Kenzie

Dear Kenzie--

Where does the time go?
Oh yes, it goes into feeding Ellie, doing your homework, and wiping goo off of Hannah's face.  
Homework. In kindergarten. I'm not sure how I feel about this. For now we are conforming, but I'm going to draw the line when they start asking for dioromas. But so far it's been innocuous little worksheets that you do with ease.

You are reading pretty well now, although you hate to practice with books. You'll read individual words on a worksheet, but you seem to prefer the smoothness of an adult reader to your own having-to-sound-things-out slowness. You have read "Go, Dog, Go" to me, and you have quite a few books memorized.

I am constantly amazed at how smart you are. You memorize things very easily. For the sacrament program this year you had to memorize John 3:16. I read it to you a few times and had you say it back to me. Then when I asked you to repeat it one line at a time after me you said, "I can do it Mom! I don't need your help!" and you did it. You were so cute up there on the stand reciting your scripture into the microphone.

It makes me incredibly sad (yes me, the one who couldn't wait for kindergarten) to think of you being gone all day next year. I miss you. Kindergarten is great, but I kind of wish that school would stay as short as kindergarten-- somewhere around four hours. 8-12 would be about perfect.

It's been fun to watch you go from being unable to do a cartwheel to doing back handsprings! You are doing so well in tumbling. You can land a back handspring on the springboard floor and your cartwheels look better than mine (that's not very hard). You love to be in Gracie's class and you work really hard to do anything that she can do.

I love your imagination. Right now you're obsessed with your Ariel Barbie (I hate Barbie by the way and you're still too young to understand why. Although I have tried to explain), Jessie from Toy Story, and jewels. Everything that glitters, glows, or shines is a jewel that you and Hannah collect obsessively. You keep your jewels in, where else?, your jewelry box. You keeps your jewelry box in your Fancy Nancy cardboard suitcase, which is falling apart after having been sat on and stepped in and generally well-loved. The other treasures you keep in that box are your paper dolls--a great Jessie from Toy Story that you drew, and pictures of your favorite princess (Ariel. Bleck), Jessie and Woody that you have us print on the computer so you can color and cut them out.

It's pretty funny to listen to you play. You've started to create elaborate pretend worlds with your toys and you play really well independently. A lot of the time you'll play with Hannah too, but you do love to play alone. You're very good at entertaining Ellie too. You do sometimes enjoy making her cry, but that's just so you can say, "Oh Ellie. No puckers. No puckers." Mostly you love to be by Ellie on the floor, or you love to make her laugh just by jumping up and down in front of her.  You love all babies, but Ellie especially.

You are always drawing us pictures and sending people letters and drawings. You love to do crafts and are always coming up with things to color, cut and glue. Today you rolled up big pieces of paper with drawings on them and tied a ribbon around them and attached a pencil with it. You were copying my handouts for my lesson in Relief Society. You gave them to your friends Allie, Ashlyn, Gracie and Kandelyn.

Lately I've started to see your spelling skills displayed on my notes and just the other day you walked out with this letter to Santa: "We want Toy Story 3 Toys." You are getting really good at figuring out how to sound out words and spell them yourself.

You are also a great big sister to Hannah.You'll often take Hannah's hand, when Hannah is being shy and lead her into the group. You get along with most kids and are a peacemaker.

You are a wonderful little girl, Kenz. We love you. I love you.
Love,
Mom