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Merry Christmas

Treasure

But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Luke 2:19

I am hoping you are finding the treasure this season brings.

Photos by harkinsdesigns.net

Shocking

Today Addie is wearing a skirt today that Elspeth wore last week.

Better Late than Never . . . Halloween!

*Sigh*

I put her down at 11:30, so we would be on time to Ella's Parent-Teacher conference. She talked for 1 hour 27 minutes. Then it got quiet, 3 minutes before I was going to get her up. The purple blanket that she is sleeping on is Ella's and WAS NOT in the crib with her when she went down for a nap.

Really, I thought I had this timing thing nailed. Addie had her own plans.

The Big Show

Runs daily, visitors welcome . . . .

The 154

These are the two happiest Jr. Firemen you ever saw (and the goofiest too!), the men at Green Valley 154 know how to show a kid a good time.

A Good Day

This is my elder child right now. She has been like this for over 2 hours. Her sister more than 2 1/2 hours.

Maybe its because they haven't napped at all the last two days.

Maybe its because they were up at 5:30 (just in time that I could send one with Daddy on his morning run and not hoard all that cranky for myself).

Maybe its because we rushed them through their morning routine so we could take Daddy into the city for work.

Maybe its because after taking Daddy to work, we walked around our lake (1 mile) and then spent the rest of the morning with friends in the pool.

For whatever reason, I feel the cranky leaving our house with each passing moment.

I hope your day is this good too!

Great Moments in Parenting

Since taking over as the primary care giver, I have enforced an independent getting dressed policy with Elspeth. This means she sometimes has had on 2 pairs of undwear, or doesn't match, but I get over it.

Today I found out why I need to rethink that policy. We stopped by a bed store (Addie is nearing the end of crib time). As the girls were playing on various beds, I chatted with the salesman. Ella sat on her favorite bed (she is picking beds by color for the record) with her legs splayed out.

The salesman was trying hard not to look at her.

Hmmm, I looked over and about had a heart attack on the spot. I scooped her in my arms and asked, "Elspeth, when you got dressed this morning, did you forget your underwear?"

"I think I did, she answered."

How lucky that she wore a dress today.

I think I will need to start an inspection routine before we leave the house.

Communication

A I attempted to call customer service for help (the reason why is not relevant to this story). The guy I spoke to was polite. He spoke English (with an accent, but very understandable). I didn't think we would have an issue until 30 minutes later, it was clear he still didn't know what I wanted. We spoke the same words, but we didn't speak the same language.

Several nights a week, we head up to the neighborhood park after dinner. The girls love it, and so do I. Elspeth has bonded with two little boys, if they are all there, they are all together. They will follow her into any adventure, and Elspeth loves a good follower. I knew they spoke Spanish, but it was only 2 nights ago that I finally heard Elspeth say "Do you speak English too?" I listened intently, as the older boy said "No." They don't understand many of each others words, but they speak the same language.

I was sitting next to the boys mother when this exchange took place. This explains why we have had such limited communication. She speaks some English, but I am guessing enough to get by and not enough to chat about milestones, etc. After the boys let Elspeth know they spoke no English, she paused, you could tell we were both holding our breaths for her reaction (she to make sure her boys didn't get hurt, me to make sure my unpredictable child didn't say something rude in a tone that let them know it was rude). Elspeth started babbling in a stream of Spanish colors, using the first vocab that came to her mind at the moment, their mother and I laughed out loud. I then witnessed my child, who does not often care to be touched by others, throw her arm around one of the boys several times at the park, announcing "these are my friends!"

Elspeth has decided it is necessary to create something of her own language. She is correct, the English language is not as precise as it could be. Yesterday she created "Flimitz" which is defined as something that only "mommies and daddies" can do. So much easier now that we have a word. Stove? Flimitz. Putting Holly on leash? Flimitz. We headed out to the car, Elspeth paused. Instead of playing with the garage door, she announced "Flimitz!" I love this word.

Remember her Spanish speaking friends, she started to try to figure out how to ask for the bathroom in Spanish. I have misgivings about going over this, envisioning my child asking her new friends for the bathroom. But we started to go over the words. She announced "They are Spanish speakers and we are English speakers." True. "Mommy, how do you ask for the bathroom in English?"

pause.

"Well, honey, we speak English, you just ask for the bathroom."

"No! Mommy, Grandma had another English way."

*sigh*

"Believe me Elspeth, Grandma and I are going to have a LONG talk about this."

Communication.

Chick Bits

On the way through the mountains:

Jeremy: Elspeth, how you doing?

Elspeth: 30 pounds deep!

Jeremy: 30 pounds deep?

Elspeth: Yeah. 30 pounds deep. That's how I'm feeling.

Our week in review

Meet Skyscraper Jackson. Yeah, I'm talking about the plant. My niece picked it out as a house warming present from her family (she liked the "braid" of the stem). I was thrilled to get a shade plant in the desert (I believe my words were "dead plant arriving."). It is thriving in my kitchen, and my daughter decided it needed a name. This is what happens when we have little girls ruling the world. Plants happily living in completely wrong climates with ridiculous names. It works for me.
We took a fieldtrip to an orchard to pick apples.
The trees were so ladden, Ella had no trouble picking apples. After buying a lot of unripe apples, we decided to go home and make applesauce. Lots of it. Elspeth named the applesauce Mr. Sun.

Some friends invited us to go to the zoo with them, so we headed out for a day in search of elephants.
Ella loved the pachyderms, but the lioness attempting to eat small children through the glass had all the mothers edgy. The kids were excited about being kissed by a lion.
Elspeth raided Daddy's closet.

What Ella does, Addie must do too.

Elspeth started pre-school yesterday. She seemed to have a good time, but the only thing I got out of her was that there was a boy named Isaiah in her class. She rushed to assure me that it wasn't her cousin Isaiah (really? I was thinking he flew 2,000 miles to go to a 4 year old class and forgot to mention he would be in the area).

The boy we went to the zoo with, Ryan, is in her class, that helps. She is looking forward to going back to their water table and sand box.

While she was gone, Addie and I were faced with who the life of our party really is. Elspeth barely stops talking to breath, I guess we have just gotten used to giving her the air time, it was quiet without her. We hit the store, and since I had only one goofy child to play with, she finally had enough yelling "Hey Mommy, mommy, MOMMY. No MORE Kisses!"

Clearly we are going to have to create a new balance when Ella is gone.

Elspeth's Desert

Photography by Elspeth (we lost the cord to her camera, and it is proprietary, so we have finally caved and let her use ours - with supervision and a cord attached).