Ainsley's 6 Year Old Interview

What's your favorite color:  "Rainbow!"  (The same as last year!  She has even asked for her room at the new house to be rainbow. I hope she isn't disappointed when it just has rainbow accents.)

What's your favorite animal:  "Deer, butterflies, and ladybugs."  (We have gotten to see lots of deer as we have built our new house so I'm not surprised that they were on her radar but if she was thinking about it more I think she also would have included kitty cats and horses.)

What's your favorite book:  "Disney books about princesses."

What's your favorite show:  "Oh this is going to be hard... Princess shows.  All of them."  (She is clearly still a big princess lover.  I'm going to be so sad when this phase is over.)

What's your favorite food:  "Onion rings, muffins, pears, peaches, and lollipops."  (Ha!  She still is a good veggie eater and eats mostly fruits, vegetables, and carbs.  We usually have to encourage meat, unless it is a hamburger.  She also loves olives, pickles, and Grandpa Smoothie cheese.)

What's your favorite drink:  "Orange juice, lemonade, apple juice, water, and milk."

What is your favorite thing to wear:  "Dresses and skirts."  (She is my girlie girl!)

What's your favorite toy:  "Snappy princess dolls because they are really pretty and have lots of dresses."  (She added later that her American Girl Samantha doll was her favorite too but that she forgot.)

What do you play with those dolls:  "I play and pretend some stories that are real and some stories that are not real."

Who is your best friend:  "My BFFs are Juliana, Cassidy, Elise, Kate, Harper, Hallie, Claire, Emma, Greer, and .... Ok that's all."  (This girl definitely doesn't lack friends.  She befriends everyone she meets and I'm so thankful for these sweet girls in her life.)

What's your favorite game:  "Candyland and playing all sorts of games with Bailey and Caroline."

What's your favorite thing to do outside:  "I like driving the go-cart at the new house and jumping and wrestling on the trampoline at this house."

What's your favorite place to go:  "My favorite places to go are the Aquarium, chuck-e-cheese, bouncy house, Missouri to see the kitties and Florida to see the beach."

What do you sleep with in your bed:  "I cannot say everything that I sleep with in my bed!  There are so many stuffed animals!"

But what is your very favorite thing you sleep with:  "My loveys and my puppies"

What do you want to be with you grow up:  "I want to be a mermaid and a fairy and I want to have long hair that touches the ground."

What do you love about our family:  "I love that we are really healthy and that we have a good home and that nothing can crush our home into pieces and that we are really lucky and still have 100 dollar bills."  (Ha!  I guess that maybe I can ease up on the 'have a grateful heart' lectures!)

What makes you laugh:  "When I do something silly and it makes someone else laugh, then I laugh too." (Disclaimer, she was just doing this with Caroline.)

What makes you sad:  "When people pull my hair and are mean to me."  (Usually Caroline is the culprit here.)

What is your favorite thing about being six:  "My favorite thing about being six is because I love helping others out and I really love helping my baby because now when I am six I am big enough to be a big helper.)

Ainsley at 6!

My first-born is six years old and I can hardly believe it and it feels like she has been six forever at the same time.  Over the past year, before our eyes, she has grown more and more tall and lanky and her face has continued to become more and more grown up.  It breaks my heart to watch her get so big but the person she is becoming makes me so proud.

At six Ainsley is...

creative and loves art.  Her favorite birthday gifts this year were art-related, she is constantly "borrowing" and using up all my tape, she begs for extra pieces of colorful wrapping paper and squeals when she gets it, she can spend hours in the art corner of her room creating, and she is very generous and thoughtful with all her creations.  Ainsley takes her creations very seriously and gets upset when little people (ie. Caroline) come in and mess with the "organization" of her art corner, which looks like a bomb went off in a Hobby Lobby.  She collects treasures from outside and at school - leaves, crystal rocks, berries, shiny things she finds on the ground - and attaches them to paper to create trees or add emphasis to rainbows.  She loves to color and create and one of her favorite things to do is work together with me on coloring a big picture.  And she is always very complimentary on my color choice and how well I can stay in the lines.  One day when her and I were working on a sewing project together she said, "Mom, I am glad that you are creative just like me."  It made my heart swell and I cherish getting to express my artsy/crafty side with her as well as watching her love to create like she does.

