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Wordless Wednesday

Raya is (almost) 5 years old! Cry with me...

 

I had a 3 part birthday photo shoot planned for Raya's birthday and we did parts 1 and 2 today, so I thought I'd share!

Here is everything you need to know about Miss Raya Marie---she's officially one whole hand!



Raya is extremely sweet. She's a people pleaser and very well behaved. She rarely causes us any trouble! She loves to help around the house. She loves to dote on Brielle. She's a little mother hen



She has done very well in preschool this past year. She has one really good friend, but she gets along with everyone (well, except she still doesn't like boys! haha) She loves to do art projects. She takes pride in her work and is SUPER excited to go to Kindergarten next year. She has learned so much this year and I can't wait to see what she learns next year!



Raya is ALL GIRL. She loves looking pretty. She loves shopping. She loves Barbies and baby dolls. She is a total Mama's girl.



Raya's favorite colors are pink and purple. She loves Frozen and anything princess. Her favorite food is icecream, or anything sweet--girl has a major sweet tooth like me haha. She still adores cousin Sawyer, but she plays really well with Harper nowadays too. She loves to to Grandma Donna's and Papa Dennis' house. She also loves going to Grandma and Grandpa H's house to play with Barbies and see the farm animals. She can ride her bike easily without training wheels and she's learning to jump rope.



Her favorite tv shows right now are Sheriff Callie's Wild West, Henry Hugglemonster, Wallykazam, Octonauts, Sophia the First, etc. Her favorite snack is Goldfish crackers or granola bars.



Raya still loves for me to sing "you are my sunshine" every night before bed. She has never had a bedtime and chooses to go to bed by 7:30/8pm every night. She is up by 6am though! She sleeps with her two owl lovies, her owl blanket, and rotates through her other stuffed animals every night. She still hates for anyone to lay in her bed with her haha. She's just really an easy kiddo!



This year has brought us some "sass" of course. Lee often says "oh my god, she sounds *just* like you Shawna" haha....she definitely "lectures" him at times ;-)



Raya, I am so happy to have been your mama for 5 full years now. Each day I swear you get smarter, sweeter, cuter, and more perfect for our family. Love you SO MUCH!



Can't wait to see what the next year brings---stay your sweet and sassy self! <3 



Love always, Mama

P.S. ---Chalk the Walk

As a P.S. to my sister Saturday post, here is what I posted on Facebook Saturday afternoon:

So today before going to Chalk the Walk the girls wanted to change clothes (girl mom problems lol) and since I already had a backdrop up from my earlier photo shoot I took a quick picture. **Can you see why that little one scares the shit out of me?!** haha



The Chalk the Walk I was referring to above is a little festival thingy in our town where artists come and do chalk drawings over a two day period (they close down main street and the artists draw on the road) and then at the end of the second day they vote and crown winners. It's fun!

The girls' favorite was Elsa


And of course they loved the cotton candy LOL


On Facebook they posted a couple winners....this was the overall winner---an 8th grader drew this!


This was the people's choice winner


I liked this one too

Sister Saturday, Week 18

Another sister Saturday in the books!



Thought it was time for a collage :-)

Belated Easter Post

I just realized I never got around to blogging pictures of the girls on Easter morning---oops!

The Easter bunny did a scavenger hunt this year, which they LOVED. At the end they found stuffed bunnies and donuts for breakfast. Then they did an easter egg hunt downstairs and also outside---they love hunting eggs! It was a fun Easter.

This is how Brielle came out of her room in the morning when she heard Raya squealing that the Easter Bunny had been here---she brought a flashlight!! LOL ....Clearly she was concerned that the creepy egg laying bunny hadn't left her house



Easter baskets!


The bunnies and donuts they found at the end of the scavenger hunt


Time to hunt eggs!
















A successful hunt!

 

Soccer Star

HOLY CRAP! So tonight was the first soccer game ever that my parents couldn't attend, so I was teasing my mom earlier tonight that Raya would probably score a goal (the most exciting thing she's done in a game to date is tap the ball with her toes a few times). Well no joke, during tonight's game she kicked the ball (unassisted) half the length of the field and then gave one big kick directly into... the goal---SHE KICKED A FREAKING GOAL! haha. She declared "this is the best day of my life!!!!!!!" ---but I think she said that after we told her we were going to Dairy Queen to celebrate, so my money is on the ice cream, and not the goal, as being the best part of her day GO RAYA! Next week I'm sure we'll return to her regularly scheduled programming of skipping, twirling, and looking aimlessly around the field

 

 

 

 

In other news, we visited an inhome daycare today for Raya and signed her up. I had decided that the before and after school program at the elementary school was maybe not the best fit for Raya---and she really wanted to ride the bus and kept telling us she wanted to go to a house. So we found an inhome option just a couple blocks from the school---she's the last bus stop so she'll get to ride the bus for like 4 minutes to school which is perfect. She seemed to like the other kids there and it's only $9 a day for before and after school care (and they feed her) haha--be jealous of small town Iowa daycare rates :-P  ...so yeah, she's pumped and will start in August! Brielle will still be going to the daycare center---she needs the structure of a center, whereas Raya really is a better fit with a free for all inhome I think---and hopefully they will play really nicely together in the evenings since they won't be sick of eachother from playing during the day together.

 

Next up in preparing for my journey back to work---fingerprinting for myself and physicals for the girls---plugging along! haha