Quite a girl

I've got quite a girl, that Chloe. I can hardly believe how grown up she is. Having a kindergartner sure has aged all of us.

She is my best helper, it is well known. Where ever I am, Chloe is right next to me. If I am doing something, she always wants to help. I need to be better about letting her help more often, especially in this stage of wanting to help.

I run every morning on my treadmill in the garage and my big helper "babysits" the other kids. What a sweetheart she is to do it (although after a few months now, she is kind of getting tired of it, bless her heart). To help get her more excited about it (and to help my thighs shrink), I told her that I would give her a quarter every time I run (about $1.25 a week). We don't normally pay our kids to help out around the house, but momma needs to exercise and it would cost way more to join the gym again, or pay someone else to watch them. And most 6 year olds aren't required to "babysit" as a normal chore around the house. We'll see if it works. The money is totally worth being able to exercise. (Of course I am just in the garage for emergencies and believe me, there is an "emergency" every few minutes from Chloe and/or Mitch: "When are you going to be done??" "I'm hungry." "Lexi hit me." "I need to go potty.")

Always wanting to do everything I do, Chloe has recently started asking if she can "go running" too. I don't let any of the kids on the treadmill, ever, so she asked if she could run around our cul de sac instead. Genious!

Tennis shoes, running shorts and her "exercise shirt." She runs a few laps on sunny mornings. Quite a girl.

I hope she'll always have an interest in exercise and staying fit. Boy does it get harder and harder to do as I get older.

We were at the SuperMall last month and we passed a rock climbing wall in the middle of the mall. Chloe has recently taken an interest in the small, wimpy rock climbing walls on nearby playgrounds, and she'd been a good helper on the shopping trip, so we impulsively decided to surprise her and let her try her hand at climbing this bigger wall.

Can I just say how impressed I was? There was no hesitation at all. She acted as if she had been climbing for years.

She took off like a flash and didn't slow down.

She climbed all the way to the top (I swear in record time) and hit the buzzer. Quite a girl.

While she may be a great climber, she had no idea how to descend properly. Oh well.

Chloe is becoming quite the reader and there is nothing I like buying more for my kids than books. You can never have too many books. (I can't say the same about stuffed animals...)

Last month, her school had a book fair that she desperately wanted to go to. She and I made a special date out of it, just the two of us. She was excited to show me her school and the library, and I let her pick out a few books.

Just in the last few week, she has wanted to read to herself at bedtime instead of being read to. She'll go into our room and read herself 2 or 3 books while we read to Mitchell. I listened to her one night and she was doing amazingly well. Quite a girl.

They were doing face painting just outside the library. Chloe chose a unicorn.

Both of the Papa's in our family have four wheelers. We were just in Tri-Cities over Memorial Day and Chloe got to go four wheeling a few times and loved it, as she always has. This go around, she learned how to drive one all by herself (with an adult on the back, of course). She was so proud of herself. Quite a girl.

This past Friday was her last day as a Kindergartener (the fastest school year ever, let me tell you). For their last day, they went on a field trip to our local Zoo. She was so excited to go. She loves packing a lunch for special things like this. Lets hope she gets excited about doing it EVERY DAY next year. (I'm exhausted just thinking about it!)

Everyone was told to wear their "Pat On the Back" school shirts to the zoo (one size fits all, yes). What a cute bunch they must have been walking around the zoo in matching shirts with big hand prints on the back. I was sad not to be able to chaperone but I have my own little zoo in our home and I would have been of very little help to anyone taking them all with me.

I did get to pick her up after school and watch her run from the kindergarten wall one last time. I think I was more sad to see her leaving kindergarten than I was to see her start. Quite a girl.

To celebrate her completion of kindergarten, I took her to get her hair cut. Here is the "Before" shot. She has gorgeous, long hair and I was so sad to have her cut it. I can't grow my hair very long and even when I try it is scraggly and blah. Hers is thick, shiny and gorgeous. I love to see nice looking hair being put to good use. And it's fun to be able to do a lot with it. But the last few months has been a struggle- she can't brush it well anymore with it so long and there is lots of tears and whining (and Chloe is worse!) :)

She has been begging to cut it short and I finally agreed to let her have a change.

And a change it was... half way done.

The finished product. Wow... I now have an official, grown up little 1st Grader. Where is time going? Maybe the shorter hair makes her look younger...

All her pretty hair in clumps on the floor- it made me sad seeing it all lying there.

With a little brushing and straightening, I decided it was super cute and a fun change, especially for summer. And when I did her hair for church today, it was amazing- no tears or whining and she was done in record time. Maybe I can live with this. Quite a girl.

Chloe brought home this award on the last day of school- she read 5,000 minutes (well, 5,105 minutes total, actually) this school year for the STAR reading program. I desperately want my children to enjoy reading, like I do, so we were very diligent about reading every day. Chloe could be read to all day every day if we had the time. She never puts up a fuss to read or be read to. This was an award I was very proud to see her earn. Quite a girl.

Now on to the Summer Reading Olympics challenge- we're aiming for Gold! I think we may just get it because I have quite a girl.