Gifts for Julie's Baby

She found a sheet of baby paper in my stuff. She cut out coupons from the Harbor Freight add and scraps of paper. She glued them all to the baby paper. This is for Julie's baby.

She found a picture she had colored when she was 2. She found pink tissue paper that I took away from her. I was gone running my errands and came home to tissue paper all over the girl room. She taped the picture to the paper and this too was for Julie's baby.

Today when we picked up the boys, a woman (who I know her name, but thats about it) walked by. Elle asked me "what's she having?"

We are planning a trip to MN in April. We are bringing Julie's baby things. The closer the time gets, more we talk about it. One day I said something about the trip and her reply was "We've got to get a truck."

Baby Shower

I am working on the invitations for Julie's baby shower. I am so excited to be making them pink! I have a great poem to put on the front with ribbon. We will use two different shades of pink for the paper. The ribbon has pink flowers with a brown back ground. I plan to hand out book marks with the entire poem for favors. I also found ribbon for a diaper cake. Hot pink and green! Elle and I have gone through baby stuff and made a list for Julie of what we have. We just need to go through the girl totes next. We are so excited. April can't get here soon enough!

Baby Girls

When we found out Auntie Julie was going to have a baby, Elle said "I just know it's a girl." Yesterday we found out Elle was right! We are so excited. We have gone through all our baby stuff and are very happy to be delivering all the pink items to Auntie Julie and Uncle Trevor. I let Julie tell them on speaker phone yesterday. Elle squealed and was so happy. For months, every baby thing we see she wants to give to Julie's baby.

We are so blessed to have another girl in our lives. Looking forward to meeting her the end of July. She is due close to Uncle Dave's birthday. Maybe they will share? Now to pray for Julie and a safe, comfortable pregnancy.

My Shadow

We got lots of strawberries today at the store. They were finally on sale. Before she went to preschool, I told her I would maybe get strawberries. When I got home, I was happy to share with her that I did in fact get her some strawberries. Her response "Were they on sale?" That's my girl! She is my shadow throughout much of the day. With the boys at school and her dad at work, we spend more alone time together. She wants to help out in the kitchen. Anytime I am making something, she wants to be a part of it. Her height can be seen since she races for her stool and carries it across the kitchen to retrieve anything she might need. She will stand on her stool and wash dishes too! She does a pretty good job, I only had to rewash a couple. Egg yolk can be hard to clean. She is quick with the stool and knows where everything is. I think she may know the kitchen better than her dad. For some time now, she has been able to put away everyones laundry. Now I know her daddy can't do that! : ) JK

Carrot Stew

One trip to bring Elle to preschool and back, I have the Carrot Stew song stuck in my head all day. Of all her songs on the CD she loves, it is my favorite. Not for its meaning, but the way she sings it. There is a part where they go up and hold a note, it is too sweet to hear her sing out Carrot Stew.
She is loving preschool and is excited and cooperative every time she has to go. The rest of the day can be a challenge sometimes, but not too bad. Still trying to preserve these days with her. I've heard so many moms mention going back to work in the last week. I know those days are around the corner for me too.

Fly on the Wall

I love listening in on Elle and her conversations with her friends. They are so innocent and unique to this time in their life. It is interesting to see what children pick up from their parents. Their vocabulary can be unique to the family. Common phrases used frequently by that parent are repeated by the child. She has become my shadow. Today, during my workout, she washed the same six dishes over and over for more than 20 minutes. In the end, she was so proud of herself. She looked so cute standing on her stool at the sink with her little apron on. This task was repeated when we came home today. She was so thrilled her daddy had left a few dirty dishes in the sink. Oh if only this desire to wash dishes carried over into her teen years!

When she gets older

She wants to hold babies when she gets older. She wants to go swimming when she gets older. How many other dreams will I hear in the years to come? Tonight, she washed the dishes at the sink. She likes to wipe the table down and really enjoyed using a bottle brush on water bottles.

What a girl.

The Girl Room

We rearranged the furniture in the Girl Room today. She was thrilled. She had her own ideas of where things should go. She did alright until I found a bunch of stuff just piled in a corner. I remember arranging my room many times as a kid. I always liked changing it.
Elle got into the morning Fours class next fall. I am so excited. She will have the same teacher Five did when we started going to that school.

Next year will be different at our house with both boys being in school and her attending more. Looking forward to a nice spring and fun summer first.

The Threes Class

Elle is in a Threes class at preschool. Today I had a parent teacher conference with her teacher. She has shared this with me in the past, and it still surprises me. Elle is quiet at school. She knows lots and does very well. The only thing we need to work on is hopping on one foot. She can do everything else very well. She has chosen all of the "bling" out of the treasure chest for good behavior. We have a nice collection of big, colorful rings. Her teacher said many nice things about her, enough to make any parent very proud. She spent the afternoon with our neighbors while I was at the school. She had a great time and got along well with her friend. I never know for sure how she will act sometimes. Today was a good day for everyone, but we are very tired tonight.

