Erica Turns 5

Nothing is bigger to a 5-year-old than their birthday. Erica has been tracking the imminence of her birthday when it was 100+ days away. Four more months, I'd say. "Is 4 months 4 days?" she'd hopefully reply.

We've been discussing her birthday pretty often since New Years because I pretty much live my life from one holiday to the next. What do you want? What kind of cake do you want? What do you want to do? What do you want for dinner? have all been frequent topics of conversation for weeks. I'm decisive. I'm a planner. I like to think things through and prepare. My dear Erica? Nooooot so much. She changed her mind nearly every day and certainly from conversation to conversation.. "You know there's going to come a day when I won't let you change your mind on what cake you have." The grocery trip a few days before her birthday was that day. She was scrolling through my cake board on pinterest and fell in love (not for the first time) with a teddy bear cake. "Awww." You like that? It's a done deal. Let's go buy tootsie rolls for his eyes and not talk about this again.

Here's the night before set-up. Half those bags contain food. 

Justin, being the super dad that he is, moved meetings to the next day so that he could be home in the morning to make Erica her birthday breakfast of pancakes, "little brats" as in bratwurst (breakfast sausage), eggs to order, and chocolate milk. While he cooked, Erica opened presents.

She was with me when I bought this in December and had totally forgotten about it.

Nothing got the love like a box of basic envelopes.

Gummi Bears tv show on DVD. ALL the kids love it now and I couldn't be more pleased. I loved this show as a kid, the handful of episodes I saw.

 A new teddy bear (from DI). She's creating a family and now has 5 of the 6 bears she thinks she needs.

 James's reaction to the bear is pretty typical.

 She's such a nice sister. Although it is her fault he's as obsessed with stuffies as she is.

 She also got a music box for storing her jewelry in.

And Sarah made her this pom-pom flower thing.

 She also got writing paper, a unicorn pad of paper, princess necklace kit, Sour Patch watermelons, Cheetos, fudge stripe cookies, Lucky Charms, Sprite, a story about her, and a large Ariel poster. She got Race to the Treasure from Justin. Then they ate breakfast and the biggles went to school.

We updated the birthday crown with a number 5 before we headed to the store.

I took like 10 pictures of her in her crown and that was 9 too many.

 After a quick stop at Macey's to get supplies for the quesadillas she suddenly wanted for her birthday dinner, we went to Chick-fil-a for lunch. She ate the mandarin oranges and strawberries and grapes and that was it. It was her birthday so I couldn't get mad.

James ate a half a chicken nugget and 4 waffle fries before he wanted to go play. It was not his birthday so I made him eat 1 more chicken nugget before he could go play.

After throwing a colossal fit when it was time to go, we went home and put James down for a nap and got ready for her friend party!!!

This is all her, you guys. Want to see what a party planned by a 5-year-old looks like?

 She wanted "a movie party with 2 friends with popcorn and a unicorn." The unicorn was thrown in last minute so I did my best copying someone's drawing off the web and she helped me color the horns.

Sarah and Erica hung streamers the night before.

She arranged this all herself.

Party time!

She invited Madison Sheen and Mary Madsen. They played pin the horn on the unicorn for a total of 3 minutes. It took me 20 minutes to make so..... Good thing it was free.

And then they opened presents.

 And then it was show time. None of the girls had seen Gummi Bears before so they were captivated.

 They watched for maybe 40 minutes then they played with the toys she got and then played house. It was all very giggly.

Total cost: $8 (candy)
Total set up time: 35 min for me, Sarah and Erica another hour of decorating.
Total time I had to do anything during the 90 min party: 3 min
Giggle level: 8

While they partied downstairs and James napped, I worked on her cake in the kitchen.

 If you know Erica, this is totally her cake. For awhile there she wanted pink sugar cookies but I knew she couldn't pass up a pink animal cake.

 She looked at it forever!

 I hope she always has a baby face.

 Justin came home from work early so that we could eat dinner before Henry went to basketball. When Henry and I got back from the school, Nana and Papa came over for cake. They gave her some colored pens, dried mangoes, strawberry milk mix and this hoodie.

 I don't remember why she made this face but it's so funny.

 She's worn the hoodie most of the day most days since.

 
 

Favorites according to me: 

Song: Baby Shark

Book: Frances books and Poppleton

Clothes: Dresses and skirts or soft pants

Breakfast: Honey Bunches, Mini Wheats, Lucky Charms

Lunch: Chips and Cheese and Fruit

Dinner: Hawaiian haystacks without most of the toppings. Or tacos.

