Alexa is 5

Five years ago today I got the wonderful pleasure of setting eyes on an amazing little girl for the first time.

Today is Alexa's fifth birthday. It is a cliche to say where did the time go, but seriously, where did it go? It seems that I can remember her looking like this like it was yesterday. And now she is five. Alexa spent the majority of the day with her dad and came home for her birthday dinner. She requested baked macaroni and cheese. She is having her friend party tomorrow, but we opened presents from family today.

It got a little crazy.

She has a special cake request for her birthday party tomorrow, but I wanted her to have a small cake for tonight too.

She said she made a good wish. I asked her how it felt to be five. She said it was good, but she kind of misses four, "Because four was a lot of fun." I think five is going to be a really good year though!

The March Blizzard

Remember that post yesterday where I said it started snowing at 10AM? Well at noon today it was still snowing. Schools were closed (it would have been nice to know that prior to getting up at 4:15AM to shovel), dance class was cancelled, no city buses were running, and the backdoor could barely be opened. We occupied ourselves with a lot of craft projects. Alexa and a made these button people.

She made a mom, Chloe, Alexa, Annabel, Sam, Aunt Cherie, and Uncle Micheal (Uncle Micheal is four buttons high) before we ran out of buttons.

She then made them a house out of an old shoe box.

Chloe was working on one of her favorite projects, iron beads.

Once the snow let up we headed out to adventure and shovel out.

There is the pile at the end of the driveway after I shoveled. You can see the flat area that shows you how deep it was from the plow trucks. Keep in mind Chloe measured 4'6' at her physical in December.

The kids did have a blast wading there way around on the huge snow banks. They were climbing up to the top of the street signs. I still can't wait for spring. What a lot of snow we have gotten this year.

The Seeds of Spring

It looks like this outside today.

No kidding. The sad part is that it started as rain and changed to this around 10AM. They tell me that we are getting over a foot, possibly 18 inches, of very heavy wet snow. It is all rather depressing. So the girls and I did what anyone would do on a Sunday afternoon in a snow storm, we went to the gardening store to buy seeds.

Nothing makes you feel like warmer weather is a possibility like picking out plants for the garden.

Chloe is planting some flowers early.

She has decided that she is going to, "Cross germinate two kinds of flowers and make my own new flower." I have no idea how she got this idea. Nor do I really know how one goes about this type of thing. But like many of Chloe's ideas it will be a learning experience for us all.

Alexa focused on vegetables.

Now not everything will get stated early. She started her tomatoes (cherry and regular this year). She also decided that she wanted to plant watermelon.

I have no idea how they will grow up here, but we have enough planted to run our own stand at the Farmer's market. I mentioned that we could be up to our eyeballs in watermelon if all these plants come up and produce. Chloe suggested that if we have lots of extra that we should take them to the food shelf down the street. Alexa loved this idea. I love that they thought of that all by themselves.

I'm Calling It

I wake my kids up at 6:00AM. That is early by any standards. I get up at 5:00AM. That is unbelievably early. The funny part? If I am going to be out sick I have to call for a sub by 6:15AM. No kidding. That means if one of the kids is not feeling well I have 15 minutes to determine if they are just grumpy and whinny or really sick. I woke a rather reluctant Chloe this morning and she very soon began complaining about a stomach ache. As any mom will tell you the, "stomach ache" can have a lot of possible causes from serious to avoidance. With Chloe it can be especially hazardous as her stomach aches can often be the first symptom of a bladder infection. While we have been working hard with a lot of yoga, diet, and physical therapy to help this issue, we are still not out of the woods yet. With only a few minutes to decide, I hedged my bets and called in for a sub. Luckily things at the doctors checked out OK. This afternoon I set Chloe up to work on her reading assignment her teacher gave her via email (don't you just love technology?).

Alexa got a head start on her chores this weekend. Taking advantage of not having to go to daycare today, she got her hamster cage scrubbed out.

I bought some gloves for her, unfortunately the smalls are still huge. Apparently you can't buy rubber cleanning gloves in children's sizes.

Cutie gets to run around the bathtub while her cage gets all clean.

She finishes off by giving her fresh pine bedding.

It was a rather peaceful Friday.

Phone a Friend

Alexa has a birthday coming up in nine days. She has it down pat. Alexa has been waiting for her birthday since Chloe's birthday about three months ago. I sent some party invitations in to preschool with her today. Tonight, just as the kids we getting ready to go upstairs for their shower, the phone rang. It was one of Alexa's friends from preschool. Not his mom, but the child. He is a very chatty little guy and was very polite in telling me who it was, and that he was going to be able to come to Alexa's party. He then asked to speak to Alexa.

It was at this point that I realize neither one of the girls had ever gotten a phone call from one of their friends before. They are still at the ages where the mom's do the outside of school planning. Now, of course, Alexa has talked on the phone before. However, if you ask the few people that she has spoken to, you will find she isn't much of a conversationalist. I often sit next to her feeding her things to say.

Tonight wasn't much different with the exception that the little boy on the other end of the line was able to carry the conversation for both of them.

Alexa said a few words and was quiet for quite awhile. I reminded her that she needed to talk to him too, "Mommy, he is still talking."

But here she is her first friend conversation on the phone...

and a boy no less.

Lonely Lexa

Chloe has her first sleep over tonight at a friend's house. She has had lots of playdates up until this point, but I felt she was a little young for a sleep over. I would probably still be saying that if the calendar and kind people hadn't intervened. I have to go back to work tomorrow, but Chloe's school is scheduled for an inservice day (teachers go but not kids). It is a pain when these things happen, and it is one of the times that I wish I lived closer to family. Nothing says daycare in a pinch like being able to drop your kids for the day with their grandmother or aunt. I was down to thinking that Chloe would have to go to work with me tomorrow. A plan that she was pretty excited about, but I was not sure it would work too well. As fate would have it I talked to a fellow working mom last week. The parent of one of Chloe's friends who also happens to have a child in preschool with Alexa. We have gotten to know one another fairly well over the years at birthday parties, girl scouts, open houses, and concerts. She offered to let Chloe come play on Tuesday while I was at work. I thought this sounded great to me and called her this weekend to make sure it would still work. She is a teacher as well (although her district is still off tomorrow). I wanted to be sure that she was OK with the early hour that I would need to drop Chloe off. It was at this point that she said they were wondering if Chloe would like to have a sleepover and that way she wouldn't have to get up early. I ran it by Chloe and she was over joyed at the idea. She was packing her bag, pillow, and sleeping bag first thing this morning.

Alexa on the other hand was less excited. There was the initial grumpiness about Chloe going to play while she was at preschool. Then she moved on to sadness about not wanting Chloe to leave. We tried to make the best of it. After dropping Chloe off this evening we stopped by City Market. I told her that she could pick out whatever she wanted for dinner. She created quite a feast.

We of course made sure to have dessert. Her favorite strawberry ice cream, topped off with a chocolate chip cookie, and chocolate ball on top.

She got a nice long bubble bath before bed.

Cabbie tried to fill in as a playmate.

She was still sad about missing Chloe as she went off to sleep, but too tired to complain for very long.

A Sunday...

This is what your Sunday afternoon looks like if your mother learns that you have neglected to complete any of the entire week's reading homework you were suppose to be working on all vacation.Good thing she is a good reader, and we have a public library really close to our house.