The Struiks: Olivia is 5 Years Old!

My baby is five! Olivia, if you are reading this, you are probably rolling your eyes because every birthday (or half-birthday) I make some exclamation about how old and big you are getting. But it's so true! You're my baby that's not longer a baby but a (little) girl. (If I can't call you my baby then at least I'm going to call you a little girl!).

You now weigh 41.6 lb and are 45 5/8" tall. You comfortably wear size 6 clothes (although your leggings are size 4/5 because you have a skinny waist and no bum!) and size 13 shoes.

Olivia, you are the sweetest little girl. Nearly every day (and that's not an exaggeration!) you come up to me and give me a huge hug and whisper in my ear, "Mom, I love you forever." My reply is always the same, "I love you forever, too!" I can't even recall when you first started saying it...but I just checked and you were already saying it frequently when you turned four, so it's been well over a year!

This past year has been an exciting one for you as you anticipate starting kindergarten. You had to draw a self-portrait and mail it to the school as a part of your kindergarten profile. You drew your head, and then you started crying You said, that you "couldn't go to kindergarten because [you are] not a good drawer." I took you upstairs and showed you the self-portraits that Matthew, Kayla, and Nathan had done and we laughed about how terrible they were! We went back downstairs, and you finished, happily.

You spell your name in all uppercase, although we are working on switching you to lowercase.

You can recognize and name all of the letters in the alphabet and you can quickly say the sounds that the majority of them make. We are starting to work on sounding out words when writing and in books. When you sound out "Happy Birthday" when making a card, you spell it "HAPE BRDA".

You can do simple addition problems in your head.

You are great at running! Even though your legs are far shorter than mine, you can run just as fast as me!

You love watching videos on youtube, especially of anything with Lego Friends characters or My Little Pony.

You still love playing with your babies, but also with Barbies or My Little Ponies, or your Lego Friends characters. You also enjoy building with Lego.

You LOVE biking and scootering! You learned to stand up while biking this summer. You are always game to go for a bike ride or play outside instead of doing screens. You are also great at our walks, doing 10km without any assistance! 95% of the time you are in the front with your Dad when we do our walks and bike rides.

You were already a good swimmer for your age before the pool at Grandma and Grandpa's house was put in a month ago, but now you are amazing! You have gained so much confidence in the deep end and never need puddle jumpers to be completely independent. You can easily tread water for 20 seconds. You can jump in and tread for a bit, deciding where to swim to, and then you put your head down and swim there! The only thing you need to work on is remembering to blow bubbles. You are learning to dive and successfully did two kneeling dives all by yourself today.

You still love to wear dresses and either "high" shoes (ie. shoes with heels) or "church" shoes. You love wearing your ballet outfits, too.

You love to give Parker hugs and to carry her.

You sometimes have trouble falling asleep at night and like to come downstairs to lay with me for a minute. Luckily, when you have a later night you are likely to sleep in longer in the morning. You don't come to my bed very often at night anymore, which is bitter sweet :)

Your favourite thing to eat for breakfast is a piece of bread or toast with hagelslaag. Your favourite dinner food is french fries. You love eating frozen blueberries. That's right, frozen, not fresh. You eat so many frozen blueberries in one sitting that your finger nails end up purple.

Birthday Questionnaire:

1. What's your name? Olivia
2. How old are you? 5
3. What is your favourite color? Pink
4. What is your favourite toy? My horse. The biggest. The Barbie horse with two seats.
5. What is your favourite fruit? Strawberry
6. What is your favourite tv show or movie? Ariel (The Little Mermaid)
7. What is your favourite game? Candyland
8. What is your favourite animal? Horse
9. What is your favourite song? Jingle Bells. Because I know how to do it.
10. What is your favourite book? (Shows me her I Spy book). Because you do it to me at night. (Olivia had been reading one page of it every night with me, to practice sounding out words).
11. Who is your best friend? Emma
12. Who are you going to marry? I don’t know (giggles)
13. How many kids are you going to have when you are married? Five. Five or none. (“Why the difference?”) Because I’m going to do ballet when I’m older. Because I need to do it everyday.
14. What is your favourite thing to eat for breakfast? White icing and butter and chocolate sprinkles.
15. What is your favourite cereal? Lucky Charms
16. What is your favourite thing to eat for lunch? Peanut butter and jam with frozen blueberries on it.
17. What is your favourite thing to eat for dinner? French Fries. I always say French fries.
18. What is your favourite thing to do outside? Play with my big ball and scooter.
19. What is your favourite drink? Orange juice
20. What is your favourite snack? Strawberries with sugar. You dip the strawberries in the sugar. We tried it but it’s been a long time. We should have it for snack today, or dessert!
21. When is your bedtime? 7:30
22. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Sophie
23. What is your favourite holiday? Going to Disneyland
24. What do you want to be when you grow up? A ballerina
25. Name one thing you do really well? Ballet
26. What makes you feel sad? When someone takes something (Nathan had taken a Lego camera from her earlier.)
27. What makes you feel happy? When they give it back.
28. If you could choose a different name, what would you choose? I don’t know.
29. Where do you want to go on vacation? Disneyland
30. What is your favourite thing to do? Ballet
31. What is your favourite thing to do with Mom? Play games
32. What is your favourite thing to do with Dad? Play hide and go seek with him, because we did it today. My good hiding spot was behind the shower curtain. He even looked in the bathtub! I was going to hide in it but it was too dirty so I just did my best hiding spot.
33. What is your favourite thing to do with your siblings? I like to play dolls with all of them.