Kendra turns 5

Kendra's 5th birthday also came last month. We had fun celebrating. She chose to eat at the Golden Corral. She loves to go there because she can pick pizza, and macaroni and cheese, and chicken, and fruit and she doesn't have to eat it if she doesn't like it. She also loves it for all the dessert choices. Between the ice cream with sprinkles, the cotton candy, the cupcakes, and the brownies, all of our girls had a lot of sugar that night. Perfect for a birthday celebration.

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Then we came home for presents.

The Traditional Birthday Song...and Spankings

Then she got to open her presents.

Kendra is such a sweet girl. Her smile melts my heart. She still loves to be held and snuggle. She loves to help me with anything, from sweeping the floor to cooking to helping with Corinne. Lately she has tried to get Corinne dressed for me. It is pretty funny to listen to. You hear Corinne's squeals between Kendra begging her to hold still and telling her she is trying to help her. They finally get it done and you would never know I didn't dress her. She also likes watching cooking shows with me. We did it once together and since she will come to me and ask if we can watch a cooking show together.

Her favorite toys are ponies and horses. She also loves lipgloss and gum.

She loves to go to "school" (our babysitter friend that does some preschool activities with her). Her babysitter has a son named Noah. He is a year older than Kendra, but they love playing together.

She is doing a great job writing her name and is working on her letter sounds and recognition. She loves reading to us, which constitutes looking at books and telling a story based on the pictures. She is excited to learn to read and to start real school.

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Kendra is my sweet girl with a tender heart. Happy Birthday Kendra. I love you.

Camryn turns 7

Camryn's birthday was on the first day of school. I don't know what she was more excited about, starting school again or it being her birthday.

Ready for her first day of First Grade

Her teacher is Mrs. Moulson, who she seems to like. The sad part was that neither of her two best friends are in her class. Both Brayden and Elsie have different teachers, but they eat breakfast together and often play at recess. Camryn told me, " I get to see Brayden at four recesses, if you count morning before school starts!"

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For a follow-up on the love letter, I had a talk with Camryn about boys. She agrees that is best to be friends with lots of different boys, and not a girlfriend. So they are back to being friends. Whew!

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After school, we celebrated her birthday. We had the friend party earlier, on her birthday we had a family party. We let her choose where to eat dinner. She chose Gerties-all you can eat pizza. We also saved some of her presents for this day.It still surprises me how big Camryn is. It is crazy to see her growing up,

growing up so fast.

Camryn is still a social butterfly. She makes friends so easily, and it seems to me that lots of other kids like her and want to be her friend.

She loves school and likes doing her homework. She loves math (she even wrote "I luve math" on one of her math sheets). Her reading ability is amazing. She is supposed to read 20 minutes most days for Book-It. She would read 6 books to fill 20 minutes. Kent finally took her down to the public library and checked out some chapter books. She finished her first one today. It was Lions at Lunchtime from the Magic Tree House series. She loved it.

After she read me the last two chapters, completing her 20 minutes, I found her here:

In her bed reading another of her library books.

I am so proud of the girl that she is growing up to be. She is genuine and sweet, fun and spunky, smart and witty.

I love you, Camryn.