Drew's 5th Birthday

How in the world has it been 5 years already?? From our bald little one-year-old who was all cheeks and chubb...

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to our wildly imaginitive, strong-willed 5-year-old kindergartner.

She made it clear that I am the best mommy in the world because I let her come to work with me, and to ensure my reign, I decided it would be a special treat again on her birthday. What I forgot was that she was only with me for 4 hours on Bring Your Daughter To Work Day, not 8.

Auntie Kels was gracious enough to drive down from LA to meet us for lunch, Drew was so happy to see her. And then one of the girls at work brought in a birthday cake for us all to share in the conference room. Drew particularly enjoyed sitting at the head of the table, running a meeting and telling everyone what to do. I'm encouraged at her comfort at the head of the table. Thankfully, no one got locked out of their offices this time, that's something a 4-year-old would do.

After work, we took her last photo session at Kiddie Kandids for her 5-year-old pictures (or, more accurately, her last solo pictures at Kiddie Kandids). And then we met Grammy, Boppa and Daddy at Dave and Buster's for some gaming, presents and mediocre food.

The gifts she received that night describe her in a nutshell: an American girl with dresses and accessories, and a bow and arrow. Truthfully, I couldn't be happier that I have a little girl who is perfectly comfortable shooting a nerf weapon while wearing a princess dress.

Later in the week, another birthday present from mommy and daddy arrived. Her "real" digital camera. Since she is constantly taking and reviewing pictures on our iPhones and cameras, we thought her own camera would remedy that. Her birthday was almost 4 weeks ago and I think there's one picture on the memory card.

She decided this year she wanted to swim and have an ocean party. Easy enough! The hardest part was watching the contractors in Grammy and Boppa's backyard try and meet the party deadline we had set.

Grammy and I, not quite fitting on the lounge. What you can't see is I have a cheek and a half hanging off the armrest behind me. What do you mean I'm too big??

Drew and a Sienna, a friend who has been in her class for the past 2 years. And the only kid (not just girl) in their entire grade who is the same height. Yay tall girls!

Checking out her snorkeler girl cake made by mom. If it had turned out cute, I'd have a close-up here. Instead I'll describe what a beautiful cake it is: ocean-blue rippling frosting with colored goldfish swimming around a girl with long blonde hair in a snorkel mask with M&M eyes, a licorice snorkel and a frosting mask. Perfection!

This might be her favorite part every year. She really wanted a red velvet cake, but got all frosting and then skipped right over the cake part and had a banana-chocolate-chip cupcake and starfish sugar cookie instead.

One of my favorites from the party, Drew and Teagen, looking so big!

 

And Drew and Lauren, the 2 new big sisters. Drew is still having a hard time wrapping her head around the fact that Lauren is already a big sister and she isn't yet.

The next 2 are definitely going to get framed in Drew's room...is there anything sweeter than seeing your kid playing with your best friends' kids?

Now we come to the drunk part of the party. The "adults" decided to play jump-and-catch games off the big rock. Jeremy was fairly sore the next day.

Chad going for a reach, Maya not impressed.

Jeremy really reaching here, nice form.

Uncle/Cousin Josh catching one ball while reach for an imaginary one with his left hand.

No pool party would be complete without the world-famous Gratton cannonball.

Drew trying to get in on the ball-catching, cannonballing fun.

Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

 

Theat-ah Camp!

Now that she's 4, almost 5, Drew is eligible for all sorts of summer camps. We signed up for gymnastics camp, vacation bible school and theater camp. It was a lot of work for our little girl and she did her absolute best with the 5 days of rehearsals they had before putting on the Friday night performance. According to Drew the best part was wearing blush and mascara for the performance.

It was a loosey-goosey performance, she had many photo-ops.

 A little slower than the others on the choreography. Although at home, she performs quite well!

In her "Strawberry Shortbread" short, she delivers her lines just before she gets shot by aliens. The video below shows her (beginning at 0:43) Oscar-worthy death scene.

Proud mom and dad!

She might even consider doing theater camp again if she gets flowers and is allowed to wear makeup!

Boom Boom Pow! Drew clearly had a couple key moves down.

Hawaii 2012

Working on our sandcastle skills.

Favorite part of the trip is always the water slide. It was especially wonderful for Mommy to be able to just sit and watch her slide, swim against the current to the side, climb up the steps and slide again, all with no help. 

 Boogie boarding/surfing/ocean swim lessons with Boppa. Occasionally I would look up and see Drew fighting some small currents to get to the boogie board Boppa had pushed away from her. She did great!

 Kimo's! Someone's missing from this picture :(

 After 2 failed monkey bar attempts, she swung all the away across, accumulating 2 blisters in the process. She was pretty proud of her wounds.

 What a fish!

 At our annual trip to the Maui Ocean Center. She just loves looking at all the fish every year.

 My favorite story of the trip happened here. We had walked up to a small crowd who had just finished listening to a marine biologist talk about sharks, unfortunately we had missed the whole thing, but she was now asking all the kids a question to win a prize: "how long can a tiger shark grow to?" Drew, of course, wasn't paying attention but instead looking in the window at all the animals. One older boy raised his hand and answered 25 feet. Wrong. Another older boy raised his hand and answered 15 feet. Wrong. Drew stood up, turned to the lady, raised her hand and said "20 feet." She was correct, the whole place applauded and she won a prize for a complete wild guess. I was super proud.

 Happy 4th of July from the Valley Isle!

 Self-timer masterpiece!

 Excited and ready for the snorkel boat, the Teralani.

 Giggling with Grammy and Boppa.

 Like her aunt Kels, Drew enjoys the self-photo.

 Where's the brunette?

 We decided we like sand-cakes as opposed to sand-castles.

 Posing for the camera.

 The true mark of growing from toddler to kid is the appearance of an athletic run. I think we're there!

 Daily lunch picnic on our lawn...trying not to get hit by the occasional football, soccer ball or bocce ball.

 A very sweet girl with her Mommy.

 Somebody spots her last Hula Pie of the trip!