Ashley is 5!!!

First of all, Happy New Year, 2016!!! I'll tell you, that was the fastest year of my life. My grandfather Jerry always used to say that the older you get, the faster it goes. I truly think this is true. I remember being a kid, and my Aunt Lil said "enjoy being a kid, because it goes fast". At the time, time used to drag and go by so slow, and I remember thinking "what is she talking about?" Now I see. Now I have kids that age. And each year really does seem to go faster and faster, especially after having kids, and now with them in "school" and schedules. I feel like we were JUST outside swimming and playing in the yard, and now we've sped through school starting, Emily's birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and now Ashley's birthday! So crazy.

2016 is already looking promising. It started off by going to the Poconos with our friends, Tiffany, Jon, Hannah and Sammy Cohen. The kids had their very first sleepover. Ashley stopped me and said "I'm sooo excited". She had read a book about a sleepover party, and has been wanting one ever since. We did everything the book included, minus painting nails (we didn't have it since we weren't home)...but we had a New Year's countdown, we had a pillow fight, we told/and read stories and had fun playtime. They loved it. The only con was that they were up at 5am!!! A little too excited I guess! The next day we went with them to an indoor water park. After they left, we spend half the day vegging out and playing games and toys at the Pocono house, then we went bowling, out to dinner where we surprised Ashley and sang happy birthday to her (totally caught her by surprise, it was priceless), then went to Chuck-e-cheese. I'd say she had a pretty special celebration, and a good start to the new year.
Another exciting thing in 2016 is that Matt and I will be celebrating 10 years of marriage. 10 years!!! Crazy. And we'll be together for 14 years total. For our special 10 year anniversary, we are going to ITALY!!!! I'm so excited. It's on my "bucket list" of things I want to do/places I want to see before I die. And it's probably one of the top things. So pretty cool. Kristyn and Brian are living out there right now, so we thought why not? Get to visit them and do part of the traveling with them, then part on our own. We're going to go at the end of August while the kids go with Grandmom and Grandpop to Wildwood. I feel a little (very) guilty about leaving the kids for 10 days, but they'll be away for 7 on vacation having fun themselves, and we have Skype so we can video chat with them luckily. But still....They'll be in good hands though.

So back to Ashley's birthday. Yesterday she turned 5. Half way to the double digits. She was so cute. I actually woke up before her, and when I woke her up she started to come down the stairs and stretched out both of her arms and said, "look, I can reach both walls now". And she pointed out how she is a little bit bigger, bigger hands, feet, etc. And she told us that soon she'll be losing her teeth. Lol. I think she's excited for that.

We had a fun time celebrating. In mid December, we had a joint party for the two of them at the YMCA. They had a Festival party with a bounce house, face painting, crafts, parachute, games, etc. I have to say, it was the best money ever spent. First off, I really am not a fan of hosting large parties. When I was growing up, my mom always made things SO special for us, and was so detailed about everything. It was wonderful, except half the time she was frantic and stressed out getting everything "perfect" and ready for parties. Which made us stressed. As much as I hated that part, I have sadly taken on some of that myself (not by choice, it's automatic/learned..still working on it). Not so much trying to make it perfect (I have decided I'd still like to have special, but doesn't need to be perfect or so detailed--I'd rather be a happy and present mom, than a stressed one trying to do it all), but I still feel "stressed" while cleaning and preparing ahead of time. So this party eliminated all of that, they did all the before and after prep work.
The main reason it was worth every penny though is because I actually got to enjoy and be PRESENT to watch my kids enjoying their birthday party. When hosting, I'm usually running around making sure everyone has food and beverages, I'm rounding up the kids to play a game or do a craft/activity. They handled all of that, so I got to participate with my kids, and just take it all in. I loved watching their fun and joy. It was so nice.

Then as I mentioned, to give Ashley her own special day/celebration, we did the weekend activities, then yesterday on the day of her birthday we had it decorated special, opened presents. She had school so we sent in goodies and they sang happy birthday to her. After she came home, we surprised her with a small cake and sang happy birthday before daddy had to leave for work. Then we played with her new toys, then we went shopping with her birthday money so she could pick out her own gift, then went out to dinner. It was a fun day.

In this past year, I have really watched her grow from a young "toddler" into a more mature toddler. She's mastering her emotions, less of those toddler behaviors, tantrums, etc. She is more conscientious about her actions, she is more thoughtful (i.e. she thanked us for surprising us with her cake, she offered to treat Emily to a gift with her birthday money, etc), she has become more focused and determined on mastering new skills, she is a sponge learning new things (she can even read some simple books on her own). She had some THREEnager behaviors that I'd like to forget, but she really is growing into a sweet, kind little girl. I look forward to seeing what FIVE will bring us (although I hope it doesn't go too too fast).

Happy birthday to my sweet girl Ashley. We love you so much!