Ellie turned 6

Our sweet Ellie turned 6 recently.  We all got up early so she could open presents.

 Then later that night she had cookies and ice cream to celebrate her birthday. It also happened to be one of the days we carved pumpkins so you can see that mess in the background. 

 A week later, we had a combined party with Ellie and Michael.  Since it can easily get out of hand, we had them each invite 5 friends.  Every time that Ellie named her friends at least one of them would change.  We finally decided on 5 that she could invite.

Ellie has grown up so much this last year.  She is doing great in kindergarten- she has a fantastic teacher that is not afraid to make up challenges for her.  She reads really well- and loves to read, she is even starting to read chapter books.  She recently asked her teacher to start calling her Elisabeth and she writes it on most of her papers.  She won't let us call her that though.  I am hoping it is just a phase.  She loves to color and draw, and we are finding she has a talent in drawing.  She still loves to do gymnastics, in fact, if anyone is in the living room she will persist in doing cartwheel after cartwheel after cartwheel.  She does them quite well, but the constant motion is a little crazy.  She just moved up classes in gymnastics so now in addition to learning basic techniques, she is also doing conditioning and strength training.  In addition to gymnastics, she also does dance.  When it is time to get dressed for dance, she isn't so sure she likes it, but when we get there, she runs right in, and I find her doing little dance moves all around the house.  I really love her dance, I feel like she is learning so much this year.  She and Nate get along pretty well, and if Adam isn't around, she and Michael play really well together too.  She rarely plays with Adam.  She still likes to be in the middle of most fights, but even that is better than it was a few months ago.  She also has perfected the fake cry...if we ask her to do something she doesn't like it comes out and we all just roll our eyes and try to ignore it.  She still loves her dolls the best, and likes to play mommy, sometimes I will see her rocking her babies and walking around with a purse filled with important mommy things.

We are continually grateful that we were blessed with this one special girl to be part of our family.