Happy 5th Birthday Avery!!!

Well, I fully expected to post some adorable pictures of Avery with earrings in her newly-pierced ears today. She has been telling me for weeks that she wanted to get her ears pierced for her birthday. I talked her through how it would work and the pain that would last for a minute or so. She has assured me over and over that she understands it will hurt and she still wants to do it really bad. So I made an appointment at our pediatrician and we went in on Tuesday to get her ears pierced. In the waiting room, she played with trucks and blocks and acted completely unaffected... me, well I had butterflies in my stomach for her. Turns out the butterflies had good reason to be there. When we walked in the room, our nurse Winnie told me there is a new vaccine that she needs... if we get it before she's 5 the insurance will cover it, but if she's 5 or older, we will have to pay out of pocket, $108. So, I made the fateful decision to go ahead and have Avery get the one shot while we were there anyway, since we only had 2 days until she turned five. Well, you can guess the rest of the story. Poor Avery was not expecting to have to get a shot and she had a complete meltdown after Winnie gave her the shot. When our doctor came in to clean her ears for piercing, she was still wimpering and when he approached her with the cotton balls soaked in brown "soap" to clean her ears, she went limp, shreiked at the top of her lungs and said she did NOT want to get her ears pierced. Yeah, it was embarassing. I felt like that mom who makes her kid get their ears pierced. So I asked the doctor to give us a minute. We prayed about it. I talked her through it again. She told me again, in tears, "mama, I already told you, I do NOT want to get my ears pierced.... not until I'm an adult." I knew in my heart it was useless to even try to convince her now, so we walked out of the room and paid for the earrings that were not pierced in her ears and we left. I was fighting back tears, i was so disappointed. Not that she didn't get her ears pierced, but that I had let the nurse give her a shot first, which I think freaked her out, and that she had given up on her dream because she was afraid of the pain. She's only five, so I know I can't be too hard on her, but I did tell her I want her to remember the bad feeling she felt when we left, because it feels bad when we have a dream, and we're too afraid to go through the hard things to achieve that dream. Maybe I shouldn't have told her that, but I want Avery to have big dreams and I want her to be willing to endure the discomfort and difficulty that goes along with acheiving them.

Okay, so anyway, Avery is FIVE today. I am so proud of her. She is a wonderful big sister to Tatum & Laney. She is a great picker-upper. She is learning to read and has already read two complete books by herself (early readers). She is memorizing her Awana Bible verses and earning patches and stickers each week, which she loves. She has several good friends and I can tell they really like her because she is funny and kind. She is very picky about her clothes now and prefers to wear skirts or dresses as often as I'll let her. She is also picky about how I do her hair and what bow goes in her hair. She is getting better at choosing bows that match her outfit. She is a good eater. She is a very deep sleeper. She loves to play outside. Her favorite princess is Belle from Beauty & the Beast. What she really wanted for her birthday, besides getting her ears pierced, was a skateboard. That's right. I don't know why or if she knows what to do with it, but Walmart had a pink & blue OP skateboard for $9.00, so I will be very curious to see her face when she opens it up tonight. I got the matching pink & blue "street shred" elbow & knee pad set too.

She has the most beautiful brown eyes (just like her daddy) and I love to look at her because she is just so beautiful to me. She LOVES to sing and I think she has a gift in music. She can hold a tune and memorize words to songs like you wouldn't believe. She enjoys her ballet/tap class and I think her favorite part of it is getting to dress up in a leotard & skirt and look at herself as she twirls around in the big mirrored room. She loves to play with trains. She loves to play in sand. I can't wait to see where she will find her niche in life. She loves our dogs, Belle and Bandit. She is very gentle and patient. She would rather be home playing in our backyard with her sisters than anywhere else in the world, and I love that she is a homebody. She is learning to pray in her own way to the Lord. She isn't silly during prayer time anymore. She often asks God for something or thanks God for something very real to her. Last night, she thanked God for her new princess reader book and she went to bed cuddling it next to her. Avery has been such a blessing in our family. Her personality is alot like Brian's, worlds different from mine. I am learning alot from her as she grows older. Thank you Lord for our precious Avery... she is Yours and ours and we are so happy to have her in our lives!