Aubrey Turns Five!

I'm a little behind on this (by about two months), but Aubrey turned five years old in April! I can't believe she's that old and about to start kindergarten! But anyway, I digress. 

We started the day with our traditional Swedish pancakes, which Aubrey requested we make purple. She also decided to wear her birthday crown from preschool while she ate.

After breakfast, I nearly killed myself making rainbow velvet cupcakes for her birthday party. I had to make the batter, separate it out into six bowls, dye each one a different color, and then fill the (rainbow) cupcake liners with some of each batter. Unfortunately, I didn't do the best job of putting the same amount of each batter in the liners, but it still looked fairly rainbowy. The colors are just a bit darker because of the cocoa in the batter.

Then I piped rosettes on the tops. I had never done that before, and I was happy with them! You can see, however, that the cupcakes aren't exactly a uniform size. My first batch was overfilled, and then I did better on the second one. But that made them varied. Oh well, the frosting looked good!

So after the cupcakes were finished, we took them to Aubrey's party, which we had at a gymnastics place. We'd never done a party anywhere but our house (because cheap), but Aubrey had really wanted to do a party like the ones her preschool friends did at fun venues. Plus that way she could invite everyone she wanted. (Our house is too small to accommodate a lot of kids.) So that's what we did! And then she got zero presents from us; that was the exchange, which she was fine with.

Anyway, the "coaches" started the party with some stretches, which Aubrey--in typical fashion--refused to participate in. (Doing what everyone else is doing isn't really her thing.)

Then they did a follow the leader thing, with Aubrey leading (which definitely is her thing).

They all took turns jumping in the foam pit. And thankfully, Daniel got this amazing animation thing of Aubrey taking her turn--with a flourish!

Then they had to try to get out of the foam pit, which isn't exactly easy.

It didn't take long for the coaches to realize this group was going to do better with unstructured free play, so that's what they got. Aubrey was hilarious and started somersaulting over and through everything.

She really had a blast just running around everywhere, free to do her own thing.

Carter decided to spend his time crawling around and hanging on things.

And Aubrey and her friends did some hanging of their own!

At some point, the kids got the idea to roll each other around in one of the padded rings. 

And finally, just before it was time to be done, Aubrey did one last walk across the beam. Her balance has gotten so much better since her days of gymnastics in Massachusetts!

Before we went to the party room, we got a group shot of all the kids (well, except for Carter, who refused to join... but hey, what can you do?).

After eating some pizza, we sang and did cupcakes. I got this video of the song.

And then, at home, Aubrey got to open the presents from her friends. She was so excited! (We've always previously told friends not to bring presents, so it was a new and exciting experience for her.)

All in all, it was a successful birthday. Stay tuned for the traditional update on all things Aubrey!

"I am a GREAT girl!"

I have been an absolute blogging failure over this last year. I'm so behind! I can't believe the last time I posted an update on Aubrey was 10 months ago!

As she gets older, it seems there are fewer Aubrey milestones and changes to record, but there are definitely a lot of hilarious Aubrey quotes. I went through my Facebook account and found all of the funny Aubreyisms I posted over the last 10 months. Here they are:

• After we told her many times to get her pajamas on: "I'm running away. I'm going to a different house... without my PJs." And then to Daniel, after she'd stormed away from me: "Daddy, I'm leaving and going to a new house." *pause* "Now how do I open this door?"
• During dinner, she was whining about her food being too hot and demanding we cool it off for her. When we told her she was old enough to do it herself, she lost it. She said hysterically, "But I don't know what to do! Blow on it? Fan it? Blow? Fan? Blow? I just don't know!!" She didn't take kindly to me and Daniel laughing at her...
• When Carter wanted to join her as she was playing: "Okay Carter, I get everything and you get nothing."
• One day I was worried I might be arrested because Aubrey decided to repeatedly shout, "Someone please help us!" out of our open window.
• "That rock looks like a baguette!" 

• When I picked Aubrey up at preschool towards the end of last school year, all of the kids had t-shirts they had painted to wear for their end-of-year ice cream social. When I talked about how cool it would be to match everyone, the following conversation occurred:
• Aubrey: "But Mommy, I don't like white. So I can't wear it."
• Me: "Aubrey, the shirt you're wearing now is white."
• *Pause*
• Aubrey: "Well I don't like shirts with fish on them."
• While jumping from the table onto the couch: "I'm sorry, Carter, but this is too dangerous for boys. It's just for girls." 
• After I called myself an idiot for hitting my head: "You're not an idiot, Mommy, you make me breakfast!" I'm glad she's set the bar low.
• She decided that she wanted to be a teacher like Daniel. She created a class called Spider Technology and drew up this ad for it (dictating the words to Daniel, which read, "Spider Technology is for me and you. Spider Technology is really cool. The spiders creep and crawl around your house. Spider Technology: you can learn about spiders too if you go to spider class!")

