Hannah turns 5!

This year I managed to get a collage done on her birthday instead of months later, shown below. I only have one less kid, but I think since we had all the birthdays at once last year, that is what made the bigger difference.

Let’s see, looking over the pics it looks like Hannah has grown much taller and thinned out. I need to get her in for her yearly checkup sometime so I can chart her, but probably on the high end for height and a little skinny (kinda like her momma) on the weight side. I think that maybe her hair grew the same amount as she got taller. Seriously, her hair is still crazy thin but it finally touches her shoulders when it isn’t flying around in the wind and she spends time brushing and fixing it in the morning. 🙂 She can’t wait to have Rapunzel hair, but I told her she is going to have to be pretty patient for that one.

She’s still pretty artsy to the point of driving me crazy. Her latest thing is when she has handwriting to do, to add little embellishments everywhere in place of spaces. Either dashes, or lines, or other symbols. Apparently white space is not allowed. She soaks everything up like a sponge. She was really excited to start “kindergarten” and start reading some new books. Our favorite so far is a Children’s Encyclopedia. We’ll be slowly working through it over the course of the year, but it also has additional internet links for each of the subjects. So far, we haven’t had time to follow up on them, but if we end up repeating the core, which I probably will, we might do more in depth through this book. She’s reading everything! It’s fun to hear her singing at church and trying to read road signs.

She’s starting to be more helpful around the house. She mixes our juice from concentrate and has learned how to make some snacks and simple meals. She’ll help feed the pets, empty and sometimes load the dishwasher, or clear the countertops for me so I can clean. She wants to be bossy (also like her momma) so I’ve been trying to figure out how to have her be a good helper for me with the fosters and even Benjamin without the bossy part. We end up talking about how she’s not in charge of anyone but herself and how she can only tattle if someone is getting hurt. I’m sure this will be a continual struggle.

She asks great questions and is fun to talk to and fun to be around most of the time. Usually smiling and content. We don’t have very many moments that require discipline after warnings. Usually those involve both of our children getting into some mischief together. We have great prayer times and she is very loving to everyone she knows. I’m excited to watch her grow over this next year. 🙂

Wow! (Click collage for larger)