5-year-old Natalie

 Our littlest princess is 5! I feel like all my kids are growing up too fast! Natalie is a sweetheart who loves to be girly! She loves to wear dresses and changes her clothes multiple times each day. She is always looking for the next pair of hand-me-down shoes that will fit her and asking me to make her new dresses. She loves to dress up in old Halloween costumes or in her ballet outfit so she can dance along to ballet lessons on youtube videos. She loves to read and continues to pick up any book she can find and start "reading" a story in it. She is really advanced in her actual reading skills, but she usually only does that during our lessons. She's not fast enough yet to make reading a book interesting, so she just makes up her own stories. She is really good at writing too and loves to practice writing her name or other things. She loves to snuggle and loves to play with Calico Critters, American Girl Dolls, and her babies. She is a delightful little lady to have around!

 Because Natalie's birthday was on a Sunday, and we have church early, we decided to do chocolate waffles on Saturday morning instead, so Natalie got a birthday weekend. Grandpa and Grandma came over to celebrate with us and Natalie got to open a couple of her presents early. She was very excited that they brought her a balloon. We had to wake her up since she slept long enough for me to have the waffles all ready to be cooked, Grandma and Grandpa to get there, and Asher and Leif to shovel our driveway and the neighbor's driveway. She wasn't very peppy at first because she was still waking up, but she found her energy pretty quickly.

The boys were very excited to decorate Natalie's bedroom door to surprise her when she woke up on her birthday. She woke up too early though and they made her stay in bed until they were done. Heidi crawled out underneath before Natalie was allowed to break through. She wasn't quite as excited as they had hoped.

 

Her two favorite presents were a princess crown from her aunt and uncle and a Clifford stuffed animal from Grandpa Sid so I took her birthday pictures with them. 

We were planning to have family over for Natalie's birthday dinner and cake, but I was a little late in the planning and everyone already had plans. Our friends from church invited us over for dinner because they made some Eastern European food, so we brought the cake over to their house and celebrated there.

Here is Natalie's Birthday Interview:

Who is your favorite person? Mom

What is your favorite color? Robin's Egg Blue

What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Clifford the Big Red Dog

What is your favorite outfit? Blue polka dot dress (She just got it for her birthday)

What song do you like the best? I Am a Child of God

What is your favorite cereal? Rice Krispies

Who is your best friend? Trevor

What do you want to do when your grow up? Have babies (her favorite game in the world to play is mommy)

What is your favorite book? Clifford Loves

What are you really good at? Playing

Where do you wish you could go on vacation? Vacation? Oregon (lucky for her we are going there this summer)

What would you buy if you had a lot of money? Toys

What is your favorite dinner? Dirty Macaroni

If you could have a wish, what would it be? A bunch of shoes and dresses (she definitely loves to change her clothes and shoes!)

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Strawberry

Who do you want to be like? Mom

What do you like to do with your friends? Play

What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday? Chew bubble gum

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

What are you proud of? Dresses

What are you afraid of? Monsters

What is Mom's favorite thing to do? Talk to dad

How strong is Dad? Really Strong

What does Dad do best? Work

What does Mom do best? Laundry

What do you like best about Dad? Snuggling him

What do you like best about Mom? When we go on special time together