• After Daniel gave her Top Ramen with ice cubes and tried to stir it for her: "Daddy, I know how to mix it myself!" *pause* "Mommy, can you mix my soup?"
• Aubrey: "Ms. Shelley and Ms. Kathleen said I have to make a lot of potions today. I need to keep going until one explodes."
  Me: "Sweetie, I'm absolutely sure your teachers didn't tell you to do anything at home that would involve an explosion."
  Aubrey: "No, Miss Kathleen said to so that we can learn not to do that."
• One time, when she was using the bathroom and had toilet paper stuck between her cheeks: "Look, Mommy! I have a unicorn tail!"

• Me: "Do you want to go play at the Chick-fil-A park after the chiropractor?"
  Aubrey: "No. That place smells like boys."
  Me: "What do you mean by that?"
  Aubrey: "It smells like feet."
• When Grandpa said she was a good girl on Marco Polo, she responded with, "Thanks, Grandpa, I am a GREAT girl!"

Honestly, I can't think of a better way to illustrate who Aubrey is than through those quotes. But I'll throw a few more things in here.

• She's SO excited for the new baby coming in August, and she's very adamant that it be a girl. I've explained that we don't get to make the decision, but she's Aubrey, so there's that. She used to say she wanted to name the baby "Love" or "Snuggle," but when we asked her a couple of weeks ago, she said the name Clara, which is actually on our short list! It was weird.
• She loves being magnanimous to Carter (when it's her idea), so she'll take something she knows he'll want (like the blue spoon or the last strawberry yogurt), watch him throw a fit, and then give it to him in a grand gesture. It's kind of funny.

• She watched a kid's Halloween video on YouTube several months ago (and we have since deleted YouTube from everything), and it completely freaked her out. It was a cartoon and was geared toward kids, but it really was creepy and kind of evil feeling. Anyway, it scared her so much that she called it "the bad video" and had trouble falling asleep at night because she was thinking about it. So we encouraged her to think about happy things--family, school, friends, fun things coming up (like Christmas)--and to say a prayer. More than once after putting her to bed, I'd walk by her room and hear her saying a prayer asking Heavenly Father to help her think about Grandma and Grandpa and cousins and Christmas. It just melted my mommy heart.

• She has started reading! Her preschool teacher noticed she knew the phonetics for each of the letters and even knew the sounds made by some letter combinations, so she suggested we get the Bob Books from the library. Aubrey did great with them! She's even been reading some of the Level 1 readers, which are for kindergarteners. Sometimes she doesn't take the time to sound out the words, so she'll just guess random words that start with the right letter or are seen in the pictures, but she does really well when she takes her time.
• She still LOVES art, and she's been making good use of the art station Grandma and Grandpa got her for Christmas, as well as the supplies we got her. Her drawings of people have become more detailed, and she takes her arts and crafts very seriously. I love it. This top photo is her recreation of a plate Aunt Karen made as a kid. The second one is her rendering of President Eyring at the October General Conference.

 

• She once asked us why all the songs we listened to were "boy songs" and if there was any "girl music." So I downloaded a bunch of girl power music, from Sheryl Crow and Kelly Clarkson to old-school Hannah Montana and Hilary Duff, with a lot of cheesy girl music from my youth mixed in. She loves it! And I love that she thought of it and wanted it.
• She participated in a Broadway Disney Princess class, where they learned singing and dancing parts to two songs, "Let It Go" and "Under the Sea." She had lots of fun at the class, but when it came time for the performance she was very nervous. I thought she might not do it! As you can see (she's on the far right), she didn't really do many of the choreographed moves; she kind of stood there. But I was just really proud she went up there even though she was nervous!

