Heidi is 5!

This little lady is growing up so fast! She's pretty mature most of the time (minus the little tantrums she is apt to have) so having her turn 5 isn't too shocking. She's quite advanced academically (maybe I just think so because she's my first girl) and very skilled socially and physically too (it helps to have lots of brothers to contend with). She's full of spunk, loves to help and do nice things for people, and is such a blessing to our family. We started out the day with chocolate waffles (Heidi likes the whipped cream more than anything), went for a bike ride (mom running along side Heidi all the way since she is still figuring out how to ride her new big bike), played with chalk in the front yard, watched Clifford, played in the backyard and in the house, made a cake, had hamburgers and birthday cake, and the kids camped out in the backyard- everything a 5 year old could hope for!

A few days ago, Heidi and I went to the daffodil fields that we've gone to every year since we moved to Canada to take some photos there. Daffodils are some of my favorite flowers and they are in perfect bloom right around Heidi's birthday, so its a fun little tradition we've established.

 

And my favorite tradition to do with each of the kids is their birthday interviews:

 

Who is your favorite person? Natalie

What is your favorite color? Robin's egg blue

 What is your favorite thing to watch? Clifford

What is your favorite outfit? poppies shirt

What song do you like the best? Teach Me to Walk in the Light

What is your favorite cereal? Lucky Charms (she gets this on St. Patrick's Day only- so I guess she'll have a long time to wait to have it again :)

Who is your best friend? Amanda (her cousin in Colorado-she hardly ever sees her, but I think she idealizes her because she's a few years older and so cool! ;)

What do you want to do when your grow up? A mommy

What is your favorite book? Curious George 

What are you really good at? Flipping (she said this last year, and I didn't know what she meant then. I asked her this year and she said that she runs and flips on the love sack (a giant bean bag))

Where do you wish you could go on vacation? To Grandma and Grandpa's house and to Aunt Renee's house

What would you buy if you had a lot of money? another baby doll

What is your favorite dinner? Pot pie and hamburgers (she tried to get a whole week's worth of special dinners for her birthday this year with those two meals included, but we only let her pick the dinner on her actual birthday and she settled for hamburgers)

If you could have a wish, what would it be? All of the good things you could have

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? I wish I could have bubble gum ice cream

Who do you want to be like? Mommy

What do you like to do with your friends? Play tag

What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday? Go camping

What is your favorite thing to do? Play with my stuffed animals

What are you proud of? I know how to flip and read

What are you afraid of? People changing into monsters and they're creepy

What is Mom's favorite thing to do? Play

How strong is Dad? Really strong 

What does Dad do best? Protects us

What does Mom do best? Teach us

What do you like best about Dad? That we can wrestle with him

What do you like best about Mom? To snuggle her

I also like to have a picture with Heidi each year, so here we are:
Photo credit: Leif

15 Months

This little mess-maker is now 15 months old. She's growing so much and becoming more fun each day. She insists on feeding herself most of the time. I try to avoid it by just giving her a spoonful at a time, but somehow she often ends up with the whole bowl or plate in front of her. She still hasn't taken a real step, but recently she's tried a few little "fake" steps: she picks her foot up and sets it back down about 1/2 inch from where it started or she drags her back leg along an inch or so. Her babbling is increasing daily and she says a few more recognizable words. She definitely says "more", "Heidi" and "Asher", but I haven't heard "Trevor" or "Leif" yet (Trevor swears he has ;), she also consistently makes some sounds, but I haven't figured out what words she's going for yet. She understands so much and is so proud to do what I tell her to. She stands up, gives kisses, and plays peek-a-boo when we tell her to. Today she was in the laundry room with my while I folded laundry. She was handing me articles to fold when she pulled out some socks that have been sitting at the bottom of the basket without matches for a few weeks. I told her to throw them in the laundry basket, figuring that she'd just throw them back where she got them from, but instead she crawled out into the hall where the kids' dirty laundry basket is and threw them in there. When she saw how funny I thought she was, she kept going for more socks until I stopped her- but I'd say her language is coming along very nicely.  Natalie is magnetically attracted to the stairs- she loves to go up and down them, and while she's pretty good at knowing she needs to go down backward, she still tries to go down face-first occasionally and we are constantly chasing her up and down the stairs or trying to keep her away from them (its so nice to have so many siblings to help with this!) My favorite things about Natalie right now (or maybe just my favorite thing period) is when I'm putting her down for her nap or bedtime. I sing a song to her while I hold her against my chest and she snuggles her little head onto my shoulder (she is so snuggly!) sometimes she pulls her head back to have her face right infront of mine and "talks" to me, but mostly she just snuggles there. Then I lay her in her crib and she lies there happily while I give her her stuffed animals and put her blankie on her. She's pretty happy to go down to sleep so I don't get much fussing from her. This wasn't true of her morning nap for several weeks (she would stand in there and cry off and on for about an hour before I finally just got her out) so a couple weeks ago we started skipping her morning nap. Most mornings she gets grumpy, but by the time afternoon nap comes around (I like to keep her on the same schedule as Trevor so I can get some homeschool time without interruptions) she is happy to go to sleep. We love this little doll and are so happy to have her

Here she is playing "Little Piggy" with Heidi's toes.