Spending Time with Aunt Jennifer

Jennifer works a lot, so when Katie gets to spend time with her, she really enjoys it. Katie would spend all of her time with Jennifer if she could!

I love you, Aunt Jennifer!

Memories

Over the last year or so, I've been keeping notes on little things Katie has said that makes me laugh. It's the little things that are easy to forget if I don't write them down!

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Close to Correct

As Katie gets older and tries to perfect her language, I hear words and phrases that are close to the real thing, but not quite there.

When she was explaining the joys of an imagination to me, she said, "I like to imaginate!"

When I asked her to help me clean her very disorganized room, she expressed, "This is impostrophe!" Even though it was impostrophe, we didn't give up and got it done!

With the games Katie has learned to play, she has become familiar with instructions, or as she likes to call them, "destructions." One day, Katie explained, "Dogs sometimes be nervous of something. Bailey gets nervous with brushing, but it's part of the destructions to brush her."

Katie went running to answer her play phone in her kitchen one evening. She let us know she was getting the "cell-e-phone."

Of course, like most children her age, she has been trying to learn about superlatives. In Katie's world, there is no "better." Instead, she usually says "gooder" or "more better."

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A New Interest

I've mentioned that over the past year, Katie has developed a bigger interest in math. She now knows when she counts, there is a number 13, and she has learned about adding numbers together.

Every once in a while, Katie will be spending time adding on her fingers. When she figures out the answer, she'll randomly shout out math facts. "Two plus three is five!" You never know what math fact you'll get.

Sometimes instead of an addition fact, you'll get things like, "Five is bigger than one!" Or she'll use her favorite number, eleventy. "Six is smaller than eleventy!"

One day, Katie was playing with her My Little Pony dolls while Jennifer was working. She had her ponies in the classroom. She would make the teacher pony ask questions like, "What is 4+4?" Then Jennifer would see her figuring out the answer on her fingers, so she could have a student pony answer. Funny.

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Expressive Language

Katie sometimes amazes me with her language and her ability to express herself.

One day, she was talking about a memory with Bailey where Bailey had gotten into trouble. As she explained the memory, she said, "Then Bailey spiraled into more trouble!"

I hate spit bubbles, but kids sure like to make them! Sometimes Katie makes them just because she knows I'll give her a reaction of disgust. Sometimes she tries to stop herself from doing it, but it's pretty magical to her that she can create her own bubbles. On one of these days, she explained, "If I open my mouth big like a whale, it makes it more bigger until it pops." Great.

Katie's nighttime routine is to say, "Goodnight! I love you!" Sometimes she says it a normal speed and sometimes she tries to go as fast as she can. When she goes fast, she always has me try to repeat it as fast as she did. One night I tried, and she responded, "You sounded like a sloth. Try to be a speedy snake like me!"

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Fashion Diva

When Katie is being more expressive, she often is referring to fashion in some sense. She sure doesn't get her interest in high fashion from me! I appreciate her interest though even if it's not mine, and I love to hear her comments.

One night I was watching "Dancing with the Stars." One of the women dancers was wearing a pair of pants. She thought out loud, "It would be more fashionable if she wore a dress!"

Katie was playing with her Barbies and said to herself, "Now it's time to put the Halloween Barbie into something that's more fabulous!"

Another time when Katie was playing with her Frozen dolls, she said, "I want to make Elsa skate first because she's in her elegance."

Later, she made Anna say to Elsa, "You rock, darling. You rock."

When she was designing fashions on her own, Katie exclaimed, "I need to find this girl some elegant shoes to go with her beautiful gown!"

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A Five Year Old's Point of View

It's always funny to experience how a child looks at the world. Sometimes Katie sees the world differently than we do.

For awhile whenever Katie would see an airplane flying in the sky a distance away, she'd exclaim, "Look! There's a shooting star!"

When Jennifer got Katie an electric toothbrush for Christmas, it wasn't the most exciting thing to her, but she tried really hard to be polite about it. We all thought it was really funny to watch her try to be polite. When Katie's friend, Kai, face timed her on Christmas or the day after, we had Katie show him her toothbrush just so we could watch her struggle through trying to be polite. She showed Kai the toothbrush and in the most inexpressive voice said, "It was amazing."

Katie was watching a Winnie the Pooh movie, and Owl's tree house was blowing back and forth in a windstorm. Katie taught me, "That couldn't happen in real life because real houses are glued together and don't move."

My mom was driving her car with Katie in the backseat last winter. Katie yelled, "There's smoke back here!" My mom was concerned and tried to figure out where the smoke was coming from. After lots of questions and looking, she realized that Katie really meant that the heat was too hot for her. All winter when Katie let us know that there was smoke, we knew to turn down the heater.

