Elizabeth's 5th Birthday

It is hard to believe that my baby girl is 5 years old!  I know that I am going to say that my entire life, but really, I woke up on her birthday, blinked, and saw a teenager.  Ok, not that fast but still.
Elizabeth is such an amazing little girl.  She always wants to please and help me with everything, from cleaning and cooking to assisting with Andrew when he needs someone to play with.  She is still 100% into bugs and is truly the embodiment of the word naturalist.  When we go to the park, she likes to play on the slides and swings and then will find a shady place under a tree to lay down and look at the sky and relax.  And then she is up looking for bugs.  That girl can find bugs everywhere.  Which also makes me realize all the places bugs live, i.e. everywhere.

Let's see, I might as well do a favorites at 5:
Food- fruit, mainly strawberries and blueberries.  She will literally eat an entire pint of blueberries if you put a bowl of them down in front of her.
Movie- Changes weekly but this week it is the Cat in the Hat Underwater Adventure and The Little Mermaid
Song-Taylor Swift Love Story
Color- still pink and purple
Book - Again changes weekly but right now it is The Flopsy Bunnies by Beatrix Potter
Activity- Going to the park to play, riding her scooter, doing puzzles, craft projects with glue and stickers and of course, looking for bugs.
Favorite friend - one of my students, Liz.  They are both naturalists with the same name.  Elizabeth talks about her all the time.  It's pretty cute.  And I think also her brother.  They are best buddies and are so much fun to watch together.  We were coming home from the mountains after a day of fishing a few weeks ago and the two of them were laughing about who knows what in the back sat of the car for an hour.  It was the most precious and wonderful dialogue.  I wish that I could have taped the two of them going on about all kinds of silliness.  The two of them love to be silly together.

Elizabeth's birthday was a blast.  She and her friends (and the adults too) had a great time.  The kids played pin the tale on the donkey, had a sea shell treasure hunt, and played with the giant parachute.  We used to play with a parachute at school when I was growing up so I thought that I'd look into getting one for the kids.  And low and behold, they are not that expensive and tons of fun.  The big and little kids had a blast with it!  It was great as mom and dad were able to come out for her party as well.

 And the gift of the year - 2000 lady bugs.  Liz found them at a garden store for Elizabeth and they were a huge hit.  And it turns out that they will say alive for weeks if you put them in the refrigerator every night.  Elizabeth would let a few go everywhere we went for about two weeks.  At the end, there were only a few that died in her bug box.  I was proud of her for letting them go.  I think that she understands well that it's best to let the bugs go back to their natural habitat (although she does a lot of bug relocations.  I call it country bug/ city bug as she'll find a grasshopper or stonefly in the mountains and then release them at home. Poor bugs).

 Father's day with dad.

 For father's day, we went to brunch at a jazz club in Denver, Dazzle.  Not only was the food wonderful but the music was great too. The kids had so much fun dancing with the jazz trio!  The kids were the hit of the place!