Happy 5th Birthday to my baby girl. Five seems like such a big number and I can hardly believe that the baby of our family is already so big. We are entering a new family stage and it's so fun and exciting. Lucy is the best 5 year old and we are so lucky to have her!
I love these pictures. Right before Lucy fell asleep on the night before her birthday I took a picture of her holding up 4 fingers. The next morning we snapped a picture with 5 fingers. Did she already get bigger? After just one night? I think she might have. She's so excited to be 5!
The past six months have been pretty good ones for our Lucy. She's growing, exploring, playing, learning, and loving her life. Here are some highlights from her right now:
-She says, "But one thing..." or "Mom, just one thing..." when she wants to tell me something and I'm telling her to go to bed or otherwise trying to focus on something.
-She loves riding her bike and is getting pretty good at it.
-She loves swimming more than any other child that I know. Once she's in the water, she spends 90% of her time under the water - only coming up for breath when she has to. I have to be in the water right next to her because she has no fear and it makes me so nervous. Often I will grab her and pull her above the water, but she complains "mom!", twists out of my arms and dunks herself back under. If I pull her up and make her talk to me "Lucy, are you okay or are you playing?" She responds, "Mom, I'm playing - let me swim!"
Lydia and Lucy are the best of friends. I love watching these sisters together. When Austin was a boy, I was a little sad because I wanted a sister for Lydia so badly. I couldn't have imagined that an age gap of 7 years would seem so little in the friendship of these two girls. They love each other and I love that they get to spend so much time together.
December was full of holiday festivities and was particularly fun for Lucy this year.
Christmas with a 4 year old is so exciting and magical. Lucy loves princess dresses and For Christmas Lydia made her a large wardrobe to keep all of her dresses in.
After Christmas we kept on enjoying the winter fun that Utah has to offer. We went ice skating, sledding, and lots of other winter adventuring. I love that Lucy is old enough to enjoy all of the things that we want to do as a family. She's the perfect 4th child because she is willing and able to go-go-go as we live the life of a busy homeschooling family.
Lucys'd grandmother, Sue Peaden, passed away in January. It makes me so incredibly sad to think of all the things that Lucy will miss out on with her grandma. But I am also incredibly grateful for the time that they got to spend together. We spent almost every Thursday of Lucy's entire life visiting with Sue at her home in West Jordan. I do not regret a single one of those afternoons and I'm grateful for the sweet relationship the Lucy and Sue shared. Sue loved her SO much. A tender and sincere love. She loved buying her new outfits/dresses, she loved giving her fruit snacks, loved getting hugs from her whenever we came and loved spending time with her. 4 years old is a young age to comprehend what death means, and we miss Sue a lot- but I hope that Lucy will be able to hold the knowledge of her grandmothers love with her throughout her whole life.
SNOW
Lucy loves the snow and playing in the snow. She loves sledding, making snow angels, making snowmen, and being outside. I'm constantly impressed at how much of a trooper she is in the freezing cold and I love how happy it makes her to go flying down the hill on a sled.
Princess Dresses
Lucy loves princesses and loves to wear princess dresses. This is a new thing and is very Lucy-led (I did not push this). She adores the movie Frozen and loves both Anna and Elsa. She wears her dress-up princess dresses like outfits and rarely is in anything but a princess dress. She makes several outfit changes a day and switches out her dress as it fits her whim. She also loves crowns/tiaras, jewelry, and any other princess related thing. I'm shocked at how few pictures I have of Lucy in her dresses- but it's not even noteworthy to take a picture of how darling she looks in her dresses because it's a constant in our house.
Even if she's not in a princess dress, she will still pick a regular dress from her closet 90% of the time. She loves them and it's darling - but sometimes it gets in the way of how active this girl is - I snapped this picture of our #1 solution "Tie a knot in the back of the dress so it doesn't get caught in the wheels".
(Scooter/Dress)
Disneyland
The biggest highlight of the past six months is our family trip to Disneyland! I would be lying if I wasn't upfront that the #1 reason that we decided to take our family to Disneyland is because of her love of princesses. She is just so into princesses right now and had started asking me where the princesses live (she didn't know about Disneyland) and it felt like the right time to take our family. Lucy was old enough to go on almost every single ride - Lydia was young enough to enjoy Disneyland as a child. Our boys were old enough to enjoy the older things like Star Wars and tall enough to go on every ride but everyone was young enough to enjoy the magic of Disneyland. We loved it so much!
