Family Birthday Extravaganza

Sunday afternoon we celebrated our birthdays with family. The party was for Annie, Ellie, Greg and I -- and it was so much fun. We had a ton of people there, and the girls had so much fun.

Here's Ellie showing off some pictures of herself to Grandpa KC.

Uncle David told Annie to feel his hair (after a recent hair cut) -- Annie's look cracked us all up. (Including Grandma Ruth, in the background.)

Annie opening gifts.

Ellie happily showing off one of her new dresses. The girls each got three new dresses/skirts, which means most of the night was spent changing the girls' clothes. This one was from Great Grandma Betty, and Annie has a matching one.

Here's my Grandma Betty and me

Uncle Karl loves tearing up wrapping paper.

Ellie decimated her birthday cake.

Annie was a bit more refined -- although they both stripped their cake of all sprinkles and frosting by the time they were done.

Ellie very excited looking at something with Grandma Ruth.

Ellie trying to put her new headband on Great Grandma Kay.

This is just a video of Ellie dancing to some music on Sesame Street from last week. This child dances for literally hours of the day.

The Times They Are a-Changin'

It's my 31st birthday today. I'd almost completely forgotten.

You have to understand, growing up, I was the 'May Birthday Girl.' Despite a birthday that didn't come 'til almost the last day of May, I celebrated (and made sure everyone else did too) my birthday all month long. Add to this an annual Memorial Day family reunion I attended most of my childhoood, where everyone (tons of distant relatives I barely recognized) knew me as the Memorial Day baby or birthday girl, and helped us celebrate the momentous occasion . . . so I have always had a slightly overly inflated sense of my birthday's importance. :-)

Then I went and had two kids with birthdays mere weeks before my own. And you know, they're more fun to celebrate. Way more fun to shop for. And so much cuter in party hats. And my birthday has faded to the background (even in my own mind.) And I don't mind at all.

To perfectly illustrate the change -- Greg, late last night, apologetically said, "Um, hon, is there something I should've done to get ready for your birthday . . . I've just been so busy . . . " (He's been working so much lately, plus working in the yard, pouring a concrete slab and now building a shed from the ground up . . . so he's been really busy. Plus, we'd already talked about gifts weeks ago, and figured we bought a new camera (although technically the money for the camera was a very generous gift), all the accessories, we're building a shed, I bought stuff to decorate the nursery, and I want to get a new stroller . . . so we decided that our birthday/mothers day/fathers days were more than taken care of for the year, and no gifts need to be exchanged). Anyway, in response to Greg's apologetic tone, I suddenly realized, "Oh my gosh, TOMORROW'S my birthday!" It was honestly the first time I had made that connection! Then, amusingly, Greg's eyes widen, "Tomorrow? I was thinking it was sometime early next week!"

I think my birthday mojo is officially gone. :-)

I've come a long way from the girl who used to remind people starting May 1st . . .

I'll Help You With That, Mom

Ellie and Annie spent the day playing with Aunt Lacy. The girls went and fed ducks, went to Chick-fil-A, and played most of the afternoon. When they finally came back home, Ellie had to go down for a nap, but the Aunt/Niece bonding time wasn't over for Annie, who got to do manicures and pedicures with Lacy. After Lacy left, Annie painted my toe nails for me. Awhile later, I was painting my fingernails when Annie came up and said, "You don't really bend so well anymore, huh Mom? That's why it was best for me to paint your toes for you . . . "
Sadly, she probably did a better job than I could've even if I wasn't 8 months pregnant. :-)

