Thomas: Girls Night + Sam

As soon as Mark and Wilson left for their camp out Zina and I got out the girl stuff.

We painted our nails, got fixed up, (Zina was super excited that I let her put a little makeup on), and hit the town! We went out for some yummy food and then frozen yogurt. We dropped some yogurt off at Callie's since we knew her 3 boys were out camping too and visited for awhile. When we got home we put in a chick flic and had popcorn and milkshakes. Then Zina really wanted to sleep in a fort so we built a fort over my bed and slept underneath it.

Zina is growing up so fast. I could tell that she was having fun. Every time we got in the van she would start singing in a very grown up sort of way the music from our blog. She is just like Mark in that she remembers lyrics very easily. It was really cute. I could tell she felt so big going out with Mom. Before Wilson and Mark left I was searching all over for the camera and giving Zina a hard time because I couldn't find it and she is always taking pictures with it. She finally said, "Mom, why don't we say a prayer." So we did and then we all started searching again. After a little bit she said, "Mom, we need to look in the stroller." As soon as she said that I knew that was exactly where it was. Once we found it we knelt down and Wilson said another prayer of thanks and then we talked a little bit about how much Heavenly Father loves us and answers our prayers. We talked about how the Holy Ghost whispered to Zina where we should look. It was a very sweet moment and I love to see those little testimonies growing. (I also felt a little sheepish for getting after Zina when it was me who put in the stroller. I apologized to her and it made her giggle that it wasn't her after all.)

Zina is a very determined and independent person. She has no problems standing up for herself. For some reason lately she has been wanting to just be around home. I had planned for her to go to a little play date at one of her friends and when her friends Mom asked her if she wanted to have a play date she simply said, "No thank you." Um, ok.

So I asked her why she didn't want to go and she said she just likes to be home. I am not complaining. I for one love to have her home. She was excited for that friend to come to our house and play. Now if we could just keep things this way when she is 10yrs older. :)

Today Zina, Wilson and Sarah were playing and I was listening to them. Zina was taking the lead in everything. She was being very bossy and authoritative. In fact just listening to them play, I was getting annoyed until I realized that she is exactly like me. I kept reminding her that other people's ideas are good ones too and that she needed to compromise. It's not that the other two cared it was just driving me crazy. I'm sure it was because I was seeing so much of my own tendencies. Sorry to everyone who had to grow up with me. :)

I am trying to teach Wilson how to deal with all of that bossiness. He often gets so frustrated with Zina that he doesn't know what to do but hit or tackle her. Either that or he just plain out refuses to do it her way and then she can't handle it. We are working on using words to convey our frustrations. It works if I am in the room coaching them. If I'm not there...well we won't go there. ;)

Zina loves to make things.

The other day she declared that she wanted to make snowflakes. I swear we made snowflakes for 3 days and this is what my kitchen table looked like the entire time.

Another time she wanted to make a book. So I helped her fold some paper and we used string as the binding. Then she started writing. Sometimes I have a very hard time figuring out her phonetically spelled words. But this book was really cute.

"The Natorz" by Zina

Defret anumls uv defrent kind of homes

and defrent nams lik fox or kagro and defrent thes

to et like antedr will et ans

kangros sit in ther moms pawhc whn they are babes

predmuch ol anamls drenk momos melk.

translation?

"The Natures" By Zina

Different Animals have different kinds of homes and different names like fox or kangaroo and different things to eat like anteaters will eat ants. Kangaroos sit in their moms pouch when they are babies. Pretty much all animals drink mamas milk.

Today when we were driving home from the library she said, "You know what mom? I really love school." I asked her how she knew that since she's never been and she replied, "I just really love to learn new things."

I am starting to get excited for her to learn new things in Kindergarten.

She is ready and she will love it.

Zina loves to read and tonight (after I had put both kids to bed) I found Wilson snuggled up in Zina's bed. She was reading him a book and when I tried to break it up they both protested loudly saying,"But Mom I'm teaching Wilson how to read!"

I assured them we could continue in the morning.

(But I did feel a little bit bad to break up such a sweet moment)