Out of Hibernation

It's been a long winter, but spring is officially here!   True, the weather is still rather cold, and it does not actually feel like spring yet . . . but there are signs all around that the beautiful weather is around the corner.  We've been hibernating a bit this winter.  We stayed fairly busy with school, Bible study, church, errands, etc.,   But when we had down time we often entered hibernation mode and stayed in our pajamas all day.  We snuggled up for reading books together, we did a lot of painting and drawing, and we made a lot of chicken soup and beef stew and hot cocoa!

The Christmas holiday kicked things off.  We had a wonderful time in NY with our families, including a fun trip to Great Grandma's house.

We had a little snow this year, but not enough to use the brand-new-bought-two-years-ago-but-never-been-used snowblower.  Leah mostly likes eating snow and trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue.  Eliana is very ambitious about snow, wanting to build giant snowmen and forts and have snowball fights.  There is inevitable disappointment when all of those things can't happen with a mere 2 inches of snow.  But, she did make a nice snowball that has been in our freezer since January.

Leah went to her very first pajama party at the library. Eliana begged and pleaded for Leah to be able to go with her, on what was previously a "big girl" privilege.  However, once we got to the pajama party Eliana was out of sorts and had several meltdowns over pretty minor things.  She refused to join the group for the final photo, and spent most of the party moping.  I wondered if she was rethinking her decision to share her special privilege with Leah, or maybe just having an off night.  Sometimes it is tough to be four and a half.  Leah had a lot of fun though!

 

 

The highlight of the winter for these girls was probably the acquisition of these beautiful fairies.  The girls both love the Tinkerbell movie, and the Secret of the Wings movie (when Tinkerbell meets the sister she never knew she had!).  (FYI:  Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure, and The Great Fairy Rescue = Way Too Scary!)  When Eliana saw that Sara had gotten these fairies as a Christmas present, she fell instantly in love.  In fact, on Christmas day we hardly heard a peep out of those two as they played with the fairies for hours.  It was just the motivation we needed to help Eliana to learn to fall asleep by herself.   Eliana will proudly tell you that she earned these fairies by going to sleep by herself like a big girl.  It's not exactly by herself . . . but it is a big improvement.  She has a parent tuck her in and stay with her for 15 minutes, and then it is up to her to fall asleep by herself.  Ten nights of this earned her the fairies.  The fairies don't look quite as beautiful as when they first arrived.  They've switched their clothes all around, not a single set of shoes is together, and Tinkerbell herself went missing about a month ago and has not resurfaced . . . but the fairies are still loved and played with every day. 

Here is Leah reading the fairies a book about themselves.  I wish you could hear the adorable narration that went along with this picture!

And of course the fairies (as well as some beloved family members) showed up for Peter's birthday.  Which also happened to be the weekend of the long awaited Laurie Berkner Concert!!!

Another highlight was our trip to Chuck E. Cheese.  I vowed I would never take the kids there . . . . but thanks to persistent commercials on Nick Jr., the girls were begging and pleading.  It was loud, crowded, and filled with fluorescent lights.  They loved every moment of it.  (Until they both had full blown meltdowns together when it was time to leave.)  Do you like how they both stick their tongues out when they're concentrating?

Leah had herself a half birthday.  She is two-and-a-half years old, and growing and changing every day.  She was gifted a harmonica (just like Eliana's), and her very first necklace.  Eliana and Leah enjoy playing together all the time and are extremely close.  Eliana understands Leah's speech better than anyone else and often is called on to interpret.  Eliana and Leah play imaginatively together all day long, constantly pretending to be different characters and acting out various scenarios. Leah has also developed a very strong will, and her own ideas and agenda.  This means that where she would previously acquiesce to Eliana, they now have more to argue about.  While they do argue a lot, the love between them is strong!  Eliana is affectionate and protective towards Leah, and Leah wants to do absolutely everything Eliana does, and clings to her in new situations for security. 

 
Leah loved her little gifts, but nothing beats Daddy's blackberry (and Daddy's lap!)  (Except for maybe Mommy's armpit, which is still an ongoing issue around here!!)

Eliana had her first attempt at a sleepover!!  Look how excited these two are . . . they certainly don't look like they're thinking about going to sleep!!   Eliana actually did fall asleep pretty quickly.  But Seniah, although she tried to be brave, missed her Mommy and went home a little after midnight.

 

We've had a blessed winter, and we're excited to come out of hibernation and into spring.  We're about to lose the bathrobes . . . so stay tuned for parks, hikes, and short-sleeve shirts!  

Thankful for Cousins

We had a fun Thanksgiving, with a lot to be thankful for.  The girls each gave a performance at school and had a Thanksgiving party.  We traveled to NY and had fun with Gran, and also enjoyed spending time with  Auntie Rhonda and Ki-Jana who were visiting from North Carolina.  We had Thanksgiving dinner at Nana and Papa's among friends and family.  Traveling to NY is so much fun.  It is thrilling for the girls, and also completely exhausting for everyone.  I took my camera everywhere we went, and did not manage to take even one photo.  Thankfully Uncle Matt & Aunt Jill did a fabulous job of capturing the "cousin's day" that took place on Saturday.

