5

Our baby turned five. Five!

That's one whole hand of fingers.

That's kindergarten.

That's the official goodbye to babyhood and hello to childhood.

It's true what they say; the days are long but the years are short.

As you can tell, I am having all the feelings about this.

But enough about that! We celebrated the occasion with a dinosaur party because Girlfriend has never met a dinosaur she didn't love (and, interestingly, she has also never met one she couldn't pronounce its name...she is freakishly good at dinosaur names).

It was really fun. The main event was canvas painting. All the kiddos got a canvas. My mom's friend, Bev, instructed them all in painting their own dinosaur. She had cut out dinosaur shapes out of canvas paper and stuck one on each canvas then the kids painted around it. Then they removed the canvas and painted inside the dinosaur-shaped white space, so it was kind of like coloring in the lines, but with paint!

The other highlight, in my opinion, was the cake! Look at this thing!

 

And it was even rainbow on the inside!

But the best part was all the friends who came out to celebrate. 

Oh, and of course no Elliot birthday would be complete without a bouncy house. Erik and I are kind of wondering if she is ever going to grow out of these things.

From this face, I would guess not.

One of the party favors was dino tattoos. After the party, Ells was really excited to show me she had put one on herself.

The party aftermath...

Note the abandoned juice box. Clearly, it was a rager.

It was a great day!

Happy Birthday, Sweet Girl.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

A few weekends ago Elliot and I got to go on a really fun Girls' Trip! We went to Seattle to visit Erik's sister, Krista, a.k.a. Auntie Krista. It was Elliot's first time ever on a plane, and she loved it! It was perfect because the trip from where we live in the Tri-Cities to Seattle is something like 38 minutes, so she didn't have time to get bored.

Here she is on the Link light rail. She is still proudly sporting her wings from the flight attendant. Unfortunately, the light rail ride from the airport took much longer than the actual flight, and she DID get a little antsy on there. But it was totally worth it when we got to our stop and she got to take the longest escalators ever from the train level to the ground level.

Once we arrived, we had some time to ourselves because Auntie Krista was still at work. She lives in Madison Park, which is a super cute area of Seattle with lots of fun parks, cafes, coffee shops, and stores in walking distance. So Elliot and I went exploring and grabbed a bite to eat.

Elliot's favorite thing right now is dinosaurs. She can tell you the names of all of them. Sometimes, she even has to help Mommy when she is sounding them out while reading out loud. (They are hard! How would you say "pachycephalosaurus"?? If you said "pack-ee-sef-a-la-sore-us" then you must have a dinosaur-obsessed five-year-old next to you.) So, Auntie took us to the Pacific Science Center, where they have a really cool dinosaur display. SHE LOVED IT.

Here she is on the monorail, heading to Seattle Center.

And here we are in front of the Pacific Science Center.

You guys, this place is seriously cool. Totally worth it. If you are ever in Seattle with your kiddos, do it!

The aforementioned pachycephalosaurus.

They also have a really neat butterfly exhibit. Before we went in the staff gave us instructions for how to behave while inside, including not touching the butterflies, and especially their wings. Elliot pondered this for a while and said we should definitely never bring her brother there because he would grab the butterflies' wings and ruin them. (#ElliotTruthBombs)

They also have these really cool water features in the courtyard.

Auntie's boyfriend, Scott, joined us for the outing. Elliot likes him a lot and thinks Auntie should keep him.

We made multiple trips to the park just down the street from Krista's apartment. Ells loved the idea of just walking over to the park whenever we felt like it. She asked if we could move to Seattle, and I think this park was the main reason.

We also hung out a little on the beach. Krista lives right on Lake Washington, another reason Elliot thinks Seattle is SO COOL. We had such amazing weather while we were there. I tried to explain to her that it is not usually sunny, but that didn't seem to register.

Eventually, we had to go home. I know from this picture she looks excited, but it was actually quite the opposite. She cried when Krista dropped us off at the airport. It was such a fun trip. Since I went back to work full time, we don't get very many Girls' Days anymore. It was so nice to get to spend an entire weekend with her. Especially since Liam has come along, we really don't get all that much one-on-one time together. I miss that. She is turning five in a few days, and I can't wrap my mind around it. She is a child. Not a baby. I am so proud of her and who she is becoming, and so grateful she is healthy and growing, but, man, it is hard to let go of her babyhood.

With that in mind, I am going to end this post with a PSA. As I just mentioned, my best girlfriend is turning five. Similar to what Tina Fey wrote in her excellent book, Bossypants, around the time it became weird for me to simply reach into her nostrils and pull out her boogers, it also started to feel a little wrong to continue to plaster intimate details of her life on the internet. Perhaps that is why it has been six months since the last time I blogged! There is a line that every parent has to find for him/herself, and apparently mine is the booger line. I was okay with it before because she always felt like an extension of myself. But now she is very clearly her own person. I always knew this blog had an expiration date, and I think that date is when my youngest child can no longer pass the booger test. So, I will continue to include Elliot in future posts, but it will be with far less detail. Hopefully nothing too embarrassing.

But watch out Liam, honey, because you are still fair game.