bands as opposed to hair ties.

Bea posing as a Roman statue in the ancient city of Pompeii

This year I have loved watching you develop into a big girl, becoming so capable and so independent with such a great big personality.  You gather your sisters up like a hen gathers her chickens and I can tell you will be a loving mother someday.  You love Jesus and always remind me if we forget to read our scriptures.  You have never complained about going to church and you still love it when I sing you, "I'm trying to be like Jesus" and "Away in a Manger" every night before you go to bed.   One of the funniest things you do is say the same prayer every meal and night, which goes something like this..."Dear Heavenly Father, thank-you for this day, thank-you that we don't do the things we don't supposed to to and that our mommies and daddies don't ask us to do and don't do the things we don't supposed to do.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." And you know what? I think after saying it hundreds of times, it's actually working!

Bea, the thing I love most about you is that you are so thoughtful and loving.  You are constantly creating things for me and telling me that you love me.  You kiss everyone when they get hurt and give such big hugs.  I love the feeling I get when you completely wrap your little arms and legs around my body and squeeze me tight.  Then you usually give repeated kisses and hugs to my head over and over again.  When you do that, you melt my heart.  I love you my dear sweet girl and I hope you have a wonderful year here on the farm.  Thank you for being such a lovely part of our family, our sweet little Bea.   

Always Interesting

This is Bea on the boat at the Mystic Seaport in CT.  She actually let me do her hair and I'm glad because it doesn't look half bad in this shot! She has a strong personality but she is so motherly.  I know she'll make me lots of grandbabies:)

 Bea keeps my life interesting in many ways, one of which is that she will only wear about three outfits, all of which are sleeveless and are not meant to be worn in public, like her ballet tutu, white pajama tops, swimsuits and one little blue dress that I actually really like when it's not dirty and stained from wearing it for 5 days in a row.  She also loves headbands and sometimes we go to tennis and swim lessons for the entire week without ever combing her hair.  She just gets grimier and more grungy looking and she likes it that way.  I'm trying to get her to care more about her hair, or else I think I may just chop it off again.  It's just awful!She's also constantly stuffing bags full of toys, headbands, trinkets, food and jewelry to take with her wherever she goes, and now Clementine is catching on.  It makes keeping the toys organized virtually impossible.  Everything in the house is litterally not where it's supposed to be. I'm waiting until winter to purge and organize. 

This is Bea playing tennis: tank top, tutu, hello kitty socks, sparkly shoes, pink racket, nappy hair, eyes closed

Haha. Wonder why she missed. 

Nice follow through Bea(eyes still closed)

This one actually hit the racket, but not because she was keeping her eye on the ball.  

This is her preferred method of taking a break.  Racket in the net and sit on the ground.

Mid-play hug from sister, Clementine

Tromping around on the farm in her favorite dress. See all the dirt?

Do I have the Titanic theme song playing in my head right now?

Ballet Baby

Our little pumpkin

 Bea performed as a tap dancing pumpkin in her dancing school's Cinderella production a couple of weeks ago at Kingsbury Hall.  As I was sitting and watching her on stage I had to hold back some serious happy tears of pride and joy.  Not only was she adorable, she actually did most of the dance steps (unlike most rehearsals when she just stood around watching the other little pumpkins) and was FUNNY! She had such personality and made everyone in the audience laugh with some little silly steps.  I seriously loved every minute of the show.  I signed her up for next year and I'm contemplating signing Clementine up too.  I enjoy watching my kids learn, grow, achieve, and perform so much that I am totally willing to give up my previous hobbies just to support them. I guess that's what becoming a mother is all about.  Feels good.  

Goodbye, Hello

Bea has renamed the barn cat previously known as Hammond, Hello.

Meet Hello Kitty

Needless to say, this cat doesn't come around much anymore..

Goodbye, Hello

 I'll spare you all the rest of the cat abuse photos