incredibly friendly and outgoing.  The words friendly and outgoing have described Ainlsey since she was a toddler and able to scoot or wobble away from me in the direction of a new face.  But it is still exactly who she is.  She waves and shouts to teachers and kids in the carpool line like it is a parade, she makes new friends in an instant at the grocery store or park like it is a meet and greet, she has zero hesitation walking into a room full of complete strangers, and she is invited to an overwhelming number of playdates and birthday parties.  And not only does she make new friends easily but once you are in her heart, you are there to stay!  She has several friends (girls and boys) that she met once at camp that she still talks about and she is constantly making pictures for friends that she was in class or activities with in years prior.  Ainsley has be blessed with so many wonderful qualities but her outgoing, friendly nature is one that George and I consider one of her greatest gifts.  I'll admit that it pulls me out of my comfort zone at times when I'm not in the mood to chat with all the other moms at the park and we have had to do some serious reigning in to control Ainsley from taking it upon herself to ask the waiter at dinner about a comment George or I made about the service or food.  It has been a challenge at times to establish appropriately boundaries with such a socially eager girl, so that everyone stays comfortable and safe but without stifling her obvious gift.  My prayer for her is that as she grows up she continues to have a loving, inclusive heart and a socially fearless spirit.  My prayer is also that we will be able to guide her in this area well so that she learns safe boundaries while she flourishes.

tall and a little lanky.  Ainsley has always been tall and thin and is at times almost a head above some of her peers.  At 6 years old she is 44 pounds and 48" tall.  She has always been my great eater, often requesting salad for meals or veggies for snacks, and eager to try new foods.  She also seems to be on a nonstop growth spurt!  And it definitely feels like she eats nonstop to fuel it.  Her long skinny legs still tend to turn inward, making her a bit bow-legged and uncoordinated at times, but I'm sure she will grow out of that.  She loves to run, swim, and jump and we are thankful for her healthy and strong body.

emotional.  While most of her emotions are still sweet, she does tend to have some larger emotional screaming outbursts when she is hungry or tired and feels especially wronged.  She describes herself as 'sensitive' and says that she is the most 'sensitve' one in our family, which she doesn't particularly like.  Still, I see myself in all these emotional bursts and pray for her future teenage self (as well as for George and my ability to help her give her perspective and recognize that her feels while valid and valued are usually just temporary).

thoughtful.  Ainsley is one of the most thoughtful little people I know.  She is constantly making us and her friend's creations of their favorite things.  She will come down the stairs after quiet time with a bag or her arms full of things wrapped in paper scrapes.  Bailey's creation usually has to do with superman but always has blue on it because she knows it's his favorite.  Caroline's is usually an animal and is soft or large enough that she won't stick it in her mouth.  Mine and George's usually has purple for "the Go Frogs."  One of my favorite ones that she made for me is a picture of me with 3D arms coming off the page holding a 3D book.  She said it was a picture of me reading my bible and I love it!  She draws pictures for people coming over to help with the house, her teachers, her friends at school, or family/my friends that come visit and I always have an overwhelming pile of letters she has made that I need to stick in the mail.

people-pleaser/perfectionist.  Ainsley has always been eager to follow the rules and gets a self-proclaimed "yucky feeling in my heart" when she does something wrong or gets in trouble.  Her teachers describe her as a dream student because she is so well behaved and at play dates other parents gush about how easy-going and well-mannered she is.  While she isn't always a gem in our company, I'm proud of how she is respectful of authority and how well behaved she is when she is out in the world.  The unfortunate flip-side of this is that she hesitates to try new things if she thinks she will be wrong and she struggles to accept forgiveness after she has made a mistake.  My pray for her is that she will grown to learn to give herself grace, not let others approval define who she is, and know that there is always abundant forgiveness available for her at the cross.

kind-hearted and loving.  At dinner she prays for her siblings who are sad or have boo-boos, her teachers who are sick, and always remembers to thank God for her food or for her day.  Every night she requests "snuggle talk time" where we lay with her in bed and talk.  She often asks for a story about what we were like when we were little.  Ainsley is such a kind and patient big sister to Bailey and Caroline even though they can be tough to love sometimes.  She is also a huge lover of all kinds of animals - big or small.  Her favorites are kittens but I'm pretty sure that she wouldn't turn away anything that was soft and fuzzy.  She is empathetic and loving and has a big heart.  It is obvious that she truly cares about those around her.

