Maleia, give me FIVE!!

Maliea-isms
lasterday - for yesterday
spitting out - for spitting up
Old Macdonalds - for McDonalds
fruit throw up - for fruit rollup
Burber King - for Burger King
Cafo Rio - for Cafe Rio
Yo-gun - for Logan

What? Where did the years go? And so my sweet little Maleia isn't quite so little anymore. It drives me nuts how my kids won't obey when I tell them that they need to stay little. What's the deal? Maleia is my sweet little imp. She is gaining more and more independence and showing me (more like surprising me) with all that she can do. From swimming to her mad gaming skills, she is rocking my world. What other 5 year old can get a 184 on Wii bowling?? And she gets to the banana level on Ms. Pacman. The boys are going to ADORE her!

She is quite the charmer and usually can get away with things just because she is sneaky like that and way too cute to get into trouble. Oooo, watch out for her tricky ways!

She has announced that she no longer wants bangs, so this year we are going to work on growing them out. I'm just glad that after her "cutting episode" of her own hair, she realizes that cutting them completely off is no longer an option.

Maleia loves school and is excited to go to Kindergarten once we go back to Budapest. She is going to a preschool here, but not full time. She misses the cutoff date by 18 days to go to Kindergarten in the States and even misses the cutoff date for AISB (the International School that Haley attends) so she will be going to a Christian school (Greater Grace) for this school year since their cutoff date is in October. She is so ready for Kindergarten it almost pains me to see her watch Haley go to school every day. Next year, when we are in our new location, if she has to repeat Kindergarten because of her age, I am just fine with that, but she needs to go to school this year. She would be bored to tears! She is reading sight word books and thrives on a regimented schedule.

If it's too quiet around the house, I never have to fear that she is into something, but I know that she is either creating something new or pretending. Her brother makes a fickle friend when it comes to all the girlie stuff, but she has learned to make him some sort of a macho character and to keep him entertained by having him race, giving him cars/trains/guns/swords as props, or fight off some dastardly imaginary people.

Almost on an hourly basis, she will come up to me and tell me that she loves me. She has to remind me to give her a morning/noon/afternoon/goodnight hug and kiss. even if I already gave her one. She will be telling me a story and then randomly ask, "And you know what, mom? I love you." It seriously makes me melt every time and reminds me to tell her that I love her all day long as well. I would have to say that her loving personality is her strongest character trait.

She seriously can't get enough of Logan. I remember when we had Dylan and we couldn't keep her off of him, and she hasn't grown out of it now that we have Logan. I am constantly reminding her to not kiss his face and to give him some space. The first thing in the morning, she has to go and check on Logan and the last thing at night she has to give him a kiss goodnight. What a GREAT sister!

She loves anything girlie and would wear a skirt every day if she could get away with it. Look at that pose!

We went to the Discovery Center in SLC and she spend the majority of the time at the play house.

She loved her swim lessons with Chelsea.

She is becoming quite the dare devil and loves to try new things.

She still loves pigs and anything to do with pigs. She also loves her polly pockets. It is a little sad that she is out of the adoring princess stage, but she's at least not embarrassed to sport them.

I am glad that she isn't out of the dress-up stage yet!

Those dimples still kill me! She is one of the happiest kids I know and so we get to see these adorable dimples, aka "triple threat," daily.

We'll see what sports she likes to play. . . probably the ones that you can wear a dress or a skirt while playing.

She has learned the art of jumping on the trampoline this summer.

She is a little trooper as we get to travel all over and see new things.

Can you believe this was Maleia two years ago??
Wow. She's grown up a ton since we moved overseas.