5 1/2 - WHAT?!?

Today, Olivia came home from school with a little birthday banner - she's 5 1/2 today!  Can you believe it?!?  We celebrated (fyi, we never truly celebrate 1/2 birthdays, but she's just so excited) by having tacos - one of Olivia's favorite meals (thank you school lunches for that!).  Tomorrow she's bringing treats (I didn't know we were supposed to do that - whoops!), and she informed me tonight that the boys would want the cookies with yellow frosting and that the girls would all want the ones with pink frosting.  We'll see if she's right - I'm sure she'll tell me because she likes to be right...just like her mom, I'm afraid. 

Here's a few facts about Miss Olivia:

I guess turning 5.5 is tough business...

Liv fell asleep on the couch tonight at 7:00

1.  She's a great big sister.  While I won't say Grace and Liv never fight or bicker, they don't all that often, and if they do, it's relatively short lived.  And, of course, as of right now, Olivia adores her baby brother and does pretty much anything I ask that involves him!  She loves that he smiles and sticks his tongue out at her...wonder what she'll think when he's older and does that for different reasons than just starting to communicate!  :)

2.  She's doing great at school.  Comments at conferences (awhile back of course) were all very positive.  She's starting to spell on her own and pick up a number of words when reading.  I enjoy working with this on her but admit that we need to do more of it.

3.  She's a great helper...if I need help picking up, Olivia's my gal.  She's so great at putting things away and in the right spot!  She likes to comment that she's helping and Grace isn't.  One thing we're working on - Olivia putting her own laundry away (she's not that good at it and likes to ignore my request as of now).

4.  She's patient (Grace, not so much).

5.  She's a cuddler - for example, this morning she got up on the early side and went downstairs where Brian was working out on the elliptical.  I heard her go down and fell back asleep till she woke me up saying, "Mommy, I'm cold; can I cuddle you."  Of course!  She crawled in with me for about 10 minutes and then said, "Okay, I'm warm now; can I have some breakfast?"  Love it.  She also is super snuggly if we cozy up for a movie, likes to sneak her way into our bed at night (usually resulting in Brian moving to the couch), and still sucks her thumb and loves anything fleece as her "silky" (although she no longer asks for hers - did I say in a previous post that the silky fairy had come to take them to some other kids?  When I told her this, Olivia's told me silky fairy was mean.  But seriously, losing the silky wasn't too big of a deal at all).

6.  She loves playing games but isn't always the best sport.  Tennis at Luther, running on the track, Trouble, Uno, Bingo, and Go Fish are Olivia's favorites.  She also likes taking pictures with my phone, playing "hot potato" and tackle with dad, playing babies/house (using her cell phone from Thyme as a means of communication), and coloring a lot.

7.  She's growing!  I really have no idea how much she weighs, but when I carried her upstairs tonight (see above picture), I couldn't believe how far down her legs hung or just how darn heavy she was in general.  She's also wearing some size 6 clothes without them looking ridiculously huge on her (the pants fit my long-legged girl pretty well especially).

8.  She loves riding the bus to and from school!  She has a number of "older" friends (6th graders) because of her Mass buddy (Ava) at school.  It was pretty cute to witness this when they all came up to her and said "hi" at her Christmas concert.  It's my opinion that Olivia is not truly as shy as she acts when Brian and I are around.  We've also started doing more play dates with friends which she loves and we love because she's so happy and totally exhausted afterwards - all that fun is tiring I guess!

9.  She's having second thoughts about ballet and tap class...I keep reminding her that she can just have fun at class and can decide what to do about the concert later - this does seem to truly make her feel better.

10.  She's trying on a "sassy" (somewhat back-talking) attitude lately...I'm not super fond of it as you can imagine.  Thankfully, these little bouts are relatively short lived...mostly, Liv continues to be super sweet, kind, loving, and soft-hearted - it'd be pretty much impossible not to love her!