One night, Katie was discussing presidents. At some point, I asked her what she thought about their job, and she told me it was an easy job. She went on to explain, "Presidents just tell everyone their name all the time and talk to themselves a lot!" I realized that she mostly saw presidents when they were on TV for a special conference or announcement. Many times the president is speaking to the camera, so to Katie, they're just talking to themselves!

For several years, Katie has been convinced that Mt. Hood is Elsa's North Mountain. She gets excited every time she sees it and knows she's close to Elsa. One day, Katie saw Mt. St. Helens which doesn't have a pointed top since its eruption, and Katie said in a horrified voice, "Elsa's mountain is melting!" She was so relieved when we pointed out the fact that she was looking at the wrong mountain.

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Advice

Katie loves to give life advice when the time seems right. I liked this advice that she gave me one time.

"Say you're sorry when you're wrong. Make things happy when you can. Have a lot of best friends. Give people nice things on their birthdays like a card or a picture you make. Tell people you love them - but only if you really do. Think of princesses. They always make me happy! You must be kindful and sweet"

Creating Hair Styles

One afternoon, Katie decided to try giving Jennifer different hair styles. She has always been interested in Jennifer's curly hair. She wondered how it would handle lots of clips!

Aunt Jennifer has so much hair that I could fit a lot of my clips in her hair. 

I was very careful, so it wouldn't pull! 

I added a bit of water to try to tame the curls. 

In the end, I think she loved her new hair style!

Another Birthday Party

Garyldine took Katie and my mom to a birthday party. Katie loves parties, no matter who is being celebrated!

 Of course, a birthday party should have delicious cake!

Grandma and I enjoyed some other treats too! 

Our friend, Nadia, came to visit with us. She's Ella's mom. 

Ella's cousin was turning one! 

I got to hold Ella's brother, Lucas, while I was there. 

I just loved him! 

Then Ella and I played with bubbles. 

After the party, I kept telling my mom, "I just can't believe that Ella is all growned up!" 

Thanks for having me over to celebrate!

A Hair Stick

Katie had seen a movie where the main character had a hair stick in her bun. After going to a party, she wanted to recreate the look for herself.

For some reason, my hair stick didn't slide through my hair very easily!

Checking on the Fairies

Katie loves her fairy garden that Garyldine and Aunt Jody made for her for Easter. Since she's pretty sure the garden came from the fairies themselves, she likes to check for any new fairy.

 I always think there might be a new fairy visiting the house.

Is anyone in there? 

One of my favorite fairies sits in this sphere. 

Of course, I had to check every side of the planter. 

I thought there might be a fairy up in the tree. 

The last place I checked was around some of the pebbles. One day, I'll find one!

A Zoo

Katie was playing with her dolls, and she made her dolls visit an interesting zoo.

My dolls didn't just have regular zoo animals. They also had some dinosaurs in their zoo!

A Lost Dog

One afternoon, my mom and Katie pulled into the driveway and found a lost dog in our yard. Luckily, we found the owners, but while Bella was visiting, Katie had fun playing and giving her a bath! She later told me, "When we found Bella, it was like a dream come true!"

Bella was tiny! I was convinced she was a puppy, but she was a senior! I loved her!

Fashion Designing

Katie had a book fair going on at her school, and she asked me over and over if I'd take her to "the book store." It didn't take much to convince me. She got several books that she was excited about. In addition to her story books, she picked a book on fashion designing. She was very happy coloring and adding stickers to her designs!

It's fun to be a fashion designer!

A Hint of Things to Come

On one of our warm days, I looked out the window to see a sign of summer. I grabbed Katie and we walked out to look at the wild blackberry bushes. She was so happy to see the flowers. Next up…berries!

After the long months of fall and winter, I loved seeing flowers on the blackberry bushes! 

Berries will be here before we know it!

Healthy Eater

After my party, I was able to bring home a fruit tray and a vegetable tray, and Katie was in seventh heaven. She had very pretty plates of food for awhile!

This was my best meal in a long time!

A Birthday Party

Katie was excited to go to her friend's birthday party again. This year, the party was held at a gymnastics gym. Since I had another party to go to at the same time, my mom and Garyldine took Katie to her party.

A birthday party is a great way to spend your weekend! 

I made Ari a card with my favorite colors! 

My favorite part of the gym was the foam pit. 

Once you get in, it's hard to get out though.

Happy Birthday, Garyldine!

Katie's "Gotcha Day" happens to fall right on Garyldine's birthday, so we thought it would be a good idea for them to take a few pictures together on their special days!

"Gotcha Day" Photographs

This year for Katie's had "Gotcha Day" photos, as she has had for each anniversary.