Eliana

What wonders preschool has done for Elle! It has been a true blessing. Her teacher will have her last day tomorrow. Not sure where Mrs. L is going, but she will be greatly missed. We have a conference with her tomorrow after class. Elle loves preschool so very much and I love the things she is learning. She sings in her bedroom and dances to songs she learned at preschool. I hear various lines from Jesus Loves Me. She makes up new lines as she goes. This morning her daddy brought up babies. Now she wants us to get a baby girl. I tried to explain its not that easy and God is the one who chooses which kind of baby we get. I told her the story of how we wanted to name our first baby Eliana, but God said not this time. Then we were going to name our second baby Eliana, but still, God said we had to wait. When the third baby came, God said here is our Eliana! A big smile came across her sweet little face.

Events of the day

Elle is always eager to know what we are doing next with our day. One mention of new shoes for me, and she wants some too. She also wants to go to the shoe store, and has comment at least five times on getting cuppies and toys for Julie's baby.

Julie's Baby

My sister shared with us exciting news of expecting their first child. Everyone in the family was thrilled.

Elle is really focused on Julie's baby. We are sorting through things in our house. We have moved past a certain part of our life and we no longer need baby items. Elle thinks we should give all of these to Julie's baby. She would load a moving truck full of baby things for Julie's baby.

When we came to her car seat, of course, Elle asked if we could give the seat to Julie's baby. I said no, it was old and not safe for Julie's baby. She sat and thought for a moment, then said "I rode in that seat." This lead to an entire explanation on how car seats expire, etc. I said that Julie will be able to get a new, safe seat for her baby.

We have never been more eager to find out if this baby is a boy or a girl. Elle is prepared to hand over many of her baby girl items, she just wants to play with some first. We found an arch that is pink and has a mat to lay on while looking up at toys hanging from the arch. It is one of the new things we received for Elle. After cleaning the laundry room closet out, I found all her babies laying under the arch in the living room.

I did a little research on baby names with my neighbor recently. I love looking into what the names mean. Many have wonderful sources and foundations for a child to grow on.

Elle is a hoot. She loves searching through boxes for baby things. We continue to get ready for a garage sale in April. Things are very different in our house this year than last. We are ready to part with many more items than we did last year. It is amazing the change from being two to three can make. Last year I was looking for anything to motivate potty training. This year, that is firmly finished and we are moving on to Barbie's. Yes, Barbie's. She received many for Christmas and I found some of mine. While I think we have enough Barbie's for now, we do need clothing for poor Ken. His clothing was in really rough shape. I hope to find some nice cheap Ken clothing at the garage sales this year. I also had to laugh when she did not care for a pair of pants that were in my old Barbie clothes. They were white with neon paint splatter colors on them. She did not like the paint on the pants and thought they were dirty or messy.

We watched our neighbor who is turning one this week. She was very attentive to his needs and wanted to help take care of him. The big sister was over too. They were thrilled with playing with the one year old, until he got a hold of the babies who were "in the car" (on the couch), ready to go on a trip. They moved their fleet of babies to the back of the couch, out of little H's reach.

I love watching these girls mimic being moms. They are sweet and full of creative ideas. At one point, the couch was an airplane. They had purses and diaper bags loaded with items their babies would need. They even dropped off some animals at the vet before taking their trip.

Amazing how many details they can attach to their play.

Today is filled with her trying to get along with her brothers. They are all home today and we have no plans to go anywhere. She struggles to blend in with their play sometimes. I hear her protesting the character Princess Leia. They always want her to play a girl. Sometime she wants to be Chewy. She makes her request known to them and eventually they agree. She also gets frustrated with Lego's and wants some of her own. As she retrieves items from her room to play with them, she says "Don't lock the door, I'll be right back." Poor girl is always anxious of them locking her out. They all have their moments I guess. Today they played with trains which they had not seen in a year. They worked it out and all got along great for the first half of the day.
I am proud to say we completed three Valentines boxes for their parties at school. Nothing like being done with that ahead of time. Now its just to fill out the Valentines.

Elle and her friends

Sometimes she acts funny when first playing with her friends. She will be stern and unwilling to share. Sometimes it seems to be a territorial thing. She will state what she wants and what they cannot have. It seems to happen when she has not played with the guest in awhile. It's like she needs to show how tough she is to establish her place. Other times she sits with me and doesn't want to participate with the other child. Most of the time this lasts too long and she misses out on playing with her guest. I am sure this is some text book situation that I am unaware of.

She is such a sweet girl and is learning so very much. Her preschool teacher sent home a letter stating next week will be her last week. I was really disappointed to hear this. These little kids have a hard time adjusting to preschool in the first place. After Christmas and the holidays, for some it was like starting over again. I hope it is an easy transition for the entire class. When one has a hard time, it can affect the whole class. There are 14 kids in the class. We will see how that turns out.

