Tera Evelynne is FIVE

Tera turned five years old on August 8th!

I cannot believe that I have a baby old enough to be five and in Kindergarten. Time, you are a thief! It seems like just yesterday that I was pregnant with Tera, and trying to adjust myself to motherhood. I know that I didn’t always do a good job in those first few years. I feel like God makes first children extra tough because He knows that the parents have no idea what they are doing. Tera has been the strongest and most gracious blessing to us as we navigate through how to raise children right.

For her fifth birthday, she chose Chick-fil-a for dinner, mostly because she wanted to go play in the play place. However, as we were eating dinner, they closed the play area because some kid upchucked in there. YIKES! Of course, Tera cried but she took it in stride and enjoyed the ice cream we got instead.

We also had a birthday party and she got to invite a few friends from church. During the party, we had a sprinkler set up and as Tera was running through the sprinkler, she stepped on a nail that went right through her foot. She sat down, immediately pulled the nail out of her own foot and then whimper-cried while Theo took her inside real quick. My girl is TOUGH. She returned to the party as soon as they got it to stop bleeding, but she was in a lot of pain and had to sit out some of the activities. The nail was so rusty and dirty that her foot was showing signs of infection less than 3 hours after stepping on the nail. Poor kid! That will be a birthday party to remember!

Tera is literally sugar and spice. She is the sweetest, most loving and most helpful girl. When she sees a need and wants to meet it, she gets it done. She helps me with Ezra and she loves to help me in the kitchen and she is an extremely observant and intelligent child. She’s not perfect, though, as she has a very obstinate side to her that loves to come out especially when she is tired.

Her best friend is Kiah, and he also happens to be her worst enemy. The terms of their relationship change every moment of every day. She adores Ezra and is usually so helpful and loving towards him, except when she likes to ROAR at him, which of course scares the living daylights out of him. It’s been so fun to see her really start to build relationships outside of our family, too. She is has started to make some real friends, which is a cool thing to see as a parent.

Tera started Kindergarten just two weeks after turning five and she is loving it. She actually cried on the first day when I came to pick her up because she didn’t want to leave! She’s a few weeks into school and I’m so so glad that we decided to send her to this hybrid school. She EXCELS with the social atmosphere and the structure of the classroom.

She loves collecting toys and anything cute and pink, but actually rarely plays with toys. She likes to pack everything into purses and play pretend but struggles with sitting by herself and playing with a dollhouse or Barbies. That’s not to say that she can’t sit by herself! If she gets set on an idea, she will spend hours on it! She recently got a lot of beads for her birthday and she is starting to become a budding arts and crafts lover! It’s fun to see her start her own personal collections of things, and since we got them a new bunk bed, she has started keeping a small pile of “treasures” next to her pillow. She also changes her clothes way too many times a day and it drives me CRAZY but I know it’s just a stage.

She loves to be outside and just figured out how to ride her bike without training wheels! She loves to climb and dance and run and play. It’s very, very hard to slow Tera down!

Happy 5th Birthday to my firstborn! We sure do love you around here!