Sarah is Five!

Sarah turned five on March 17th. The first thing she wanted to do was open her presents.

Around lunch time we had a picnic at the park with all her friends from church and school. Here are just a couple of them. There were probably close to 20 kids there (including all the younger siblings).

For dinner she had her favorite: egg burritos with cheese. Her birthday cake was pink (strawberry flavor) with pink (cherry) frosting and sprinkles. (I'll post pictures of the cake / candle blowing out stuff as soon I get them off the other camera).

Sarah is very energetic, she always bouncing around and it seems like when she is supposed to be still that her little spirit is just aching to wiggle around. She is extremely out-going and friendly. Sarah has a ready smile for everyone that she meets. She loves to sing and dance, paint, draw, color, play dress up, and all other sorts of imaginative games of young girls. She is always the mom when playing house and usually can be found with a doll up her shirt. Sarah is very compassionate - when she sees someone hurt or sad she rushes to their side, eager to comfort them (as long as she didn't cause the pain/problem). She adores baby David and likes to "take care of him", but she's still a little young to understand that putting him on the couch and walking away isn't really a good thing, even when he "wanted" to be up there. 

Sarah is very smart! She likes to hide it sometimes, but she has an excellent memory. She can recite several poems, has more than 25 Primary songs and probably 20 school songs memorized, knows all the books in the New Testament, can identify each continent and many countries therein, and can read and write at a Kindergarten+ level. She has recently gone through a growth spurt - she's tall and slender, but she is solid and weighs around 42 pounds.

We love our Sarah! She keeps us on our toes and brings a lot of excitement and enthusiasm to our home. 

She is adventurous, always willing to try new things. Here she is getting ready to try rock climbing at a birthday party for a friend.

Here's a look back over the years.

March 17, 2006

July 2006 in her blessing dress.

(Sorry it's sideways, I'm not in the mood to fix the file tonight).

March 17, 2007 - Happy 1st Birthday

Birthday cake

(I know, she doesn't have a shirt, but I thought that would be easier to just put her in the bath afterward, 

since her hair would be covered in frosting too.)

March 2008 - Age 2 (Hooray for hair!)

Spring 2009 - Age 3

(Kathryn - 7 months, Joseph - 2 1/2)

March 2010 - Age 4

Sept 2010 - Age 4 1/2

(Baby David - 6 months)

Early March 2011 - before she cut off all her hair.

(She is also responsible for those bangs).

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Bunnies

Sarah and Joseph made these little hats at school this week. They made them last year too.

This is her cheesy smile. =)

 I love this smile - it's his true, happy smile -- not just a "smile for the camera".

At Home Depot - we were looking at garbage disposals because ours isn't working. But, after seeing how much they cost new ($80-$300) we decided we would try to fix it first.

I only had the little ones and they were great! David loved turned the steering wheel. 

He is ALL boy and already enjoys pushing cars around on the floor.

A few pictures from the week

In no particular order...these are just a few of the pictures that I emailed to myself from the cell phone camera. I have a lot more on our camcorder, but that takes more effort to upload them...so I'll post those later.

At a birthday party, in the bounce castle-thing.

Opening presents on her birthday.

Ballerina barbie from Kristin.

At the park with friends later that day. (The outfit is a cheerleader sort of outfit and came with a smaller, matching one for her barbie).

Wearing green for St. Patrick's day.

Showing off her stickers from Grandma.

Riding a train at a friend's birthday party today.

Bounce castle

Getting ready to go rock climbing. She loved it!

I have some short videos of her climbing, but I need to send them to my email or upload them on the computer still. Watch for those next week.

Playing in the bounce castle, singing "Yay, yay, yay..."

(Here's a video of her too)

House Projects

**I typed up this post about 2 weeks but couldn't get some photos to upload**
Hanging Curtains

Last night since David was using the laptop (my only mode of entertainment at night), I decided I would tackle one of the many projects on my list. I bought this curtain rod and curtains almost 3 months ago. I hung up one set over the sliding glass door in our room back then because it was bare. But, I procrastinated this one because it was for purely aesthetic purposes. This is the before picture...ignore all the clean clothes waiting to be folded. (Maybe doing this project was a way to avoid doing the laundry?) 

After! I made the bed again just for the picture. In my defense, it was made all day, but I moved all the pillows before I drilled the holes for the curtain rod. Who wants saw dust on their pillows? Another project on my list is to make a headboard. We have a really cool vintage door out in the shop that I plan to turn into a headboard, but that will probably have to wait until summer.

Painting the Bathroom

Before - this half bath had bead board in it when we moved in. Score! Too bad it was painted this brownish-burgundy color. Ewww! The walls were a neutral beige color but they also had pinkish undertones that I wasn't fond of.

More Before: The counter tops are off-white and clash with walls, the sink is white, and the oak cabinets clash with the wood floors and just don't mesh with that color on the bead board. I thought the whole color combo was just hideous. So one night in early January when David was using the computer for work, I decided to tackle this project. I couldn't handle those nasty color combos anymore. So I started by painting the bead board WHITE, as it was meant to be. =) I painted the walls Kilim Beige, the same color we're using for the rest of the living areas, and stained the cabinet with Minwax Ebony stain. I've only done two coats of the stain and still need to do one more at least before I seal it with a few coats of Polyurethane. But, the whole room is looking much better.

Ahhhh...so much cleaner and fresher looking!

Here is where I still have some work to do, but it's still an improvement.