On another note, next year has been on my mind. I plan to get her into the Fours class with the same teacher Five had. She will go three days a week. The subject of when to send your child to kindergarten is such a difficult topic. I see so many sides from parents, their reasons why they send them or decide to wait. I guess it just comes down to what you feel your child is ready for. You just do the best you can to make it work. I have seen the results of holding back personally and think its maybe not the best way to go. This helped me come to the conclusion to send Five to kindergarten even if he would be young. Michigan has a cut off of December 1st for attending kinder. Five was five when school started. Oh now I am getting off topic with Elle. I guess I think we will send her when she is five too. I sort of wish Michigan would be similar to Minnesota and make the date 1 September. There would be no questions then, all students would have to be five when school started. Others would have to wait until the next year and that would be it. Elle wouldn't be five by 1 September though, her birthday is just a few days after. She would have to wait a year and be one of the older kids in the class. This being said, is that a reason we should hold off? If we were in MN, that is the way it would have played out. Like I said, no questions, it just would not be an option to send her. Would she be bored waiting so long? I hate to bring up the question that maybe we will be in MN or ND or somewhere else where it won't be an issue. That brings a whole new topic to light. Moving. I am settled here as are the children. I don't want to move, for now. I do want to be closer to my family and each time we return from a trip there it is painful. It is hard to be torn between where you want to be and where you are. We are comfortable here, but still feel in limbo. When will that feeling end? When we buy another house? I don't know. Just take it one day at a time.

Friendships

What makes a friendship last? I am sure this is an age old question. Through my many travels and moves in this life. I have made many friendships. I have often wondered, how is it some relationships can survive distance and change, while others don't. Does it depend on the personality type? Have I been in touch with some friends I met overseas due to my desire to keep in touch? Do they share this desire? For many years I would send mail to a number of friends over seas. Gradually, the replies went down and eventually I was only sending them a Christmas card. My good friend from Scotland was always a wild card. I have received maybe 4 letters from him in ten years. Yet somehow, I continued to mail letters to him on a regular basis. Maybe it was my desire to hear about the many grand adventures my friends were having after I left Europe. He traveled throughout the continent and lived in Austria and London for awhile. Thanks for Face book, I have recently found more friends from that time of my life. Some, I never thought I would see again! And the adventures they have had! I love the way things turned out for me, I couldn't ask for more. I do wish we would have taken a trip to Europe together before kids. That alone is my only regret. We will go someday. I wonder what Elle will be like with relationships and friendships.
Each move I has brought new people into my life. Each time, those people have touched my heart in their own individual way. As the years go by, memories fade. Some stand out more than others. I feel drawn to those and compelled to write. I wonder how their lives have changed since I left.
I have also been curious if the relationship would have changed had I not moved. I did experience this while in a location, but only a couple of times. Why does the relationship change? Due to new people coming into your life? Or is it me? Have I become less of a friend? Do I show too much interest in this person? Not enough? I guess no matter what, you always have your family. Immediate family I should say, even extended family member relationships can change. Distance is created and it just isn't the same.
All I can ask for is to be a good role model to Elle and teach her how to be a good friend. She is a sweet girl, but strong willed. I fear that may cause her to lose friendships. We shall see, depends on how good she is at compromise.

Sisters

I feel really lucky to have had a sister growing up. I wish that for Elle, but maybe it is not in the cards. How different will she turn out from me without a sister? How important was that role in my life? My sister and I have had our ups and downs in our many year relationship. I imagine we were pretty good friends in the very beginning. I remember thinking it was so great when she could fit in my doll cradle. We spent many hours playing barbies, paper dolls and with baby dolls. Our imaginations would run away and we would get so wrapped up in our play, we never noticed time. These thoughts have been coming to me since Elle received barbies for Christmas.
Throughout the day, Elle brings out many emotions in me. We start out great. She usually wakes up a happy camper. She is always eager to get to preschool and follows instructions well on those mornings. I let her pick out her clothing for the day. We match as best as we can to agree. She loves dresses and skirts. Her curls have changed over the last year. We don't have as many. It took her so long to get hair, I have held off on the first hair cut until recently. We just trimmed the ends. Some days I can get more curls than others.
Elle has such a sweet voice. She loves to sing and enjoys spending time in her "girl room." I see how she appreciates having her own space. I did when I was growing up. My wish is for her to enjoy her childhood as much as I did. If she won't have a sister to play barbies, paper dolls and baby dolls with, I guess I will try to fill in the sister void as we go. Perhaps she will have a little girl cousin to share many memories with?

We have a new sister!

What an outfit! She did this all on her own and was very proud. She spent the morning asking "What do ballerinas do?"

Famous Quotes from Elle

To her brother: "You smell difficult."