She's 5!!!!

It keeps happening!  My kids keep growing up!

For some reason, 5 is a hard one for me.  It means they are not my baby anymore.  That they will be leaving me soon for school and that is just too much for me.  But I have one more year with Lily before she heads off to school and I am going to make the most of it!

Lily is still my magical girl, and she knows it.  She is everyones best friend.   She loves her family and we all love her back ten fold.  She loves her big brothers and would love to play with them more that anyone else.  However, she and Greta are starting to play together and that makes me so happy.  In fact just the other day she asked me to move her booster seat by Greta's carseat so she could sit by her "best friend."

She is the perfect blend of girlie and tomboy.  I love it!  She loves super heroes (still Captain America,) and Princesses almost equally.  In fact she has started to love girl super heroes like Wonder Woman, (that makes me giddy!)  She loves Frozen, just like every other girl in the world, but it's funny, she kind of gets that it is too popular and so she claims that Belle and Merida are her favorite princesses, and her new favorite movie is "The Princess and the Frog."  But she does love Elsa because of her hair and her magical powers.  And hearing he sing "Let it go"  Still makes me so happy.

Her favorite things in the whole world are

Wearwolves 

&

Art

I think I need to make sure to highlight those two points because that pretty much sums it all up.  I still cannot explain the werwolf thing, and I may never be able to, but it's who she is and we love it.   She uses the werewolf thing to get out of stuff, for example; "werewolf's don't have to say 'excuse me,' so when I just burped, I didn't have to say 'excuse me' because I am a werewolf."  That was her most recent.  Poor girl can't understand why the other little girls don't want to play "werewolves" with her.  

As for the art; she is consumed  She will draw, all day everyday.  She wakes up and proclaims with a sigh; "I've got a lot of art to do today."  She is very prolific and I don't know what we are going to do with all of her masterpieces.  She is so proud of each piece she produces, that I am reluctant to throw anything away.  

Other favorites are; horses.  She still dreams of owning a horse one day and is trying to figure out where we can keep in.  One day we passed a horse trailer and she proclaimed with much excitement, "It that my horsey, are they going to my house?"  She was truly devastated when I told her those horses were not coming to our house.  She also loves her dog "Lily" (she named it Lily because it is her favorite name.)  Dancing, singing, playing outside where she makes rabbit traps, and feeds our rabbit tacos that she makes from leaves and grass.  She loves playing with our dog Hazel. She is so rough with her and sometimes I am afraid for poor Hazel, but they seem very well matched.  She makes up the cutest stories and plays out very elaborate scenarios when she plays.  I really want to film her playing sometime to try and figure out what images she has in her mind.

We have managed to get blankie away from her, but not her thumb.  She is more obsessed with sucking her thumb than ever, and I really don't think there is anything we can do about that.  I am just hoping she loses interest or decides on her own that she wants to quit.  

My favorite thing about Lily right now, (I guess I don't really have a favorite but,)  She loves to give "lovings"  or talk about "lovings," or give lessons on "lovings."  She is such a loving, sweet little girl!  I love her so much.  I want her to stay my little girl forever and I think she knows it because she was so sad the night before she turned 5 because she wouldn't be my 4 year old girl anymore.  I reassured her I would love her every bit as much as my 5 year old girl!

She loves hearing her birth story where I start all the way back with "we wanted you so much, and we prayed for you everyday, all the time!"  Up until I tell her about the first time I saw my Magical Princess.  On her birthday I showed her the picture of the ultrasound where she was covering her "lady parts" so we couldn't tell if she was a boy or a girl.  Now she loves to talk about that picture. "Remember that picture when I was inside your belly and I wouldn't let you see my lady parts?"

I am realizing as I try to write this that there just aren't words to express my love for my Lily Bean.  Just like there aren't enough words to capture who she is.  She is so much, but I will throw out a few adjectives in an effort to try to describe Lily.  She is, sweet, smart, loving, kind, brave, bold, crazy, happy,  joyful, artistic, creative, affectionate, funny, magical and just overall Incredible!  

That's my Girl!

photos by: Angie Monson of Simplicity Photography