• Unfortunately, she has since decided that she hates being up in front of people, and she utterly refuses to even go up with the other Primary kids for musical numbers in Sacrament Meeting. When they did the Primary Program last Fall, she refused to stand up for the songs, wouldn't go up and do her spoken part, and then came down to sit with us halway through. I was really disappointed. I've waited years to have my own kid in the program and be able to watch her with pride, but she doesn't let me do that. *sigh*
• She still has such a fun imagination, and I love hearing her play pretend in her room or with Carter. Here she is pretending to be an astronaut:

• We put her in swimming lessons over the summer, and she improved so much! She not only gained the skills of blowing bubbles under the water, jumping in and resurfacing, and gliding underwater, but she also gained a lot more confidence. She's always so proud to show us her swimming skills. We just went to the indoor community pool this past weekend, and we discovered that she plugs her nose all the way up until she actually dives down into the water, at which point she lets go of her nose. So she plugs it when she's just standing there, not in the water, but she doesn't plug her nose while she's actually swimming. It's so funny.
• She also started riding a bike this past summer, after our very kind neighbor gave us his daughter's old bike.

• For awhile there, she was very interested in what color different color combinations made.
• She loves watching Daddy play video games, especially Zelda (she helped name one of his horses, and she chose the name Robert). She also loves playing Mario Kart with him and Carter (and occasionally me, when I feel like it). 
• She also loves board games and has started learning to play more adult games, such as Carcassone, Splendor, and Takenoko. She really loves Uno and has been playing Trouble a lot since we got it for Christmas.
• She's gotten very into watching hockey with Daniel, and she'll shout, "Go Colorado!" when she does. She also loves this Avalanche jersey she inherited from someone in the ward. One time, when the Avs won, she hilariously asked Daniel, "Daddy, have they ever won before?" 

Aubrey Turns Four!

Aubrey's actual birthday was on a Friday, so we went about our usual Friday morning activities. She went to her Broadway Princess class, where she's learning a singing and dancing routine to Let It Go and Under the Sea. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten any photos of her doing it! They don't let the parents in, and the glass we watch through is frosted--not good for taking photos.

Anyway, after that we went to my chiropractor appointment and then to Walmart to buy last-minute birthday party items. We had to hurry home because it started to snow! Wasn't expecting that.

A friend from church has his birthday on the same day as Aubrey, and he had his party on Friday afternoon. So Aubrey and I went to that for a couple hours before meeting Nana and Papa at Red Robin. Daniel took the night off Home Depot, so we all got to spend the whole evening together!

We went home and opened presents, and then it was bedtime! And as I'm doing this post, I'm realizing I took only one photo of this girl on her birthday (see above). :( I can't believe I didn't take pictures of her opening presents!

The next day, Saturday, we had Aubrey's party. Grandma and Grandpa were able to come for it, along with a few of Aubrey's friends from church and one from preschool. We couldn't invite everyone because our house is so small, and lot of people couldn't come. Then two kids cancelled the morning of due to sickness! So it was a small group, but that may have been for the best, haha. Four-year-olds are crazy.

The party was High School Musical themed (and it wasn't even my idea!). We started off with some mingling and snacking while people filtered in, and then we went on to some structured fun. First we had a basketball competition to see who could make the most baskets in 30 seconds (with their friends cheering them on with pom-poms). Aubrey and a friend tied with six baskets each!

Then we played musical chairs with the High School Musical soundtrack playing. That's always an entertaining game with little kids.

Aubrey was in the final round with another girl, and I turned off the music at just the right time to make Aubrey lose. Yep, I'm a good mom. (In my defense, it was Daniel's idea.)

After musical chairs, we had a dance party while waiting for the pizza to arrive. Those kids have some great moves!

Pizza came and was eaten (kind of), and then it was cake time. Aunt Kara was super nice and offered to make Aubrey's HSM cake for her! And Grandma and Grandpa were kind enough to take it on the plane with them from Texas! And let me tell you, that thing was surprisingly heavy.

Here is Aubrey seeing her cake for the first time...

... and then posing with it.

And now here's the cake in all its awesomeness! I would never have made anything even remotely this cool.

And, because I'm awesome and just assumed we already had four candles lying around somewhere (we didn't), we had to improvise. Luckily, we celebrated my Dad's 62nd birthday here earlier this year, so we had what we needed for a little mathy candle fun. 6-2=4!

Yep, we're classy.

 I love this picture of Aubrey. She looks so sweetly excited.

And then we sang!

As soon as we were done, she had to try the completely edible microphone, of course.

I'd say we made a pretty good dent in it! And then the family finished it off over the next few days. Yum. Cake for breakfast! It was totally a thing.

Anyway, happy birthday to my smart, sassy, funny, silly, imaginative, sweet, and energetic girl! We sure do love you, girly.

