My baby is five years old today! I absolutely adore watching her grow into the wonderful person she is becoming. She is so sweet and snuggly. She always wants to make sure that everyone has company. If Donovan wants to ride with Daddy in the green car, she wants to ride with Mama so that I am not lonely. She gets into hugging sessions with her brother every day that end up as giggly wrestling matches. She loves to snuggle into your lap for a book or a show. She tells knock-knock jokes now, and is thrilled when she can make you laugh. She dances, does cartwheels, and loves the outdoors! She loves to explore nature, and she loves science experiments. I love every minute of being her Mama, and we are such a lucky family!
This morning we surprised Serenity with a donut birthday cake. Her face when she saw the treat was priceless! We all sang, even DZ, and she blew out her candles and shared her favorite strawberry donut with Daddy.
As is our birthday tradition, I will post pictures and stories about Serenity's favorite things from the last year! I'll start off with books and toys!
Serenity's Favorite Books:
Serenity still loves to read! She's reading chapter books now! We have read ten or fifteen of the Magic Tree House series. Well, I say we read them. What usually happens is I would read several chapters to her, and then I'd say she could read for awhile by herself, and she'd finish the books without me! It's wonderful that she reads so well, but I want to know what happens too! The first one we got was Blizzard of the Blue Moon. That one was about a Unicorn named Dianthus. She loved it so much, she named a little unicorn Beanie Baby Dianthus and carried it around with her, which is unusual as she rarely plays with stuffed animals. We also did paper weavings and drew pictures on it to make our own tapestries.
Serenity always gets to read herself to sleep, and I often find her sleeping with books in her bed, sometimes piles of them all around her. It is too cute. I think the ones she read the most often to herself were her National Geographic Atlases. She has My First World Atlas, the Animal Atlas, and the Angry Birds Atlas. She loved them all. They are starting to fall apart she reads them and sleeps on them so much!
Some other series we really enjoy are the Mercy Watson books and Mo Willems Elephant and Piggie series. Mercy Watson books are chapter books, but they are full of pictures and fairly short. We were driving home with one from the library, and that's when I discovered she could read chapter books on her own. She was already on chapter six before we got back to the house! They are about a pig that is treated like a princess. Mo Willems is always hilarious. We check out one of the Elephant and Piggie series nearly every time we go to the library, and when we read them we do it like a play, where we each take turns reading different characters.
Some of our favorite library books:
Outdoor Crafts: This was a book we checked out from the library, and Serenity read herself to sleep with it for the entire month we had it. She'd read the recipes and want to make them, and she wanted to make the fairy circle and several of the crafts. She'd be annoyed if I lost her place. =)
Once Upon a Cool Motorcycle Dude:
SkippyJon Jones
Scaredy Squirrel
Ladybug Girl - The Bug Squad. We checked this out in February and have discussed being the Bug Squad for Halloween =) Squid and Octopus: Cute drawings and very funny!
Fancy Nancy: Serenity sometimes sounds like Fancy Nancy. She declares things delightful, lovely, splendid. =)
Serenity's Favorite Toys:
Magical the pillow racer: Serenity uses this every day. It's the one toy that we don't make her share with Donovan, although she often does let him use it, if she decides she wants it she can have it. She once made Magical Day Care in the blue bedroom. She set up pillows and a whole little nest in the corner with unicorn snacks and toys. She even made a sign, and wore a unicorn horn on her own head. =) She loves to race around the house!
Couch cushions, pillows and blankets: She owns a lot of toys, but honestly, this is what she does nearly every day. She loves to pull the couch cushions off to make piles to jump in. She makes forts in the corner to hide under. She makes slides out of long pillows. Some days she collects every pillow and blanket in the house to make a serious structure. She recruits Donovan in this activity and he'll help her find more pillows.
Cat things: Usually she's just imagining she is a cat. She'll meow and purr, and talk in cat. She is also drawn to toys that include cats, like the Meowsic Keyboard she got with the gift card Papa gave her for her birthday. She was a cat for Halloween =)
Magic Wands: She has a few of these that she loves to wave around. Adorable =)
Magformers: These magnetic building toys are so much fun!
Crazy forts: I think I enjoy these more, it's a little easier for me to actually build in them. But Serenity helps me and spends hours playing in whatever we build, whether it's a castle or a Mermaid Mansion. A few times we built structures right over her bed, which she adores.
I seem to have categorized most of her other favorite things as activities. You can see them tomorrow!!! =) Thanks for sharing this wonderful year with us!