We started off with arts & crafts

Leah calls her cousin, "My Penny," and Eliana corrects her and says, "Our Penny"

 

Sara, working on her gorgeous Tinkerbell puzzle

The finished product!

Eliana working on her Stellaluna puzzle

Stellaluna! Love the detail of the bats and birds

Life is good when playing with cousins!

Everyone enjoyed pizza for lunch.

These two could wash hands for hours.

The girls snuggled on the couch for a movie.

So much sweetness!

Nana Nancy and her four great-grandchildren

Closer to Five than Four

I have a confession:  I think I like half birthdays more than regular birthdays.  They are one of my favorite traditions.   Birthdays only come once a year, and when you are a small child a year feels like a decade.  There is a lot of pressure to get it right and make it special.  But half birthdays don't come with any pressure because there is nothing mandatory about them. Eliana woke up this morning and was four-and-a-half!  But, it was just a regular day.  Here are the girls as we were leaving for school this morning.

 

 

I think Eli may look a little older, now that she is four-and-a-half . . . .

I've always liked half-birthdays, but last year Eliana wanted so badly to be four I decided to make an especially big fuss about turning three-and-a-half.  We had a cake, and she got one special present, a game called Caribou Island.  We all had a lot of fun.  Who doesn't like an extra celebration? 

Last year's half birthday.  (Look how little Leah is with her short hair and binky!)

This year Eliana got to pick her half-birthday dinner, and got her choice of "happy cake."  She chose macaroni & cheese (homemade of course!) with a turkey dog and raw carrots.  We had carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert.

She wanted Leah to help blow out the candles, but not Daddy.

Don't they look proud?  They blew 'em all out.

The Happy Cake & gift

A Happy Girl with her gift.  (The new Tinkerbell DVD!)

Yup, I like half birthdays.  Maybe a year is too long to wait for me too.  I find my kids ask for things all the time (sweets! treats! toys! more toys!), and so I have to say "no" a lot.  It is fun to have a day to say YES to cake and YES to a special gift and most of all Thank You Lord for my daughters' precious lives, they are treasured and cherished!  

Nothing to Worry About Here!

Eliana got her head stuck in a rocking chair this week.  It was a child-sized rocker, gifted from Fred at Lakeside when Eliana was a newborn baby.  It was around 3:30 on Tuesday, and I was cooking in the kitchen when I heard Eliana cry, “Help!” from the family room.  Eliana cries “Help!” about 400 times a day so I did not immediately drop my spatula.  But, then she started really screaming so I ran over to see Leah trying to pull the rocking chair off of Eliana’s head.  The first order of business was to get Leah to drop the rocker, which definitely helped things.  And then, I calmly assured Eliana, “Don’t worry, if you were able to get your head in there, we will definitely be able to get it out.  Just stay calm and we’ll find the right angle.”   I adjusted her head, I adjusted the chair, I tried all kinds of angling and sliding, but her dome would not budge out of that chair.  I decided to use a little force, which resulted in a lot of screaming and a beet red ear.  Eliana started whaling again. 

I decided that some additional grownup help was needed.  It was agony to leave her, but I convinced Eliana to be brave while I went to get a neighbor.  I took Leah with me, lest she decide to try to free Eliana herself again, and we ran barefoot through the backyard to our next-door neighbors front door.  Thank God, the front door was open and Jordan was right there in the living room with his mother, Pam.  “Uh, Can you help us?  Eliana has her head stuck in a rocking chair?”  The neighbors went running with us back to the family room, where Eliana was calmly waiting.  Jordan said, “Don’t worry, if you were able to get your head in there, we will definitely be able to get it out,” and proceeded to try to find the right angle to free her head.  When it was obvious that her head was not budging, he went to work with the screwdriver.  He took all of the screws out, but the chair was finely crafted and hammered tight.  “Hang in there Eliana,” I said. “When we get you out you’ll have a giant ice cream sundae, with whipped cream and sprinkles and jelly beans and cookies on top!”  At this point I was ready to call the fire department, but Jordan said he could run home for his saw and saw my baby out.  So, with Jordan’s saw inches from her face, and Pam shielding the sawdust from her eyes and nose, Eliana was sawed out of the rocking chair.   We clapped!  We hugged!  We thanked Jordan and Pam!  We thanked God most of all!  Leah announced, “I have poopies Mommy!” and Jordan said, “I think I do too!”

Eliana remembered every last detail of the ice cream sundae that was promised her, and of course Leah got a matching sundae, jellybeans and all.  I did not bother asking, but she offered, “You know Mom, I don’t even know why I stuck my head in that chair.”  But, I think I know why.  I think God was teaching me an important lesson, in a kind and gentle way.  The lesson:  Stop Worrying.   I have always had a tendency to worry, but it has gotten worse since the kids were born.  I have an overactive imagination, and I am talented at imagining horrific circumstances.   It is effortless; they just come to me.  You’d be amazed at the scenarios I can think up.  I know that I need to train my mind to not entertain these thoughts, but somehow thinking of each potential hazard makes me feel more equipped and prepared to deal with it.  But a head stuck in a rocking chair?  Nope, that one never crossed my mind.  It was as if God was saying to me, “You can worry about everything under the sun, but you’ll never cover every possible scenario anyway, so just relax, I’ll take care of you!”  And it is true.  I don’t think it was coincidental that our neighbors were there to immediately help us out.  Pam to help nurture and comfort; Jordan to wield the saw. 