"I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to do what I want."

Live and Learn

• She's been learning the basics of telling time. She can tell us what hour it is, which is something!
• She also likes to do math at bedtime. She does basic addition counting on her fingers. It's cute to see her get so excited about learning.
• She kept saying she wanted a violin and Anna doll for Christmas, and my parents got her a cheap (but real!) violin to keep the magic alive. She loves making sounds with it, and I've taught her how to hold it and how to change the note by pressing down on the string. She obviously can't really play, but she looks cute trying!

• She's gotten a lot better at drawing and can even draw recognizable things sometimes! She draws our family a lot (awwww), as well as rainbows. I didn't teach her how to draw people; she came up with it on her own!

Fun and Games

• She loves playing games (yay!), especially Go Fish, Old Maid, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Spot It, Memory, and The Disney Princess Enchanted Cupcake Party Game (or, as she calls it, The Cupcake Game). She got it for Christmas from Mommy and Daddy, and it was the best $10 we ever spent! She loves playing the game as intended, but she also likes building her own cupcakes as well as giving each of her Little People princesses her own designated cupcake.
• She loves playing make-believe with her dolls and figures. She'll play for a long time by herself. I love her imagination!

• She used to always play in the bathroom after using it. One time Daniel went to tell her to wash her hands and come out, and he found her standing in the shower--completely naked--playing with her bath soap. When he asked what she was doing, she said, "Um... washing my hands." 
• Her current favorite shows/movies are anything Tinkerbell, Coco, Luna Petunia, Brave, and especially My Little Pony. Oh man, the My Little Pony obsession.
• She still loves playing dress-up, and one time she dressed as Merida and pretended her chair was a horse she was riding. So cute!

• She always wants to play these specific games when I put her to bed. There's tickle spider, her personal favorite, in which I pretend like my hand has been posessed by a tickle spider that descends from above and wants to eat her ribs. It ends with her grabbing my hand on its second descent and flushing it down her pretend toilet (complete with sound effects). She also likes to reenact scenes from Frozen (the beginning when young Anna and Elsa play and then the scene at the end when Anna gets frozen). She also likes me to reenact the book Love You Forever by crawling across the floor, picking her up, rocking her, and singing the song. There's also pretending the other one is a stuffed animal (to great protest), and holding my arm so I can't leave the bed.

Sour...

• One day she said, "Someone drew a J on the table!" I walked over to find a (admittedly pretty good) J carved in the coffee table, as she said. She used a rock that I let her take home earlier that day. And then she lied when I told her she was in trouble. "I didn't do it! It must have been the people who lived here before." When I pointed out that the table is ours and wasn't here when the other people lived here, she said, "Carter did it!" We had a long conversation about lying after that.
• For awhile there, she would refuse to let me tuck her in at bedtime. Then she would come out of her room--just after I'd gone downstairs--and ask me to come back to her room and tuck her in. If I refused, she'd throw an epic tantrum and refuse to go to bed. If I put her in her room and held the door so she couldn't get out, she'd throw things at her door. Man, I'm so glad she doesn't do that anymore.

... and Sweet!

• Lately she's been eager to help me. I love it! She's still too young to be actually helpful, but I love that she wants to help. She especially loves to help me paint! I think she looks like Cinderella in this photo:

• One day while eating dinner she asked us, "Who is that chair for?" (referring to our fourth chair). Before we could answer, she said, "Oh, I know! It's for our new baby!" And ever since, she's been obsessed with the idea of a new baby. She talks about it regularly and has decided it will be a girl. She says she'll help change diapers and give her all of her old clothes. It's so sweet!
• She loves sweeping! If only she did more than just move the dirt/crumbs around...

• When Carter needs help eating, he often wants Aubrey to help him instead of me or Daniel. She's always so happy to help! It makes me happy.
• Because he's working two jobs, Daniel is of course very tired. As a result, he often falls asleep on the couch. When he does, Aubrey likes to tuck him in with her blankets and stuffed animals.

