Sunday, June 12, 2011

Happy Birthdays! Part Two: Cassie

On to Cassie's big day! We celebrated with a few of her friends and their families by going to the rec center again. Cassie got a little life jacket for her birthday and it made swimming so much more fun for her!
The following are the best pictures I could get while holding a baby:


Cake, ice cream, and a little gift opening afterwards:



We celebrated both of our birthdays with a Sunday dinner at my parents' house. Here we are blowing out our candles:

Cassie loved opening presents, and was so excited about all her gifts this year. I want to record her gifts:
Life jacket and "Tangled" from Mom and Dad. (We've already watched it at least 4 times.)
Bathroom furniture for her dollhouse and a laminated book of family pictures from Gma and Gpa Kinghorn. The bathroom furniture was a brilliant idea. Cassie loves 'bathing' her dolls.
A balloon, stickers, and $5 from Gma and Gpa Hawkes. She spent the $5 at the dollar section of Target and bought a "Toy Story" white board with marker, a Lightning McQueen bowl, a Hello Kitty purse, and some candy.
Memory game from Uncle Vaughn and Aunt Christie. This came in the mail and she was so excited! She loves making matches.
A thermos with her name on it from her friend Caden. She insisted on drinking everything from it for a few days.
A "Color Wonder" book and markers from her friend Andrew. Hooray for markers that only work on the magic paper!

I also want to record a little about Cassie's personality:
Cassie is a very sweet, thoughtful, smart, and funny girl. She is almost always willing to share. She offers to share her birthday candy with Trevor and me every day, for example. She is empathetic when she see another child crying, and I have often seen her offer a toy or put her arm around a sad friend. She will play on her own, but she really loves to play with another person. If there are no other children at the park or playground, she would often rather sit with me on a bench than play alone on the equipment. However, if a child her age is around, she often befriends them, then runs and climbs and squeals and giggles while they play together. She still has a shy streak, though, mostly with adults or in large crowds. We get a lot of comments about how well Cassie talks. She has been speaking in full sentences for over a year now, and her speech is very clear and fairly easy to understand. She has a good sized vocabulary, too. The other day she asked, "Mom, what does automatically mean?" Sometimes I laugh because it's funny to hear long, complicated words in her little voice. She knows all of her letters and most of the sounds they make, and she can count to 30 on her own. She can make us genuinely laugh with some of the funny ideas she comes up with or the silly words and noises she makes. She is sometimes a little drama queen and cries over little things or whines when she wants something. We are working on asking nicely and calmly instead of freaking out. Cassie has a bad habit of putting non-food items in her mouth (especially paper/books and hair elastics). I remind her several times a day, "If it's not food, don't put it in your mouth." It makes me so sad to look at all of her books; she has ruined many of them by chewing on them. I really hope she kicks this habit soon! Of course, despite the frustrating things she does, we still love her so much. She brings a lot of joy and energy to our home.





2 comments:

Marie said...

Very cute! Growing up we had 2 April birthdays and 2 September birthdays so those were always fun, but busy months. It's fun to see your different celebrations!

Lonna said...

I just love to read your blog! My favorite picture is the one in which she is wearing the pink outfit.

Contributors