Elizabeth hanging out with some of her buddies at school. Every day after school the kids spend about an hour running around on the grass outside the school. It has become an extended part of their school time and good luck if you have an appointment after school or need to take them home as soon as school is over--they are not happy if they don't get to play with their good buddies.

Last weekend Elizabeth buddy Kylie had her 5th birthday party. And much to Elizabeth's delight, she held the party at Fairyland. Elizabeth is now quite enamored of fairies. She and Kylie are reading a whole series of fairy books and it is so cute to hear them talk about all the adventures they are reading about. And the neat thing is that these are "chapter books". Just lots of type and a few drawings here and there.

Oh yes, did I tell you Elizabeth is reading. Yep, that twice a week tutoring and preschool classes are doing the trick. While she is not reading the chapter books on her own yet, she is reading the little beginning readers. Woo hoo! You go girl!

E and Grandma

Here are some photos of Elizabeth and her grandma Frances at one of Elizabeth's favorite lunch spots, the Neiman Marcus cafe. She calls it her tea cup lunch. Elizabeth made mother's day especially lovely this year. She even went shopping with dad and insisted he buy numerous jeweled (costume of course) items. She was so pleased to present me with a lovely diamond like necklace. I loved it. Some hours laters I spied Elizbeth wearing it and contemplating where she should keep "her" new necklace. I asked her, "who's necklace is that?" She look quizzically at me and said, "I don't remember." After a few minutes of negotiation we settled on sharing it, although there was some recollection that it was my mother's day present. To her credit the next morning she woke up and decided she would regift it back to me. Although it did look pretty good on her.

School Buddies

Elizabeth hanging out after school with some of her buddies. Actually the guy on the left is Caden, aka, "The Current Love of Elizabeth's Life.". The other day she told me she was going to marry Caden. I told her she didn't have to think about that until she was at least 20, I told her for now he could be her boyfriend. She looked at me, horrified and said, "What? Caden is going to be my boyfriend now, and then I am going to marry someone else?????"

In the Wilderness...of Newport Beach

So just before Spring break Elizabeth attended a birthday party at the Newport Beach Environmental Center...which is about as close to the wilderness that Elizabeth has been. Yes, there we were about 200 feet away from civilization....there were snakes, and all sorts of scary little creatures. And I can report that Elizabeth has been trained by a New Yorker and was the only one in the group who refused to touch the snake, the giant reptile and other creepy creatures. I mean, really-what is the point? Of course it this experience came just about a week after I gave a Elizabeth a big lesson on 'staying away from snakes, and bushes and any areas that a snake would even think of hiding." As it turns out we live in a realtively new development in Orange County and there are snakes! Yes, even at her playground in the neighborhood-rattle snakes, nice, eh? And I didn't mention the coyotes did I? Yeah, we are not in Kansas anymore. She did however how a pretty darn good time running through the "forest" and navigating her way through the little ponds. As you can see, one of the little girls in her class has a couple of missing teeth (she lost them a little prematurely) and Elizabeth's latest obsession is trying to figure out when her "big teeth" are going to come in. At her last trip to the dentist he showed us the x-ray of her big teeth above her gumline that were going to be coming in and ever since then she has been dreaming of these new teeth. Every day we have to spend time guessing at what exact age Elizabeth's big teeth are going to be coming in..and I have to feel her teeth to see if they are loose yet. I think most kids lose them around 6, but we shall see. And of course she expects a visit from the tooth fairy.

Going Pro

So Elizabeth has stepped up her game. Elizabeth has joined her friend Kylie for tennis lessons with former Pro tennis players. One of them is a former pro from Austrailia --which Elizabeth loves since Daddy has taught her so much about Austrailia. When the teacher asked her to name a large animal, she answered, "Emu" Now Elizabeth is being coached by two of the best in the business. Go figure. I figure if these guys can't get her to learn how to play--no one will. So far she loves it. Of course the main objective here is for her to have fun. Not to mention it is great training for hand/eye coordination.

A Day in Pretty Dresses

Elizabeth and Emma spent Easter Day together, donning matching dresses. As you can see they had a lovely time doing everything from playing piano, decorating eggs, hunting for eggs, swinging on swings, and generally being 5 year old girls together. Yeah, they had fun. And they look so darn cute together.