Start of 4th grade

Hi honey,
I'm so excited for this new school year.  You've grown up a lot in the last 6 months.  You're showing me a lot of wisdom in your choices, from preparing for bed time to handling conflict with your brothers.  You certainly know how to speak up for yourself and to encourage others to do the right thing.  Thank you for learning the heart difference between tattling and reporting.  That makes a huge difference to your brothers.  You've grown in being trustworthy, honest, careful and helpful.  I love having you cook! 
This next year may not be much harder than 3rd grade school work.  I bet that every lesson will be a little stretch and after a few weeks you'll understand and start thinking it's "too easy."  Keep embracing that stretch.  This determination you've already displayed most of your life is what keeps us believing you are more than you seem.  You are an amazing girl on the brink of becoming an amazing young woman.  You have a fiery heart, a passion inside that hasn't found direction yet.  That's okay, we can explore those ideas together. Remember that as your family, we are on your team.  We are on your side.  We are here to help, to assist, to listen, to guide. 
In your friendships, be careful and be patient.  Most of your friends are maturing just like you and discovering they have strong dislikes and strong passions about certain things.  As you all explore these new ideas, encourage them if possible.  And if you hear hurtful things, you have a safe place here.  Keep that same standard of tattling vs reporting in your heart.  Share only things you know to be true from a heart of concern.
We love you very much.  We truly are excited for this next season in your life!
-Mom

Almost 5

I can't believe it, our little Nina girl is almost 5 years old!

She is a joy, a little spitfire, a ball of energy and talking and creativity. She is a very balanced young girl: loving to play with her brothers (which means trains, dinosaurs or transformers) but she thoroughly enjoys ballet class and playing princess with other girls.
Her current close friends are Audrey M, Melissa C, and Ella R. Her dance recital song this year is "Goin' To The Chapel" and she is very excited to wear a wedding dress. This is her second year in ballet and she is showing a lot of coordination and balance. She dances very methodically - only doing what her teacher has taught her, and generally in order every time even during free dance.

She has a bicycle with training wheels. We attempted to remove the training wheels once in the autumn, but she wasn't quite ready. Now that every kid in the family has a bicycle & rides, she tends to holler a lot that someone is going to run into her (usually big brother).

Her current favorite colors are pink & purple and she loves Fancy Nancy's vocabulary of using "fuschia" for purple.

For school she is doing A Beka's Letters & Sounds for 5 year olds book. So far she has done a great job. She writes clear manuscript (although mostly capitals still) and can add up to 10. She also reads most small words phonetically and she has a fairly large sight word vocabulary! She has memorized "Hop On Pop" and most of "Fancy Nancy."

She is a very social person and clearly gets reenergized by being around others! She has a fairly strong opinion about most things too! In reading the book "The Spirited Child" she fits most of the categories about 8 out of 10 times. Being by herself is the worst consequence for her. We have a daily quiet time that she hates, but it is a good skill to learn.

She really cracks me up lately by telling me she wants to have 12 people in her family when she grows up: married to Will and have 10 babies! They often argue about this because Will says he wants to marry Ella R. and he doesn't want that many babies anyway.

Nina loves her daddy more than anything, but she likes me quite a lot too. She is very compassionate and is freely giving hugs at very appropriate times. She really enjoys going to Awana Cubbies every Tuesday night where her favorite teacher in the world is: Mrs. Erin!! She also gets to see Mrs. Erin at Sunday School and Nina was part of the kids choir in the Christmas program.

For weight: she seems to be around 37 pounds, which is still very light for being nearly 5 and on the tall side of average. Her wheat & dairy issues are very much under control now, although we do strongly limit dairy.

I know that there is very little structure to this but it was time to jot things down before I forget them and suddenly she's 10!