Dessert: Ice cream or sugar cookies (she doesn't like cake but loves frosting)

TV show: Chloe's Closet, Sophia the First, Tangled series, Full House, Brady Bunch, Daniel Tiger

Movie: Frozen, Tangled, anything princess, Robin Hood (it's hard to talk her into watching anything new to her)

Friends: Madison Sheen, Mary Madsen, Lennon Morse, Sadie Angeles

Activities of choice: Writing letters and sealing them in envelopes and delivering them to family, drawing family, rainbows, and sunshine scenes, playing princesses and restaurant (I've pretend eaten so much food)

Games: Wig Out, Sleeping Queens, Kerplunk

I finally remembered 2 days later to have her open her card from Grandma (Sorry Mom! It was more special this way 😉)

 Here are some fun facts about Erica.

She's super easy to get along with and is very reasonable. She NEVER throws a fit. She pouts with the best of them.

When she was 2 she would sit on my lap and say "What you want to talk about?" She still does that and I hope she always will.

 She loves tiny little toys. The tinier and more little accessories the better.

 She's grown a half inch in the last 6 months but she's still a big smaller than Sarah at this age.

 She walks around on tiptoe most of the time. She dances when no one is looking but clams right up when put on the spot.

Her hair is almost back to where it was before she cut it last July.

She is a homebody. If I told her preschool was closed forever she wouldn't care one bit. She's fine about going to school but she'd rather stay home. "I miss my blankie and teddy." She only wants to go to Macey's, Grandma's, Nana's, and the library. Anywhere else and she asks to stay home and always asks to bring her blanket along.

She knows all the letters, uppercase and lowercase and the sounds of a few. She can write her name and maybe 8 other letters without help. 

I often think back how worried I was to have this third child and almost laugh. If I only knew what a reprieve she would be in this line-up of stubborn children....

Sometimes God gives us big huge blessings that we don't deserve.

Now if I can only get her to stay in bed after I tuck her in.

Life Through Our Eyes

I was in Provo for a doctor's appointment so I also went to the Asian food store too because who knows when I'd be in that neck of the woods again. I needed Chinese 5 spice for what looks to be a delicious pork rib recipe (I haven't made it yet but I'll let you know how it turns out.) I've been to Hispanic food stores before but I was a little in awe that a store can sell so many varieties of vinegar. I also liked the cultural experience of walking down an aisle and not being able to read a single label. Is it soda? It is fish sauce? Am I in Hong Kong? It was hard to tell and that's so exciting! I don't get out much.

I know some parents are super particular about letting their kids use their phones. Well actually I don't know but I imagine those that pay $1000 for their phone may be. I will always let my kids take pictures with my phone because I love seeing the world through their eyes, seeing what they value, and seeing how they can use up 20% of the battery  and all my storage space so darn quickly.

Henry took these of Erica.

James wanted a picture of himself so we all joined in. Erica was in the middle of licking cookie dough off the paddle.

Henry was super proud of this block building. "It's super strong, Mom. I bet it in can survive an earthquake. Can it stay up until we have an earthquake?"

Okay, this one is mine. I was having a weird out of body experience eating a Worther's caramel. I was transported to another time eating another sort of caramel, kind of like a tootsie roll but not. Different flavors, not fruity but vanilla, maple perhaps. What were those??? Several days later I came across these in the bulk candy at Ream's. Yes!!! Brach's royal caramels! That was it!

Siblings, when did we get these? Did Mom buy them? Grandma? Were they for special occasions? I was so excited to see them at Macey's too. I'm sure they've been there all my life I just forgot about them. All that excitement and I didn't buy any though. I'm excited but not that excited.

Erica's selfies devolve into pouts. Every time.

If she doesn't become a doctor I think she'd be a good photographer. She's got family posing down pretty well.

Oh wait, there's more. 16 more to be precise.

This is my Pro Pot. My sister gave this to me as a joke when we were teenagers. It makes it's way out of the storage room every Superbowl Sunday and one time in December to melt chocolate. Everyone assumes it's Justin's but it's mine from before he was even in my life. But I don't like football. I just want to reiterate that and highlight the irony of me owning this appliance.

Speaking of relics from my teen years--this cardigan has been in my closet for awhile. Well it's been in a lot of my closets as it is from 1999. This sweater predates my ability to drive. To vote. To date. I wore it often until maybe 5 years ago then I bought a similar cardigan so it didn't get pulled off my closet shelf so much.

I tried it on today and decided it brought me no joy. I hugged it, thanked it for it's service and for seeing me through a very eventful 20 years but my house is a working house, not a museum.

I *think* it's the last item of clothing I had from the 1900s.

Anyone recognize the tag? It's from a store that's been out of business for 10 years. I miss Mervyn's.