Felicity's 5th Birthday

 

Happy 5th birthday to our precious Felicity! I can't believe our youngest baby is FIVE. It feels like only yesterday that we were welcoming her into the world. 

Felicity is full of energy, kind and inclusive, nurturing, creative, determined, fierce, fashionable, smart and oh-so-fun. She has a contagious laugh, she loves her family and friends, and she adores her baby cousins. Felicity is the first to volunteer to help clean, cook or bake--and loves trying any food as long as it's not "spicy." Sushi and donuts are her favorite foods right now. She enjoys creating art and will come up with elaborate projects that take hours or days to complete. She comes up with games that include everyone, loves to talk to friends and family on FaceTime, and is the best little errand buddy around. She has a strong sense of style, and is a great gift-giver. She loves horses, asked for a real unicorn for her birthday, and is just as athletic as her daddy--she likes to do Camp Gladiator workouts with us at home.

We are so incredibly blessed to have Felicity in our family. She is a joy and a light, and we are thrilled to celebrate her five years of life today.

Wilder's First Day of Kindergarten

It has been a minute! Life took over and my little blog took the back seat. But I want to document the next milestone in Wilder's life. Today my baby boys started kindergarten!

Wilder is going to a dual language fine arts academy. He'll be spending half the day in a class ONLY speaking Spanish, even while learning things like math and science. The second half of the day he'll be in english-speaking class, learning other topics. He'll get to do things like music, dance, theater, art, STEAM lab... lots of things.

It has taken me a while to wrap my head around the fact that my firstborn is old enough to be in kindergarten. I worry about him making friends, finding his place in his new school, teachers getting to know him and developing trust, him catching on to Spanish, trying new things... sitting in a cafeteria!

With his homeroom/Spanish teacher Ms. Sido

But our little guy has grown and matured a lot this summer. He amazes me with the things he says, how his mind works. He is so kind and thoughtful. He's so gentle with his sister. And he still really loves toy trains and fire trucks and construction vehicles.

Construction vehicles next to his school are cool!

His school has massive construction going on next door, which was thrilling to him. When we went to the Sneak Peek to meet his teachers, he walked into his home room and said "This is exactly what my kindergarten classroom looks like." Which I thought was interesting, because he'd never been to that room before!

The Kwasts, Jashley and Grant and Sharon came over for a few minutes of prayer

Yesterday some of our family and friends came over after church for an impromptu gathering to pray over Wilder. It was so moving. Wilder has wonderful people of faith who love and know him well, and are walking alongside him as he embarks on this new chapter. We are richly blessed.

He had his last naptime with his buddy Alfred.

Trains before bed

And last night we read (again) The Night Before Kindergarten while he lined up his school clothes. He was ready and excited.

Today we walked Wilder to his class, and he was pumped. Felicity shed a tear after she said goodbye, but they had a donut reception for the parents and donuts heal all the things. We spent this morning getting her some cowgirl boots and gear. I am looking forward to some adventures with her!

Here are a few more photos of Wilder and Felicity. Felicity starts Pre-K 3 next Tuesday, at the school she and Wilder have gone to the last few years. She gets two more years there! But I know she'll miss Wilder at school.

Felicity's 2nd birthday and October

My baby girl is two years old! I’ve watched her grow from a newborn with big eyes to a smiley infant, a crawly crawls on the move and then after the beginning of 2017, she began walking. And she just never stopped! And now, she talks and talks while she walks and runs. She’s not an infant. She’s definitely a toddler!

Felicity is the most precious bundle of sass, bubbly giggles, earnest talking, song singing and love. I can’t believe how beautiful she is, not just in countenance and her princess hair, but her personality is so sweet. She’s tough, determined and adventurous, but she also has a soft heart, loves her kitty and family dearly. She hugs Wilder and asks about him whenever he isn’t visible. She loves to wrestle with Wilder, and bursts with laughter when we play. She loves her daddy so much, and I love watching her go to sleep in my arms.

Felicity enjoys reading, baby dolls, barbies, horses, and many of Wilder’s cars and trains. She enjoys coloring and painting. She loves accessories, sunglasses and dress up—she’ll make anything into a cape or a hat. She likes make-believe, making coffee, cooking in her kitchen, cleaning with her toy cleaning set. She likes to run around, climb and flop on the ground (especially when things don’t go her way). She likes to climb onto my or Zach’s office chairs and get into my tape recorder, our notepads and planners.

Sister eats basically anything Zach and I eat. Wilder has his super-healthy diet preferences, but Felicity likes to eat whatever’s on the day’s menu. Her favorite meal is probably breakfast for dinner, with eggs, bacon and muffins. She likes chicken, meatballs, noodles, rice, soups of many kinds, toast, strawberries, apples, snap peas, cucumbers and she loves corn on the cob.

At her pediatrician appointment, Felicity weighted 23 pounds and she's 33 inches tall. She's moving into 2T clothes, but still wearing 18 month pants. We are moving her up to size 6 shoes, but they're a little big.

Felicity is napping about 90 minutes - 2 hours every day. She's been sleeping from bedtime till either 5 am or even 6:30 most nights!

God placed this precious little girl in our family, and we are so blessed by her sunshine and sass. I can’t imagine our family without her. Zach and I look forward to the young woman she’ll become some day, but I can’t help but want to freeze time right now.

And on to Wilder. My sweet wild man. He is adjusting to school—today he told me he was excited to go, and when I picked him up he was happy about the things he did and learned. That is a relief! It was a little bit of an adjustment, but he’s good now. Wilder loves trains, cars, planes and construction vehicles, as he has for most of his life. He also really likes building things with duplos and crashing them down. Reading with Wilder is one of my favorite habits we have. He is still a snuggler, especially when reading or when watching TV. Both kids really enjoy their shows.

I admire Wilder's tenacity. He likes to do his own thing, and it can be hard to convince him otherwise. On the other hand, he still has a sensitive and loving spirit. We're moving through a phase of him wanting to be independent in the agenda for the day, but also not wanting to be independent in day-to-day tasks. We've been working on potty training, getting dressed and undressed, picking up toys and basically learning to be a contributing part of our family. I am learning that if I give him (and Felicity) a task, guaranteed it's going to take at least 5x longer, if I can get them to do it at all. But they get a sense of accomplishment when they do!

We moved Wilder's closet around so now he can choose his own clothes from his drawers. He doesn't always do it, but he's very opinionated about which undershirt and top shirt he wants to wear. :-)

This month has been fun for the kids. They've been to birthday parties galore--1 or 2 every single weekend. It's been fun to see the kids interact with their little friends and family. We went to the State Fair, we went to Arts Goggle, we went to our church Trunk or Treat... October has been a good month for doing things as a family. Today is Halloween, and normally The Village has its Trunk or Treat on Halloween. This year it was the weekend before. So depending on the weather, we may trick or treat on our street and hand out candy to any neighborhood kids that come our way. Last year Felicity wasn't even walking. This year she experienced chocolate in ALLL it's glory. ha!

Here are some photos from this month! Wilder wasn’t really into taking photos on this shoot but I did get a couple of good ones.