Miss Paleontologist

A-chan and I put together a wooden model of a Dimetrodon this morning. We'd bought the model at a yard sale a couple of years ago and kept it waiting til she was old enough to help put it together. After completing the model we looked up the dinosaur in her huge book from Amma and learned all about the Dimetrodon. Next we looked up all the dinosaurs that Santa had given her at Christmas this year: Triceratops, Spinosaurus and Brachiosaurus.

She spent the next hour being "Miss Paleontologist" (who is 27 years old) and pretending to be in a museum giving tours of her dinosaurs and telling people all about them. I bought a ticket and joined the tour to be told the story of how she found the dimetrodon skeleton: it had tried to catch a bird by climbing into a tree in the backyard but the bird had pecked at it so much that it had died. She then found the bones and had to put them together like a puzzle and then brought it to the museum. She also told me all about the things we'd learned in the book: the sail was used to heat or cool the dinosaur, it had sharp teeth and was a meat eater, it's sail was just as tall as a human but it's whole body was longer than a human is tall.

It was so incredibly cute and it was fun to play museum. As I write this she is still perusing the dinosaur book and finding interesting ones that catch her eye to read about.

Happy Halloween!

This year A-chan went through a total of 3 costumes for Halloween. For the Library's halloween night she wore her Knight outfit from DragonCon. For the Halloween party on the 30th she wore her Pirate outfit from DragonCon last year. For her school fall festival and the actual Trick or Treating it was her Faerie outfit that got chosen. It was very cute.

I chose a kimono complete with obi and obijime, geta and wild hair sticks. A-chan complemented by obi tying skills with "wow, you can tie an obi just like Konata's dad!" which references the Lucky Star anime.

It was kind of icky and wet but not as cold as I thought it might be. We went out with Emma and Alex and their parents and some other friends first, then visited Lucy and my mother. Mom took A-chan treating around her neighborhood and by then her Hello Kitty basket was overflowing.

She really enjoyed all of it despite the rain. I think that I personally could have done with less walking but I enjoyed it too. One thing I find interesting is how she never actually looks and chooses the candy she likes. She chooses things randomly and leaves the things she knows she likes. It will be neat to see if that changes next year :)

44.5 inches

Today was A-chan's 5th birthday. We had a great day! It was made more interesting by the pouring rain and the massive amounts of sugar consumed.

The first thing she wanted to do this morning was measure herself on her height chart to see if she'd grown any over night. She is now 44.5 inches tall, 3 inches taller than on her 4th b-day. Then she got to open a present before getting ready for school - a pikachu bento box and a pikachu wristwatch.

Next we hurried to get ready for school and to arrive with cupcakes intact. For her school cupcakes she chose a yellow cake/chocolate swirl with chocolate and pink icing swirled on top with pink, blue, orange and small ball sprinkles on top. She helped mix them and bake them, then did some sprinkles on top.

While she was at school I transformed her bathroom into a more kid-friendly space with a hello kitty shower curtain, new fantasy art and some other hello kitty additions. This was not about the fact that I want my sink to myself in the mornings, no way! And it had nothing to do with the amount of times I have tripped over her stepstool in my bathroom. It was all about her special day, yep :)

Then I hurried back to school for the cupcake party, with huge princess balloon and flower bouquet in hand as well as a bag of puffy cheetos as a surprise. Off to lunch at IHOP for pancakes and then the free bowl of ice cream for the birthday girl. Back home to try out the new game her daddy had installed on her computer and then to play Katamari on the PS3.

Dinner next and then I had to run off to teach dance class while she stayed with her godfather to play. When I got home there was an enormous cookie thingy with icing in the middle and a pink crown in icing on top. Whew, the sugar!

Birthday Countdown

Only two days until A-chan's fifth birthday. It's hard to believe that she will be five! She has a second tooth that is very much ready to fall out any day. She still has a tiny bit of pink in her hair from Dragoncon. Her worst fears are still storms and spiders. She loves playing drums for Rock Band.

There is so much to do before her birthday - cupcakes for school, plus grapes and cheese snacks. Plus finding something to carry 22 cupcakes in. Decorating her bathroom into a big girl bathroom. Wrapping a present, making a card and deciding what to make her for lunch and dinner that will be special. None of it includes her two parties. I just hope I can drag enough energy from somewhere to get it all done!

When recounting the tale of her birth she got very upset about the c-section and started crying. It took me a few minutes to calm her down, but in the end I think she was okay. She thought it was funny that her daddy had to do all her diapers at first.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I love my girl so much!!

Pink everything!

Used to be A-chan loved mashed potatoes. Now I can't get her to eat them, not for begging, pleading or threatening. I have no idea why. But as I was making lunch today I made the offhand comment "would you eat them if they were pink?" and she said yes. So...I made pink mashed potatoes. And she did indeed eat every bite of them. I guess I must be too much of an adult now cause I don't get it! They taste the same. The texture is the same. Well, I'm happy that she ate them :)

No tooth!

26 days before her 5th birthday, A-chan's first tooth came out! It happened at lunch where the very wobbly tooth got stuck in corn on the cob. Bleeding occurred which kind of freaked her out but she quicly calmed down and wanted to see the gap in her teeth.

I'm relieved that it finally came out. The adult tooth had already pushed through behind it and I was getting just a bit concerned. We also had a near disaster when I forgot to get the tooth off the lunch plate before washing the plate. For a few tense moments we thought I had lost it but finally it was recovered. A-chan washed it and quickly put it into the pink heart on her tooth pillow.

She's very excited about the tooth fairy and asked if the TF could leave a picture of herself behind. She also wants to buy a giraffe with the money that the TF will be leaving, go figure :) Another request was for a picture to be taken of the gap in her teeth and posted on Facebook so that everyone could see it.

The tooth pillow that I made for this occassion is two sided. One had a pink heart pocket and one has a blue heart pocket. It's handsewn out of machine felt and cotton lace. We've been looking forward to using it, even lugging it to DragonCon and AWA just in case :) Tonight's the night!

P.S. The Mystery of buying a giraffe with her tooth fairy loot has been solved. It's because that's what Lola (from the children's series Charlie and Lola) bought with her TF money. So apparently A-chan is convinced that she must absolutely do the same. I'm all for it if that's what she really wants, but I'm glad to know where it came from!

The Business lunch

A-chan and I had a nice sit down business lunch to talk over the details of her upcoming 5th birthday party. It was a productive meeting and much was decided. Notes were taken and memos will be sent out accordingly this week.

Basically she wants a princess party because she had so much fun at M & F's princess party last year and it's stuck in her head all this time! It was decided to be a fairy princess party though and that any boys that come can dress up as knights instead. There is to be a cake with a crown. There is to be fairy bread and hershey's kisses (because a princess is always awakened with a kiss).

I'm a little worried that it will be too cold to have an outdoor party because it will be a couple of weeks late this year. But hopefully all will work out well. I'm excited about it...planning for the crafts and games always makes me happy. I tend to go overboard on her birthdays, but it's worth it.