First Girl at six and a half

This sweet, affectionate, smart, helpful, creative, good person is close to being seven years old! She has been six and a half since May. A few days later she lost her first tooth, and a few days after that she finished kindergarten. (It's funny how much longer the second loose tooth was loose compared to the first. The new tooth grew in behind it but the baby tooth was also there, until it finally fell out a week or two ago.) The photo below is of her in May. It's the one we have hanging up in our living room, too.

Before that, in April, I started teaching her piano lessons, and she has easily learned a few songs with chords in the left hand and the melody in the right hand. I'm using my old teacher's unique system. She likes the theory we do during lessons. Our only challenges are: 1) that sometimes I kind of get busy with other things and forget, so we have the lesson a day or two late. 2) that sometimes she doesn't want to try to play something that I'm telling her to play. She cries and says it's too hard. But she does it.

She and Second Girl have great imaginations. It seems like mostly the younger one goes along with the older one's ideas. They like to have First Girl pretend be the mom or the teacher. She is a little too bossy sometimes, though. One day in July they built a "road that leads to the man who knows everything" -- it's pictured below but the road was much longer.

They played a lot with Amy this summer, and swam with her once. They also started playing more with another neighbor, Nate. Sometimes both Amy and Nate were over at our place at the same time. Some of the things they liked to do together were to ride the bike, scooter, and trike on the sidewalk, or use the Marble Works or musical instrument toys or the iPad.

First Girl enjoyed helping me come up with things for our summer fun to-do list. I'm glad we made the list. We took the kids to see the outside of the house my family lived in from about age five to seven and a half, and we walked on that street a little. I showed them where Mommy and Daddy met, to see where my dad works, and to special libraries (in addition to some story times at another library -- not on the list). We watched Enchanted together, which they hadn't seen. Those are just a few examples. . . . Some of the things on the list we didn't do yet because they cost money and/or because I want him to be with us when we do them.

She started first grade a month ago. She likes eating lunch at school, and she loves the Spanish dual immersion program. She sings some of the cute Spanish songs to me. I love her voice (both speaking and singing). I'm looking forward to my meeting with both of the teachers, because she's such a good reader and the assignments and other papers I see she gets from the English teacher are easy. I don't know if she is considered gifted or just reads at a higher level. She is also good at writing, drawing, and explaining things. 

Yes, she wanted to wear the same shirt again. :)

I love that she likes to tell me things, and go on dates with me, and will still hold my hand. She hugs me when I pick her up from school. She likes to be near me and is interested in what I do on the computer, but she doesn't mind me going places without her. She is great at helping her younger sisters; often what they need is a comforting hug but in this picture she simply wanted to hug and kiss C.