Sarah's 6th Birthday!

Our baby girl Sarah turned 6 on January 26th!

At age 6, Sarah :

- is sweet, smart, and sassy.

- had her 6 year old checkup today (1/28) and was 48.75 inches tall (95th percentile!), weighs 51.8 pounds (81st percentile), and has a BMI of 52nd percentile (perfect!).  She is tall and lean and wears size 6 or 7 clothes.  We have to get 7 slim size pants to get them long enough but not huge on her!  She still loves to wear dresses at every opportunity, but that is harder during the winter.

- is growing her hair long, but hates having her hair brushed. 

- just lost a tooth and has 5 more wiggly ones!

- is a great eater and will eat just about anything (even super spicy food!), but very slowly!  She is often too busy talking to bother with eating.  We are also still trying to get her to use her utensils exclusively instead of picking up her food with her fingers all the time!

- loves school and surprises us with how bright she is.  She taught herself to read at age 4 and, at the beginning of Kindergarten, she was tested as reading at a 6th grade level!  She is getting personalized homework every week and is excelling in the 1st grade challenge reading group they pull her out for. She is also taking Accelerated Reader quizzes on the books she reads and aces them every time.  

- is very creative and loves to draw, color, and do crafts.  She has been having a great time doing stamping with Nanny, playing with her sticker books, and coloring her coloring books or just grabbing paper off the printer and making her own drawings.  

- LOVES her Grumpy Bear.  She snuggles him every night for bedtime, often dressing him in matching nightgowns.  She dreams up all sorts of pretend play scenarios to play with Grumpy Bear and her other stuffed animals.

- enjoys her dance class in which she is learning ballet and tap.

- is doing great in her swimming class and has tried out short sessions of volleyball and basketball recently. She also plays soccer in the spring/summer. 

- plays with Austin and Trevor, though sometimes gets frustrated if they won't let her dictate the course of their play. 

- is friendly and outgoing. She can become friends with anyone and is always the kid with good behavior at school, even as we get e-mails home about the little girl drama already starting in Kindergarten!

She is such an amazing little girl and we are so happy we get to be her Mommy and Daddy!

We had a birthday party for her on January 23rd.  As usual, we made a birthday cake matching her chosen theme.  She LOVES her Grumpy Bear and wanted him to be the theme for her birthday.  We had received a 3D teddy bear cake pan a few years ago from Auntie Trish, so we decided we would make a Grumpy Bear cake!  It turned out to be much more difficult than we though it would be.  I baked the cake halves and cut the excess to have nice flat edges to put together.  However, when we put the 2 halves together, it was very difficult to get them to stick together and not fall apart right away.  Steve sat for a while holding it together trying to encourage it to stick.

We snuck Grumpy Bear out of Sarah's bed to be our model for the night.

After a LONG night with plenty of frustration, we finally had the Grumpy Bear cake decorated.  While decorating it, the bear started to separate and lean backward and to the side.  It got worse and worse, but stayed together by the time we were done frosting.

Around 3am, I went to take a shower while Steve started cleaning up the kitchen.  When I came back down, the bear had fallen backward and split off from the right leg.  I quick shoved some dowels we had left over from previous stacked cakes behind the bear to try to hold it up.  I was frustrated that we had to have the dowels sticking up behind it, but it turned out cute anyway!  By the time we were done with everything for the cake, it was time to put the soup together in the crock pot so it would be ready for her lunch time party.  By the time we got to bed, it was 4am!  Unfortunately, I was up the rest of the night with a recurrence of the stomach bug I had gotten the weekend before.  I got really sick and unfortunately missed the birthday party, Austin's soccer scrimmage, and my clinic's holiday party that day.  The rest of the family had a fun party for Sarah!

 My birthday girl with her Grumpy Bear!

Theo had fun with the Care Bear coloring sheets I had printed out.

Nanny and Grandpa were there to celebrate.

Auntie Trish joined us for the party too!

And the Murphys came right from Alexis's dance class.

The birthday girl with her shirt that arrived in the mail during the party - just in the nick of time!

Austin got another guitar lesson from Uncle Brian on Saturday morning before the party.  He is really having fun learning how to play!

 Gift opening time

Then time to reveal the birthday cake!

 It was a hit.

On Sarah's actual birthday day on Tuesday, she had school and got to wear a birthday crown all day, bring birthday treats (donuts) to school, and pick where we went out to dinner (Ruby Tuesday - she loves the biscuits there!).  Then we came home and let her open her gifts from Gramma and PopPop and Auntie Diana and Uncle Steven.

 Then we brought out her gift from Mommy and Daddy - a new bike!

 Nanny's gift of a new helmet goes with her bike perfectly!

I can't believe Sarah is already 6 years old!  When we moved here to Shakopee, she was only 6 months old.  Time has flown by and she is growing into such an amazing little person!  We adore our princess Sarah and are so lucky to be her Mommy and Daddy!