Sounding and Long Es

Annie decided that now that she's four, she wants to know how to read. So, I bought the reader "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons," the same reader my Mom taught the majority of her children to read from. We dived in for the first time yesterday. We ended up kinda skimming through the first 80 pages or so, since Annie would get annoyed when I asked her to tell me 'letter sounds' for too long. She's staring at me like I'm an idiot while pointing at the 'b', and she'd roll her eyes as she sighed, "buh." The one that shocked me though was there was a long 'e' sound. Indicated by the line over the top of the 'e', for those of us who have to be reminded of these kinda elementary school symbols. As soon as she saw it, she sounded it out as "Eee", rather than "Ehhh," and I was really surprised she'd gotten the long 'e' sound right without me explaining the symbol (just a minute before she'd sounded out the regular 'i' as 'ihhh', and not 'eye', so it's not like she's not used to sounding vowels.) I asked, "How did you know to sound it as 'Eeee'?" She looked at me, again, like I'm stupid, and said, "The line over it means it says its own name . . . " "Who taught you that?" "I don't know, you. Or Grandma." Well, I'm guessing Grandma. Or PBS.
We got to sounding out actual words, and I was shocked at how quickly and smoothly she was sounding them out. "Rrrrrr-eeeehhh-ddddd. [Split second later]. Red." We even got to the first page of four and five word sentences (around page 80 or 90 or something) before she got bored of reading and wanted to go play with her new birthday toys.
Here's the part where I'm a bad Mom though. Oh my goodness, did it get boring! Not only that, I was finding myself getting a bit impatient. The third or fourth time she'd come across the same word, sounding it out, I'd just want to jump in and be all, "You've seen this one again and again . . . H-I-S is always going to be 'his', you don't need to sound it anymore, just recognize it and it's so much quicker." See, bad Mom. :-) I think at least part of this comes from the last kid I remember learning how to read was my sister Lacy, who had a photographic memory, so she really did just remember words after sounding them out once. I sometimes forget that without that gift, everyone else has to learn through repetition and building their skills. The other part is that I'm fairly used to language coming easy to Annie. Just the other day in the car, as Ellie was shrieking out her version of a 'Glee' song, Annie sighed and said, "This is getting rather ob-nox-ious, Ellie!" Annie just gets words. She incorporates them upon her first hearing them, and they become a part of her vocabulary instantaneously. She has an amazing ability to suss out what a word means, and how to use it. And she'll occasionally ask for clarification of a word's definition if she's not 100% sure. I'm so excited for her to read, because I know it'll open up this whole new world for her. And, I just want it to come easy for her. But if there's one thing I've learned from watching Ellie's speech slowly grow is not everything comes as fast as we'd like it, but it comes when it's supposed to. Although, I should probably not get my hopes up too much for Annie to be reading story books all by herself to Ellie to entertain them while I'm nursing the new baby. :-) (In approximately 5 weeks! That's coming up quick!)

Another Birthday Day

We had Annie's 'friend' birthday party yesterday. Despite some minor stress -- last minute changes due to less cooperative weather, more last minute changes due to the weather suddenly kinda cooperating, Greg working all Saturday, (but I didn't have to fly solo, since Star, Talina and David saved the day by coming and helping out!)

The girls had a lot of fun, they jumped in the bouncy house for a half hour before Annie's friends even showed up. (The weather was especially nice before the party started -- but even after it got going the kids were able to play outside for quite awhile!)

Most of the time Annie enjoyed herself immensely -- but, she's been a bit whiny and pouty lately, and that side of her reared its ugly head time and time again during the party -- here's three of her 'crying in a corner' incidents. :-) There were more. :-) It kinda reminds me of my 11th birthday, where there was a different girl crying in every corner of our basement :-)

Here's Annie with her decorated-all-by-herself cupcake and ice cream sundae.

Ellie was a huge fan of the ice cream.

Aunt Talina was in the party spirit.

After the party, we met up with Greg's parents (and Greg, who was able to come visit on his lunch) at Chuck E Cheese to celebrate the girls' birthdays. I think Grandpa KC was enjoying the 'knock over the duck' game as much, if not more than, the girls. :-)

The girls saying goodbye to Daddy.

Ellie and Grandpa playing arcade games.

Ellie's a crazy driver.

Hanging out with Grandma and riding the Merry-Go-Round.

BMI Charts and a Well-Child

We had the girls' well-child checkups today. Both were deemed healthy, developmentally sound and cute as buttons. I may be paraphrasing that last part. Ellie was a model patient, Annie acted fairly shy, they both freaked out uncontrollably when they got shots. But both quieted with shocking speed when handed suckers.

My all-time favorite part of the checkup:
When Ellie was classified as 'overweight'. Um, yeah, my teeny tiny 23.5 lb. two year old, who is often mistaken as much younger, doesn't have an ounce of fat on her, barely fitting into 24 month clothing, you can make out all of her ribs, is still sitting rear facing in her carseat, someone feed that kid some more food already, two year old is overweight according to the BMI chart.

Let me say, I've always felt the BMI chart is a load of crap. It takes nothing like structure, muscle mass and build into account and just nicely lines everyone up in a row and classifies them as various levels of healthy. The most physically fit (athletes, weight lifters, etc) often find themselves on the 'overweight' and even 'obese' end of the spectrum due to impressive muscle to fat ratios. I'm not like super offended by it being used as a simple diagnostic tool, but I think it's stupid and a waste of everyone's time. There are better ways to measure one's physical fitness or health, the BMI chart is just way too much 'one-size-fits-all' and it just isn't that effective. Bringing back to the original story: Ellie's doctor stood there looking a bit shocked as she stared at the chart in front of her. "This says she's 'overweight' . . . " she stares at Ellie for a second, wide-eyed, "look at her! That's ridiculous!" I was actually pretty surprised that it would classify Ellie as overweight, but I wasn't overly shocked that the chart was incredibly ineffective, but my poor doctor looked just flabbergasted. :-)
Ellie weighed in at an impressive 24 lbs (dressed), and was just about 31 inches tall. 18th percentile in weight -- the highest she's been -- hey, maybe she is getting fat! ;-) And a shrimpy 3% in height.
Annie is almost 38 inches tall now, hovering around 13th percentile in height. And 36.5 lbs., and 65th percentile in weight.
Both of my girls could stand to grow a few inches, as they are both short for their age, but I think they're perfect the way they are :-) Even if they are apparently being counted on all those overweight/obese childhood obesity studies you see! :-) And, I think growth spurts are coming. Both Greg and I are of average height,so I don't imagine they'd stay really short forever. Either way though, their doctor declared them both perfectly healthy and fit and active and she isn't worried in the least. Except possibly about the validity of the BMI charts. :-)

