Lydia is Six

Now that Lydia is six, she and Mom were just marveling over the milestones or new achievements.

Left to Their Own Amusement

I have over 10,000 plus digital photos in my IPhoto that I have not done anything with, and it stresses me out in those not so rare moments that out of control life confronts me. So even though I had twelve other things more important to be doing, I spent an afternoon, making my first ever photo book online to be mailed to me in hard copy this next week. In this digital age, I have fears that one day all those digital images are going to be gone, "poof" with no back up. My kids won't even have the unsorted shoe boxes of photos to delve into let alone albums. Maybe my kids will always be able to delve into the digital folders, especially if I faithfully burn discs or back up with external hard drive, etc. But 10,000 plus photos is already out of control! Anyway, meanwhile, Gabe and Lydia asked me take a few minutes and teach them how to make paper boats as seen in The Dangerous Book for Boys, and I was taken back into my childhood days of paper folding. Gabe and Lydia learned successfully by the evidence of a plethora of boats. They asked if they could paint, and I said, "Yeah, watercolors." They folded and painted to their hearts' content. They sailed their boats. I heard there was a horrendous mess in the bathroom with colors and soggy paper fragments that they couldn't deal with. I refused to look. Ends up they had used numerous tablets of Crayola bathtub water dye that we had had for many years. They wanted a deep blue ocean and ended up with a deep blue tub and a mass of wet paper pulp that they were afraid to touch because it looked like vomit. Marshal rescued them with assistance and Arm and Hammer (baking soda). I fortunately only got the pretty sight of water color boats on the stair as well as their drying dough art on the table.

The Wonder of Heelys

Yesterday Gabe mastered skating on Heelys and tying his shoes! He and Dad bought these out of a close out bin over a year ago at Big 5. It took a little girl, Bella, at Lydia's ballet studio to inspire Gabe to dig them out of the closet. It was time to skate! This was also a great motivator in tying shoes. Mom only stooped to teach him how to tie them himself. It is a phenomena of our present culture that kids don't have to learn to tie shoes. The only mandatory occasion to tie has been soccer shoe laces, and those occasions did not give way to teachable moments! Anytime we are going out the door, we are in 5 minutes late, adrenaline pumping mode in our household. So we finally had the occasion and the motivator for shoe tying. Learning to tie was as slick as learning to glide! Lydia learned to tie too, because big brother turns impossibilities into possibilities in a heartbeat. I knew she would tie her shoes if Gabe could, and I was right.

Late October Birthday

Lydia had a very "Happy Birthday." Daddy came home early on a Friday afternoon to join Grandpa and Grammy for present opening and carving pumpkins.

Spiderman practices his guitar for Wednesday lessons. Costumes were on clearance this day, so Gabe talked Mom into the long wished for suit. Lydia also chose a purple ball gown with hoops for dress up play.

Six year old birthday girl! She designed and helped Mom meet the cake specs!

Lydia Smiles!