Notable Quotables

• She has gotten in the movie Cars lately, and instead of calling the main character Lightning McQueen, she calls him "Lightning the Queen." It's amazing. Daniel made a nice "drag racing" joke in response. Haha.
• For awhile there, she would randomly (and constantly) say, "Hey Cool Whip, check it out!" She said she got it from a kid at preschool. I have NO idea...
• "I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to do what I want."
• Aubrey: "Mommy, why did Heavenly Father name me Aubrey?"
  Me: "He didn't name you that; Mommy and Daddy did."
  Aubrey: "Aw, well I wanted you to name me something else."
  Me: "Like what?"
  Aubrey: "Castle Princess!"
• "Mommy, listen to this beautiful song I'm going to play. It's called 'Count on Me... to Destroy Things.' "
• She came in while I was making lunch and said with a big grin, "I put a stocking on Daddy!"

• If I ever say Carter is a buttface (said in jest with love, I promise, haha), Aubrey says, "No, he's a wonderful baby!"
• Daniel: "What did you learn about in class?"
  Aubrey: "Jesus." *pause* "That's it."
• Me: "Carter's saying your name because he loves you."
  Aubrey: "Of course I love him too."
  Me: "And I love you both so so so so much!"
  Aubrey: "And I love you... not so much."
• Aubrey: "I'm talking! I'm in charge! "
  Me: "Okay, if you're in charge, then you need to get lunch ready for everyone and take care of everything."
  Aubrey: "No! That's hard work, and I don't do that!"
• When we went out to eat with my parents recently, Carter threw his food. Then Aubrey followed suit. When we scolded her, she turned to Daniel and said, "I'm proud of what I did." PUNK.

"What starts with red?"

• She's very interested in what letter different words start with. But instead of saying, "What letter does 'red' start with," for example, she'll say, "What starts with red?" It's pretty cute. She always knows the answer; she's getting very good with her letters and phonemes. And she has the spelling of her own name memorized!
• She loves eating bleu cheese. By itself. Won't eat potatoes or chicken or anything basically but sloves bleu cheese... Weirdo.
• One of her favorite things to do is reenact the opening scene from Frozen (not the part in which they break all the ice, but the part in which Anna wakes up Elsa and they play). She has the whole thing memorized, and she gets really into the acting. 
• Speaking of reenactments from that movie, she also likes to perform all of "Let It Go." She dresses in her Elsa costume and has me braid her hair over one shoulder and put the song on. Then she walks around the living room/kitchen doing all the same movements Elsa does and singing along to the song.

• With her, everything is a race. She always says, "I won!" when no one even had an idea there was a race. Who finishes their food first? It's a race. Who closed their car door first? It's a race. I've told her over and over that not everything is a race, but she firmly disagrees--unless she's losing. If we want her to eat dinner better and we say, "Aubrey, Carter's winning!", she always says matter-of-factly, "It's not a race." Punk.
• One time, less than five minutes after Daniel put Aubrey to bed, I heard the knob on her door turn once. And then again. And then again. Finally, I heard the door open all the way. I said, "Aubrey, what are you doing?" She replied, "Sleeping." Hmm, nice try, kid.
• Ever since visiting her cousin Emma and hearing her talk about dance class, she likes to pretend she's doing ballet. She stands with one leg stretched out behind her and also tries to do pirouettes. She didn't actually know what a pirouette was at first, so I showed her a video. Then she tried to copy it.

• She started asking us who the fourth chair at our kitchen table is for. When we said Carter would sit there when he got older, she said something like, "Then we'll have a new baby to sit in Carter's chair" (referring to his high chair). She hasn't let go of the idea and is now convinced she'll have a baby sister named Raspberry. 
• I'm trying not to be worried that she sometimes kills off her dolls when she plays. Sometimes she says, "Nora died." And recently, Nana said she had Cinderella kill Belle because she was going to marry Jaxon (our only boy Barbie-type doll). Ummm... what?! We had a conversation about that one...
• She really likes the song "Phantom of the Opera." She told me once that Christine is her favorite character in the musical because she has the same name as her and Grandma. Awww! She also does a great impression of her... haha.

• She has started to go into her room and play by herself, usually after meals. It's really nice, haha.
• She often calls things "lovely," which is adorable. She sets up pretend picnics and says, "I made a lovely picnic for you!"
•  Awesome Aubrey quotes:
• "Do you know what 'cabiffable' means? It means you're drinking scissors!"
• Shouted as she bid goodbye to someone who had just given her candy on Halloween: "Bye! See you next time!"
• After barfing in the car on a road trip: "I'm never going to eat M&Ms ever again. I'm only going to have lollipops and chocolate chips!"
• Spoken after climbing in bed with me one morning: "Mommy, I can smell your voice."
• "When people get mad, they freak out and have a tantrum. But when people get happy, they just eat!"