The assignment I have been left with is to stop worrying.  Philippians 4:8 says, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.”  And Luke 12:25, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?”   So I am meditating on these scriptures every time I start imagining potential disasters, and I’m focusing on the fact that God wants me to have peace, and does not want my heart to be troubled or afraid (John 14:27). 

After Eliana was freed from the chair, she asked, “Why didn’t you take a picture Mommy?” and sounded a little annoyed that I hadn’t. I admit the thought crossed my mind, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to take a photograph in the midst of a crisis.  This mom Katie did manage to snap a photo.  (Eliana was faced the opposite direction, but this should give you a good idea of what she looked like.)  This little tearaway toddler actually made the news in the UK!  I guess Eliana is not the only kid to get her head stuck in a rocking chair, and both of these kids required the fire department to cut them out!

 

Ice Cream makes everything better!

"I tried to help my Didta {Sister}"

 

My Kids are Weird.

My kids are weird.  I suspect that other people’s kids are weird too. But here is the latest from mine.

Leah is completely obsessed with my armpit.  It is a long story.  It was not too much of a problem over the summer – basically when she wanted comfort she would snuggle on my lap and stick her hand in my armpit, or at night she’d roll over in bed and try to wiggle a finger into my armpit.  It sounds really strange, but I had gotten used to it.  Now that the weather is cooler and I’m wearing long sleeved shirts, my armpit is no longer as accessible.  Leah started screaming in anger, “Where’s Mommy’s armpit???” the first time I had on a long sleeve shirt.  So, lately we’ve been having armpit battles.  She screams, “I want Mommy’s armpit!!!”  I try to console her that she has the rest of Mommy, so that should be enough.  I hate to admit it, but Leah often wins these battles by her persistence, and she is getting adept at wiggling through a long-sleeve shirt to reach the armpit.  Arrrggh.  

As for Eliana, she has started lying about her age.  She tells everyone that she meets she is 5 years old.  EVERYONE!!!  The lady at the supermarket, her teacher at church, kids on the playground.  I think she is starting to believe it.  She tells me that when Leah turned 2, she turned 5.

Leah has become a lot more verbal, and is better able to articulate her fears.  She calls anyone threatening or scary a “mean guy.”  This applies to Halloween displays in all the stores, and it makes it easy to know when she is afraid so I can comfort her.  But she also says it about random people (the cashier in the store, the friendly older man who came over to say how cute the girls were, etc.).  The weirdest one though is the Geico gecko.  As soon as the commercial comes on she screams, “Mean guy!!!”  and wants the channel changed.

Eliana has been claiming that she does not sleep at night.  When she wakes up in the morning and I ask how she slept, she says, “I stayed in my bed, but I was awake all night.”  She says that she never dreams because she never sleeps.  Last week, in the middle of the night she woke up crying and afraid of something.  Even in that upset state, she claimed that she had not been asleep!!!  She definitely believes this one!

Leah’s latest obsession is “Elmo Robot.”  Nobody really knows what Elmo Robot is, or where he came from.  She likes Elmo.  And at some point she started to like robots.  But now every time she gets paper and crayon in hand she demands that I come over and “Draw Elmo Robot!!”  In fact, if I am busy and unable to do it, she demands that Eliana draw Elmo Robot for her. (Did I mention that Leah has gotten really demanding lately???)  Basically we just draw an Elmo face with stick legs and arms, and it appeases her, but Eliana and I are both hoping she forgets about Elmo Robot soon!

 

Lastly, Eliana is obsessed with drawing pictures of Hell.  To be fair, she draws Heaven too.  Although the Hell drawings are clearly her artistic passion.  Bryan, a very sweet boy from our church "cell group," got her started with the Heaven/Hell drawings when he gifted a few of his own to her.  It is really fun that Eliana’s drawings are starting to have more clarity and story behind them!  I can’t wait to see what will be next after her afterlife phase!

Popping the head off the marigold.  Sorry Daddy!

"Come on Mom, let's play catch!"

They rarely actually sit their tushies on the swings.

Leah gets a head start for races.

Eli loves dressing up.  This is how we did our grocery shopping.

But first they hi-jacked the car.

"I'm ready Big Sister.  Where we going?"

"I'll push all the buttons!!!"

Fairy Princess at the Wheel!!!

Eli's Soccer practice!!  (She's farthest left)

Leah hanging out at soccer practice.

Hell:  Fire & Brimstone

Heaven!  She said, "First I drew just me and God, but then I decided if I'm there, I want you to be with me too Mommy!"