Serenity 7th Birthday Favorites:
Serenity is growing up so fast! It's amazing to watch her. One of my favorite moments of the year was just a few days ago. She'd made a new friend and was having a wonderful time playing with her, running around and being silly. Her friend told Donovan that they were playing and he couldn't, but Serenity spoke right up and said, "Oh, let's include my brother." I was so proud of her I nearly cried. She truly is a sweet and kind girl. She says she's shy sometimes, which surprises me because she always looks confident. She discovered she loves acting during a musical theater class, and told us she wants a "big audience!" She also got a "Star Burst" award for being an expressive reader at school. She loves to snuggle and cuddles in our bed each morning. She is best friends with her brother, and they create clubs, games and magical worlds together. She loves making her baby sister giggle and asks me to get them matching outfits. She told me at least five times this weekend that she's so happy to be my daughter, but I feel like the lucky one.
Here are some of her favorite things from the year
Serenity truly loves to read. She gets involved in a series and just devours one after another. She discovered the Rainbow Magic Fairies and checked them out from the library 20 at a time. She read nearly every Roald Dahl book. She especially loved the Fantastic Mr. Fox, the BFG, and Matilda. Her giggles as she read these books warmed my heart. We read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone twice this year. The first time I would read a chapter and then she'd read as many as she could to herself before I told her lights out. The second time I read the whole book. I think we'll do the Chamber of Secrets together next. She's read three-quarters of it, but it's at a dramatic point and she doesn't want to go on alone. She also loves poetry, especially Shel Silverstein's Boa Constrictor, and she can recite that one. She read a lot of Jack and Annie Magic Tree House books too.
She doesn't play with toys that much, although recently she's drawn to tiny cute toys, like the Calico Critters she got from Ann for her birthday. She got another set with her birthday money from Papa. She carries around a tiny kitty in her hand and says it's soooo cute. She still loves cats. She loves sticker activity books. She has a few lego sets, and she loves to build gardens when she's not putting together sets. She got a Lego Elves Treetop Hideout for her birthday from Papa, and she was squealing the entire time we put it together. She and her brother play together in Lego World, making up stories and playing with them. For some reason all their lego people seem to marry.
She doesn't often play with dolls, although she recently got an American Girl doll from her cousin named McKenna. She loves her, and even made a little apron for her that she embroidered herself. She got the embroidery kit for her last birthday, and she's actually gotten it out several times! She embroidered an apron for herself, one for her doll, and she made me a book bag with a dandelion embroidered on it! I love it!
She's more likely to be playing at making her own little worlds. She makes hideouts with couch cushions, in her closet, or with the foam flooring from the secret room. She and DZ will make a little world and get lost in it. They also make clubs, particularly chalk club and sticker club. In chalk club the goal seems to be to cover the entire patio, yard, and fence in chalk. Oh, and on cold days, the garage. The only problem with that being that chalk in the garage never gets washed away! Sticker club is a favorite too. They usually try to completely cover huge papers in thousands of stickers. Which takes hours. =)
She still loves Elsa. She got an Elsa Bank for Christmas, and still pushes the button to hear her sing all the time. She actually met Elsa at Disney, which was a huge thrill. She plays dress-up with her Elsa dress, the super long cape I made her, and her fleece Elsa braid. And her brother is her Arctic Wolf pet.
Serenity loves computer games. She plays games on the IPAD like My Little Pony and Farmville, where she's setting up her own little world, collecting coins, jewels, or farming to add to it. She played a ton of Skylanders this last month. She loves playing Animal Jam on the National Geographic website, and even asked to become a member there. She also plays board games, especially Laser Maze and Forbidden Island.
Serenity was involved in several exciting activities this year. She became a Daisy Scout. She had a lot of fun with this! She read the whole manual herself, and memorized the Girl Scout Law to earn her Amazing Daisy award. Her troop leader was amazing, and gave the girls so many opportunities this year. She participated in making a garden at Eisenhower school, the Superhero Challenge, earned all her Daisy Petals, and learned about other countries on World Thinking Day. It was incredible and so much fun! She also did her first cookie sales, and sold more than three hundred boxes to earn a stuffed cheetah, which was her personal goal.
She also participated in Musical Theater. She was Flounder in the class production of the Little Mermaid. I was so proud, she learned all her lines and her teachers said she did a great job. The day of the play you could hear her clearly even though they were performing in a large warehouse, and she was so expressive! We listened to the music in the car the whole spring, and she'd always ask me to repeat Les Poisson because it's so funny. I originally signed her up for it because she really enjoyed the Little Mermaid ride at Disney, and she loved being the narrator in her class play Johnny Appleseed.
In the fall she did ice skating, and she can zoom around the ice! I was amazed at how quickly she took to it.
She loves being outside. She's still my Nature Girl. =) That's what she calls herself as she's perched in her peach tree or flying in her swing. I love that about her.
She loves school! I am so happy that she does, and I'm so grateful to all her wonderful teachers that make it an amazing experience. She had some homework four days a week, a few worksheets that she did diligently whenever she got home from school, and reading that she didn't even realize was homework =) She brought home some much interesting work. I loved all the creative writing they did, by the end she was writing stories of multiple pages. She enjoyed Kumon math, and did lots of word problems.
Serenity's Month by Month Photos:
