Sylvia is 5!

We had planned to celebrate Sylvia's birthday with a party on the actual big day, but the forecast said rain, so we celebrated a day early. Fortunately, most of her school friends were still able to come, and a grand time was had by all. We may have gone overboard with the Mickey / Minnie Mouse theme she requested, but it was great to have our backyard filled with laughing children.

Having the party on Saturday morning was nice, too, because we had the rest of the weekend to relax and celebrate as a family. We ran out to Build-A-Bear on Saturday afternoon so Sylvia could spend her birthday money on a new doghouse for her stuffed puppy Hearts, had a nice dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, and Sylvia and I went out for a mommy-daughter birthday haircut.

This past year was a big one for Sylvia. Memories from Santa Barbara still linger for her and bring a mixture of pleasant nostalgia and feelings of loss. She's been very excited about turning 5 and starting kindergarten, but obviously also nervous about the changes on the horizon. On Saturday, I told her excitedly it was her last day being 4. Her face fell, and she began to cry. She said that she didn't want it to be her last day being 4, because she was used to it. She likes new beginnings, but doesn't like it when things come to an end. We're coming up on the last few weeks at her current school, and I expect that to be a very difficult good-bye.

Anyway, look what happened:

Hannah is TWO

In these past 6 months, our sweet little baby girl has gone from that "toddler-baby" (as her sister would say) to this beautiful little girl, complete with golden locks, a sweet little voice, and a stubborn streak matched by extreme friendliness. Her teachers at day care frequently say to us, "It's a good thing she's so cute," and give us tales of her trouble-making

In the last few weeks, she has gone through a verbal explosion. She had a decent vocabulary before, but she generally just made one-word utterances and common phrases like "tank-oo", "aw-done", and "where-go?" Her vocabulary has probably tripled, and she's putting together and understanding more and more complicated sentences.

Yesterday, she shared a Frozen-themed birthday party with her cousin. Even above the presents and cake, I think she most enjoyed the kiddie pool.

 

She had an adventure the other week. She had a bad case of croup and ended up receiving oral steroids at the pediatrician's office and then taking a little ride in an ambulance to receive breathing treatments. In a case of extremely terrible timing, I didn't have my cell phone on me, which added a little drama to the ordeal and meant that I couldn't take any pictures, but the EMT did take & send this one, which he captioned:

"Patient of the Year"

We're just so proud of our little person.