Because of Lucy's vision/skin disability we were given a DAS pass for our family - this allowed us to skip the long lines and wait in a shorter area for the rides. It was really amazing for our family.
One of the things that was important to us was to stick together. There were very, very few times that we split up - most of the time all six of us stayed together. The only rides that Lucy couldn't ride were the Matterhorn and Indiana Jones. However, some of the rides were pretty big so we did a "brave" prize for each of the big rides that she went on. (Little toys/gifts in a backpack). The only ride that she hated and I promised I wouldn't make her ride again was Smugglers Run because she had to sit so far away from the other people (the seats are all individual) and it had such a scary flashing light sequence.
We waited in line to see Anna for three hours. Was it worth it? Yes. We sat in an auditorium and ate lunch while watching all sorts of clips from disney movies. David took the big kids to hit a few rides while Lucy and I waited and I don't regret it at all. (I only regret that we didn't get here sooner so that maybe the line wasn't so long). It was extra magical when we realized that Lucy was wearing the SAME dress as Anna was.
Lucy did a great job hanging in there. She fell asleep every night right before or as we were leaving the park. I hope I always remember holding a sleeping Lucy on Pirates of the Carribean though the line, all through the ride - including a 15 minute delay when we got stuck by the ship cannons - and then off the ride. She was a trooper and we had very very few meltdowns. The only significant issue we had was when it had been raining for hours and hours and Lucy fell asleep in the stroller. She was fine until she woke up and was wet and cold and needed to go to the bathroom and was basically inconsolable. Poor girl! I was able to warm her up and cheer her up, but it was a rough go for a bit.
All in all it was the most successful Disneyland trip a 4 year old has ever had. We loved sharing this experience with our family and especailly with Lucy at this age.
-Lucy Disneyland Favorites-
Park: Disneyland
Ride: Chip and Dale's Gadget Coaster
(2nd choice: Big Thunder Mountain)
Food: Mickey-shaped Pretzel
Easter:
Temples:
We've had the amazing opportunity to go to SO many different temple open houses over the past six months including Manti, Layton, and Taylorsville. I know Lucy is young to remember these, but I hope that it starts a seed of understanding how incredible temples are and how they will bless her life.
Homeschool
We've had such a good homeschool year! Lucy was technically in preschool -but she didn't go to an in-person preschool. We did a bunch of things at home and she has several organized things each week. It was a good balance for her and I am proud of how much she is learning and growing. Some of the bigger things that she was involved in were:
-Friday SPARK Coop, her favorite was the music class
-Vision Services through Alpine School District: She had a great teacher who helped give her (and me) some resources for tracking and pre-reading skills adapted to her vision. At the end of the year Miss. Donna helped facilitate a functional vision exam for Lucy and it was really good for us to get a feel for where Lucy's vision is and how we can support her.
Mini Coop
We hosted a small group of boys for a mini-coop on Thursday and Lucy looked forward to it each week. We read books, did activities, and had a great time.
Field Trips
We have had some really good field trips this year: Lehi Bakery, theater performances, and Clark planetarium to name just a few of the many many things we've been up to.
Cousins
Lucy is so lucky to have so many cousins around her age that we get to spend so much time with. Lucy is well-integrated into the cousin crew and even though she's on the younger end she has plenty of playmates. She and Sadie are best buddies. She and Juniper look like twins and it's so fun to see them together running around and playing. We spend a lot of time with our cousins and I love that Lucy has these built-in best friends.
Amelia's Party
Lucy's friend Amelia always has the most incredible birthday celebrations. This year it was a Unicorn Rainbow party and Lucy loved it.
Dad:
Lucy has the sweetest dad and she is so lucky to have him. She adores him and will often try to block him so that he "can't" leave for work.
Summer Range
Lucy loves camping at the summer range and was excited that we were going to be there close to her birthday again.
Here are a few other details and a few other pictures from the past six months:
-We give our fruit snacks after the sacrament at church and Lucy always carefully lines them up into a line and then shoves them all into her mouth at the same time.
-We had been swimming and outside a lot and David commented about how Lydia was getting a tan. Lucy piped up "Am I getting tan??" The answer was a chagrined "no" and David bent down and told Lucy how much he loved her skin and how proud he was that she was protecting it from the sun.
-Lucy is doing great at her class in church.
-Lucy is silly and fun and loves her siblings.
Happy Birthday Lucy!
We love you!
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