innocent.  Since Ainsley is the oldest and so responsible and well-behaved most of the time, it is easy for me to expect too much out of her.  I constantly try to remind myself to let her be little and that she is only 6.  Even though 6 feels so big to me, I know that it isn't, and that one day it will feel so little.  Ainsley is my big girl in so many ways but thankfully there are still many things about her that help remind me that she is still my little girl inside.  For instance, Ainsley has 5 loveys - 3 that were from when she was a baby that she says are her favorite, 1 bear that she got that sort of matches Bailey's, and 1 fuzzy bunny that matches one of Caroline's.  She adores her loveys (says they smell good, which they definitely do not) and rubs them on her face just like she used to do when she was little.  And she still counts and makes sure that she has all 5 before she can go to bed.  She also still fiercely believes in princesses, fairies, mermaids, and unicorns.  She was confident that all the characters we saw at Disney were absolutely real, even though some of her friends have tried to dissuade her.  She also adores her American Girl doll and the little dolls that live in her dollhouse.  She spends so much time setting up her doll house and playing with her dolls.  I love to overhear her pretend story-lines because it makes me remember myself playing similar games as a child.  I cherish this confident innocence and land of pretend she has and I hope that she is able to maintain it for several more years.

joyful.  Maybe most of all, Ainsley at 6 is so joyful and happy.  Her laugh and her smile brighten up every room that she enters and we love her to pieces.  We are so thankful for her in a countless number of ways and are so grateful that God chose us to be her parents.  

Rain! Rain! Rain!

This year the summer started off on a very wet note and it rained, poured, and flooded for most of May and June.  We have needed rain very badly here but getting all of the water at once caused lots of damage in certain areas.  We were very lucky and for us all the rain just meant green grass and lots of extra opportunities to run around in our undies outside!

Lost Pines

It is my goal each summer to sneak away for a few nights to Hyatt Lost Pines down the road from Austin.  This summer it turned into an impromptu getaway with two of my besties and their families and it was awesome!  It makes my heart leap with happiness to see our kids play together.  And to top it off we even managed to get a group shot of all the kids, even if poor Henry isn't very happy about it.  Left to right:  Trip Kuper, Caroline and Ainsley, sad Henry Kearns, Wills and Anna Kate Kuper, and Bailey.  We are missing baby Elizabeth but she was napping or nursing or something.

We all started off with some pool time... which is like heaven to my kids.  Ainsley is so consistent at asking during a slow afternoon if we can just go over to Lost Pines real quick.  Ha!  Sweet girl doesn't yet understand that hotels are expensive!  In the ice cream pic below, Rachael's 3 big kids are on the right.

After the pool we all cleaned up and then came back together for a yummy dinner topped off with adult beverages!  I love these three girls and their crew!

Then all the kids ran around the gorgeous lawn while the adults chatted.  We even got this rare and good family picture thanks to Rachael.

 Caroline and Elizabeth, the babies of the bunch...

Ainsley and Trip, the big kids of the bunch...

Bailey was being a particularly sweet and protective big brother this evening... when he wasn't running around like a crazy boy that is!

Then it was time for smores!!  Similar to last year, everyone loves the idea of smores in theory but in reality, Ainsley actually does love her smores and could have eaten several, Bailey hated them because they are so messy, Caroline, by our choosing, just munched on graham crackers, I just eat the burned marshmallows, and George ends up eating the left overs from Bailey.  Ha!  A fun family tradition regardless!

Ainsley and Anna Kate became best buds by the end of the weekend.  Ainsley is really Trip's age and Anna Kate is really Bailey's age but the girlyness of these two made them inseparable!

Sadly the next day it down-poured so we weren't able to enjoy the pool again.  We all hung out together in the indoor game room for most of the morning and then headed home.  Even though it was short and sweet, it really was a wonderful time and I am so thankful - and impressed - that we all made it happen!  I would love to see it become a yearly tradition... :)

Lemonade stand

At the beginning of the summer, Ainsley kept begging me to have a lemonade stand.  One afternoon we decided to invite Cassidy, one of her friends, over and make it a playdate.  We carpooled this past year with Cassidy, so Bailey adores her just as much as Ainsley does, and the girls were sweet and let Bailey participate too.  

First we worked hard to make a beautiful rainbow sign.  Bailey was hesitant to color in the letters because he was afraid he wouldn't be able to stay in the lines, so he made decorations around the outside of the letters instead.  Then after some encouragement he colored in the the letter 'E' and was so proud of himself when he kept most of the colors in the lines.

