Celebrating Six

Janae wanted four things for her sixth birthday: she wanted to go swimming, she wanted to go out for pizza, she wanted a Dairy Queen cake, and she wanted a bike.

Easy enough!

The bike came first.  We picked it out about a month ago and had it hidden in our shed.  On Saturday, though, we had a rare non-rainy day, and we decided to give the bike to Janae a few days early so she could enjoy it on a ride around the neighborhood.  Since then she has been riding around our deck, rain or shine!

We went swimming Monday night, joined by one of our favoire "big girls" who has always had a soft spot for our G-G.

We got to the pool at 6:30, and one of the first things Janae did was measure herself to see if she was tall enough to ride the slide (this was the only pool where she wasn't tall enough last summer!).

But as I already knew from all the too-short skirts and pants, Janae has GROWN quite a bit; luckily it was enough. 

The slide was supposed to open at 7, but it didn't end up starting up until 8, so we all waited a long time.  Finally, though, Janae was able to slide down SIX times in honor of her special day :)

Yesterday morning Janae woke up to gifts from Alaina and Ben.  (When Jason took them shopping Alaina picked out the stuffed sheep pictured . . . and has pretty much claimed it as her own; fortunately Janae seems to have overlooked this.)

She then enjoyed some pink milk while showing off her TWO loose teeth

We found out on Monday that Janae would be honored for her reading achievements, as well as for her birthday, on March 5 :)  She'd earned a silver medal in her school's reading Olympics for reading the second-highest number of minutes in her class during February (just over 1300 minutes).  She got to stand on a podium and receive her medal (along with a gift certificate for the school book fair) during an assembly that afternoon!

(Incidentally, Ben also won silver for his class!)

After picking out her THREE new (free!) books at the book fair, Janae headed home to visit with Jason's mom and sister who came over with some gifts. 

After that it was out for pizza

and then home for ice cream cake with more of our family.

It's nice when we can actually make their wishes come true!

And it was fun to celebrate our six-year-old girl :)