Carina's Birthday and Other News

Carina turned six yesterday and had two parties, one with 6 of her friends from kindergarten and her little sister ("because she's my best friend") and another with family. Laura actually offered Carina $20 to forego the friends party, but Carina knew better than to sell her birthday party for the monetary equivalent of a mess of potage. They started the party playing Hullabaloo and pin the tale on the donkey, then they had pizza for lunch. Instead of the usual cake and ice cream, Carina asked for a Krispy Kreme donut cake (i.e. buy 18 donuts and stack them in a big circle) and orange sherbet. A little weird, but the kids all seemed to love it. After that they opened presents and then attacked a unicorn pinata. Some pinatas break after a few hits; this one refused to give up. The kids each got 4 or 5 turns taking three shots at it each (which adds up to about 100 hits), and about half way throw I "tenderized" it with a paring knife, and it still didn't break, so in the interest of getting the kids out the door on time I finished it off. Perhaps the most striking part of the party was the sheer amount of noise 7 kindergarteners can make. Very loud.

Carina opening a gift.

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A candid moment of Natalie and Carina's friend Will laughing at the party.

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Carina tenderizing the unicorn. Or, as she put it: "We fed her with candy but then we had to spank her."

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Other news:

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1. A few days ago Carina lost her second tooth. She can now sing "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth."

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2. Carina and Natalie are now sharing a room and have bunk beds. They love their new bunk beds and love sharing a room. We moved Natalie over early so she would have plenty of time to adjust and wouldn't feel like she was displaced by the baby, but it looks like we had no need to worry. Perhaps the best part about it right now is we no longer get woken up every morning by Natalie yelling: "Momm!!!!!! Daadddd!!!!! Open the door!!!! I need to go potty!!!"

Carina's friends at her birthday party playing on the bunk beds. It reminded me of the story "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed," though with fewer broken heads.

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3. Carina is really big into writing and she has her own way of phonetically spelling everything. She also likes to type on the computer. The other day I walked in to use the computer and found the following gem typed in one long unpunctuated string into the search box on google: "i love my mom and my dad thea r my best peras i hv evr had an my hol an tir lif i love my mom and my dad thea r col i love my perass thea r the best and thea r rafc i love my peranss thea r the best evr i love my mom and my dad wen i m 8 i will b babtist wach the hole gost i will b blest i will b a mebr uv the chrch love will sdracchan my bod i will chec av jeszs fore vr aand evr af i oba the cmamans i will hav the hole gost a gen i will red the sgrapsrs and i wiav the sgrapsrs and oba the maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanmans and oba my mom and dad and oba jezas and gat the hole gost the end"

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For those of you who can't read Carina, she wrote: "I love my mom and my dad. They are the best parents I have ever had in my whole entire life. I love my mom and my dad. They are cool. I love my parents. They are the best and they are terrific. I love my parents. They are the best ever. I love my mom and my dad. When I am 8 I will be baptized [with?] the holy ghost. I will be blessed. I will be a member of the church. Love will strengthen my body. I will [????] Jesus forever and ever and if I obey the commandments I will have the holy ghost again. I will read the scriptures and I [????] the scriptures and obey the commandments and obey mom and dad and obey Jesus and get the holy ghost. The end."

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Wow! I'm not sure where that came from because I've never heard anything like that from her lips but it sure warms a parents heart. And just in time for Christmas too...

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4. We had a family home evening lesson a couple weeks ago and talked about our bodies and how they grow. As part of the lesson, we sang “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.” Natalie must be accustomed to singing this at nursery when she is wearing a dress because when we got to the knees part she looked down at her pants and up at us and down again with a bewildered look - “ I don’t have any knees!!”

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5. Natalie has a new favorite phrase. "My heart says...", "My heart likes..." or "My heart tells me..." I'm not sure where she got it from, probably some disney movie, but it has been funny to hear her say, in her squeeky little voice, "My heart says its time for dinner!" or "My heart says it needs some chocolate."