Blythe is 5

Blythe is 5 years old today. She's probably celebrating it right now at Taco Bell eating cheese rollups and cinnamon twists while I'm 1200 miles away at a conference for work. Sometimes having a full time job really sucks. We did have her birthday party last Sunday and she opened our gifts to her on Monday, so we have already celebrated it, but it still sucks to be gone.

The big milestone in our household with turning 5 is that she can now chew gum. So Braden took her yesterday to the store to pick out 2 packs of gum. She chose strawberry flavor and Juicy Fruit. Hopefully she doesn't swallow too much of it! Ethan keeps saying, "I five. I chew gum." Keep dreaming buddy.

There are some very exciting things that will happen at 5. Namely, she will go to KINDERGARTEN! Still over half a year away, but it will be here before you know it. I actually have quite a few memories from when I was 5. I remember my first day of kindergarten. I remember moving to a new state. And I remember getting shots. It's very traumatic. Not looking forward to next Wednesday when Blythe gets hers. But I am looking forward to getting past that so she can actually enjoy being 5. She's quite stressed about getting shots sometime while she's 5. So it might as well be soon so she can just move on.

We haven't measured her recently (guess the doctor will next week), but I do know she weighs about 41 pounds. She wears size 5T or 5 or 6 or girls XS or S. At this toddler/girl overlap stage in clothes, it's hard to find what actually will fit.

She's wearing size 10 or 11 shoes. 10.5 would probably be best, but I'm pretty sure they don't make those.

She is just barely starting to learn how to read. She knows the sounds of most of the letters and can put some together (but has a hard time with the vowels). I started using flashcards with a few words a week or so ago and she did okay. "Rug" gets sounded out as ruh-uh-guh though, so even when I say "say it all together fast", it still doesn't sound like "rug", but it's a bit of progress.

She writes letters and numbers very well. She's always wanting to write and asks me how to spell stuff all the time. There are some words she knows how to write on her own. At church one day all the kids got a paper that said, "I am thankful for..." She made a list of all of the things she knows how to spell:
books
dog
cat
dad
ethan
brynn
mary
ginsey
ashley

Other than cat, that's actually a pretty good "I'm thankful for..." list. Interesting how she writes "mary" and not "mom". For a while she wrote "mom" on everything. Every piece of art she made was for mom. "mary" is more challenging to write/spell than "mom", so she's just showing off how smart she is.

She's now started making her bed in the mornings. Thank you, Laura.

She's actually a pretty good dancer. Must have learned all her moves from me (and anyone who's ever seen me dance knows I am being completely sarcastic about that). She can also learn songs incredibly fast these days. Amazing how quickly those little kid brains absorb things.

She starting to use her imagination a lot these days and it's so fun to watch. I always felt that Blythe and Ethan would play well together when they were at least 5 and 3. Now we're getting there and I can totally see it. Blythe has the imagination to make up games and scenarios and Ethan just wants to play along. So they'll play "going to the store" or "going to a dance party" or "ice cream shop".

I think I'm going to like this year. 5 will be lots of fun. Happy Birthday to my sweet Blythe.