Then we set up on a busy corner around the side of our block and waited for people to pass by.  But the kids didn't have to wait for long!  People arrived pretty much nonstop for the first hour.  It was a hot afternoon and we had to do some product sampling too.  Here is Bailey performing one of our quality assurance drills.  ;)

After about an hour, business slowed a bit so the kids took a chalk break.  

At the end of the day, we were out there for about an hour and a half and the kids sold out of all of their lemonade and made $40!!  I was blown away!  I never anticipated things being so successful and was very impressed with the kindness and generosity of our neighbors.  They made the day for these three kiddos!

It was such a fun, fun afternoon and definitely what summer should be made of!

Fort Worth Weekend

At the beginning of June, we took a family trip to visit our old stomping grounds in Fort Worth.  As always, it was such a fun and refreshing trip to go back and visit a town that was the start of George and my story.  The first thing we did was tour the TCU campus.  We stopped by the bookstore and got the kids hats and then explored around campus.  It has changed so much since George and I were at school there and there are so many new and beautiful buildings.

But the classics remain, like this metal frog statue that you are supposed to kiss for good luck before exams.

And of course frog fountain, which is as pretty as ever.

I am so thankful for this school and the education, friendships, and overall experience it gave me... as well as introducing me to the love of my life.

The next day we took the kids to the Fort Worth Zoo.  It is so impressive and beautiful especially compared to anything we have here in Austin.  Ainsley was most excited to see the flamingos.

Everyone loved watching the elephants because they had two little babies with them.  So cute!

The giraffes were also so beautiful and awesome.  The Fort Worth zoo just does such a nice job of making the animals habitats large, open, and natural looking.  It makes it so much more pleasing to visit because it feels like the animals are happy.

Look how close that white tiger is!  Amazing!  And I would love to say that my kids were as enthralled by that experience as I was but they are both full engaged in watching the ants - yes, ants, just like the ones we can watch at home for free - that were crawling around on the side of the wall.  Sigh - kids!

One of the big hits of the day was the bird sanctuary part where you could go in with sticks and feed the birds.  Everyone loved it!

Caroline had a love/hate relationship with this stroller.  She was in and out of it the whole time. George had just a hate relationship with it because it had two messed up wheels in the front so he had to make it wheeley most of the time.  Ahhhh - the joys of the zoo!  ;)

The animal that Bailey kept asking to see was the penguins.  He loves penguins just like his daddy.

The other thing that Bailey really wanted to do was ride the zoo train.  We didn't make it to the train the first zoo day because everyone started falling apart and we needed to get Caroline back for nap time.  But we planned on coming back another day to enjoy the new kids splash park area.  So we came back the next day decked out in our swim suits to ride the train and play in the water.  I only got pictures of the train part thought.

My baby girl worn out after the morning at the zoo water park.  This doesn't happen very often and I was relishing every moment of those sweet sleepy snuggles!

Our last afternoon we headed over to the botanical gardens.  Without prompting the kids wanted to capture everything we saw.  Bailey took pictures with his camera and Ainsley sketched about it in her 'field journal.'  Ainsley was pretty cute about recording everything in her 'field journal' the whole weekend.  When we got back from the zoo she had me write out sentences about all the animals she saw and what they were doing and then she drew pictures of them.  She worked really hard and she said she was doing it so that she would always remember our trip.  Sweet girl.

Daddy and his little people...

Caroline, the great independent explorer...  It was kind of a nightmare to watch her because all she wanted to do was jump in all the fountains and didn't understand why she couldn't.

Ainsley taking her notes in her 'field journal'...

Mommy's hot girl...

The turtle find of the day!

That evening we picked up some food and played around the rental house with our good friends the Bates'.  I didn't get any pictures of it but the Bates also hosted us for an awesome swim party with our other friends the Davis'.  Then one night the boys got together and did their shenanigans and then the girls got to have a solo breakfast the next am.  Sadly we didn't get any pictures of those special times because we were too busy catching up, reconnecting and making sure our kids didn't drown.  All important things.  Still, we did get this semi-group shot the last night of our big kids and two of the Bates boys doing races in the backyard with George.

All in all, such a wonderful visit to one of our favorite towns.  I'm so thankful that we get to share this special place with our kids.