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

THE ORDINARY PRINCESS

Once upon a  time a little  girl  was  born.She  was  a  PRINCESS! Her  name  was  Nina.  She had straight brown hair, green eyes and wasn't very pretty but was a princess.   One  day she met a prince. He had straight brown hair, And had  blue eyes.His name was Spencer.Nina has a cat and a dog.  Spencer has a guinea pig and a hamster.

SNOWY MY DOG

I have a dog. I named her Snowy. She is a beagle. She is mostly white with dark brown ears and a brown patch over her eyes, but a white stripe going to her head.
I got her at Starbucks when I was with my dad.  Snowy is special to me.  She makes me feel happy.  Even when I'm sad.  She is one of my favorite pets.  When I am holding her I feel happy. 

I lost my first tooth!

When I lost my first tooth, I was showing my stuffed animals!  I was showing them my gum hole and then I felt my tooth click, so I pulled it out all the way.  I felt really excited.  So I ran around my grandma and grandpa's house and screamed "I lost my tooth!  I lost my tooth!!"  Then I showed my family.  Will got a wet towel for me and a plastic bag for my tooth.  Then when it was time to put my pajamas on, I put my pajamas on.  Then I took my tooth out of the bag and put it on my white sheets.  Then my mom told me to get a plastic bag for it so I won't lose it.  But when I got back my tooth was gone!  Me and mom searched around for it.  I said, "I brushed my tooth, so it is going to have some red inside."  We looked and looked and looked.  Mom said, "Hey, is this your tooth?"  And I looked inside... and said....  "It's red inside!"  Then I put it in the bag and put the bag under my pillow.  And when I awoke, I looked under my pillow first.  The bag was gone!  I thought the tooth fairy was going to go in the bag and take my tooth and take it out of the bag.  But instead she, or he, just took the bag.  I found TWO DOLLARS under my pillow. 
Before I had put my tooth under my pillow I wrote a letter to the toothfairy.  It said, "Dear Tooth Fairy, I lost my tooth by showing my stuffed animals."  And it had pictures on it to point her (or he) to where the tooth was. 

THE END

Kindergarten

Our little Pricess is in kindergarten! Oh my goodness!
She already reads well and does basic addition into double-single digits. And each day she comes home knowing someone else's name. So far she has said that the hardest rule is going to be not taking the kitchen toys into the bathroom to play. And no singing in the bathroom. :) Her teacher is Mr. Bayliss at Nelson Elementary and she is in the morning class. I drive her and Will to school, then she comes home on the noon bus, then we return to pick up Will in the afternoon. AJ is enjoying a little more Mommy Time but he is so excited when Nina comes home!

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!

Summer 08

My oh my, I haven't posted in a year??

Nina has come so far since last September. She is fully potty trained and only wears a pull-up at night. It only took about two months for complete potty control and about another two months for bowel control. Finding the right motivation was the hardest part!
She continues to be tiny, weighing in at 27 pounds, but is a bit tall at 38 inches. She can easily wear size 18 month shorts or capris, since that is her true waist size, but her legs are long and lean so she wears 3T *adjustable waist!* jeans and sweats.
Nina adores gardening and is frequently dirty. Truly truly dirty. Mud caked into her fingernails and sandals! We have a little square of flower garden that has never been planted - now it is Nina's Corner. :)
Nina is great at helping and wanting to be a mommy, she tries to pick up AJ (who weighs over 20 pounds), she tucks her doggy into his bed, she is very concerned over all kids smaller than herself!
She has begun to make friends and remember them. Deanna, Marin & Nicole are some current favorites, but that changes every few weeks. The more we see someone, the more she asks for them!
Nina talks a lot. And she is very very clear. She is also enjoying our church's nursery program where she is in the same room as AJ. She and Will both get to sing in the children's choir - he remembers the tunes, she remembers the words. But the combination is pretty funny! Her favorite song is "my cup is running oooooover!" That song gets faster and faster and she's hilarious!
She will start pre-ballet this fall. I am probably more excited than she is right now! She does dance around the house a lot and she is a good sport when we take Will to tae kwon do twice a week, so she needs to have an activity of her own.
We have hosted a monthly tea part for Nina through my local moms group. Each month about 4-6 little girls of similar ages come over to play. They are too young to enjoy actually having a tea party, but they do enjoy each other's company! Nina loves having some girl time! We will try to continue to do this into the fall as much as possible.
Nina does a good job at listening in during Will's schoolwork. Most of the schoolwork in our curriculum is very adaptable for multiple ages so she can draw while Will does handwriting, she reads along with us, she works on the same memory verse.
Our Nina Boo got a bicycle for her birthday this year and is doing a fantatic job! She loves to go get the mail and then ride around with the mail in her basket. Sometimes a puppy & the sippy cup come along too.
Over the last year we've determined she has a wheat & dairy sensitivity. When she has a lot, her stomach will break out in a tiny rash. It's very hard to explain, it is almost like the pores are open and painful. It's not red right away, but if we let it go it does become red and itchy. We have been able to get on top of this with some lotions but also changing her diet. When she has several weeks with almost no wheat, the rash clears up. We are offering lots of rice, corn and potato alternatives. Rice cakes instead of crackers, potato chips instead of crackers, corn-based cereal or oatmeal instead of wheat-based cereal. She loves white rice and sometimes I mix in a non-dairy "cream cheese" to give it more substance. She loves that!