After the doctor's visit, we ran errands for a few hours. See, we'd planned this super fun birthday party for Annie with her friends tomorrow -- a bouncy house, dozens of outdoor games and toys, a new sandbox just waiting to get used -- until, of course, the ever changing forecast seems to have settled on 'craptacular weather' for tomorrow. So now, I'll have 10 kids or so -- which is more than I would've let Annie invite if I'd known it would be an indoor party :-) -- to entertain inside. So, we went and bought some craft kits and party stuff for tomorrow, and I'm hoping we can pull off the last minute change. After running errands, we got Ellie home for a nap, and Annie ready for her outdoor dance recital this evening. She looked so adorable all dressed up, and had a lot of fun (despite the cold weather making her whiny towards the end.) Ellie had fun watching the dancers, up until we were leaving, she tripped over Dad's foot and with a loud 'thunk' hit her head against the asphalt. It was very sad, but she only cried for a minute before she was distracted by something shiny, and didn't even seem to notice her impressive new bruise (a bruise I'm glad she hadn't had hours earlier at her well-child check up! It's kinda nasty looking!)

Here's a chilly Annie after her dance.

A pouty Annie in Dad's arms (to her credit, she was cold and her one leg was hurting from her shots earlier in the day.)

Ellie about two minutes after her big tumble -- the bruise and goose egg were showing up already --

And lastly, just two pictures from yesterday. Ellie and Annie seemed to enjoy nothing more than getting Birthday phone calls where people sang "Happy Birthday" to them. This is both of them on the phone with Aunt Talina yesterday.

(Aunt Star wins the prize, for singing "Happy Birthday" in her cubicle at work -- Aunt Lacy comes in second for getting the juvenile delinquents she works with to sing with her on the phone. Both of these phone calls had Annie and Ellie rolling on the floor laughing. Well, the phone prizes -- Aunt Andrea and Uncle Cody win the 'came out and wished them 'Happy Birthday' in person' awards. Star and Talina are coming out tomorrow to help with the friend birthday party tomorrow -- winning them big points with me at least!) :-)

Two Years Ago Today . . .

Happy 2nd Birthday Ellie!

Ellie has unbelievable amounts of personality crammed into her tiny frame. Everyone comments on her personality, charm and humor. She's a little show off, dancing and singing and jumping up and down for anyone who walks into our house -- her and Annie get quite competitive for the attention and accolades of any and all visitors. My midwife commented at our appointment this week, "I have never seen her not giggling and laughing -- she is the happiest kid I've ever met." Which, is the kinda comment that we hear often, but makes Greg and I kinda chuckle -- 'cause in the privacy of our own home with no audience besides those responsible for her very existence, she can be quite, um, opinionated. And the child wakes up from a nap like an angry, hungry bear coming out of a long hibernation. She seems absolutely pissed that we let her waste the afternoon napping, and she angrily swats at us, and cries and yells and throws fits for the first 20-30 minutes she's awake. It's not the most pleasant time of day in our house :-). She has a fiery little personality, and she does everything big -- she freaks out big, she hugs and cuddles big (nothing melts my heart quite like the several times a day she comes up and throws her arms around me and squeezes me tightly), she plays big. She dances and jumps and climbs in ways her sister wasn't even thinking about at this age. This is the one I worry about in terms of fat lips, big spills and Instacare visits.
She adores her big sister and wants to do everything Annie does. She stares out the window, crying, "Sisser, sisser!" for several minutes after Annie's disappeared into her preschool. Her biggest source of heartache seems to be that her sister is so social, and goes not only to dance and preschool, but often goes and spends her afternoons at friends' houses. It's been interesting, because at this age Annie was pretty much used to just hanging out with me 90% of the time -- Ellie on the other hand will just stare at me, and finally sigh, flop down and agree to do a puzzle with Mom, even though you can tell she's not necessarily pleased with being sister-less and hanging out only with Mommy.
I've already talked a ton about her amazing non-verbal communication skills on my blog, and they are still a constant source of amazement for us, to watch her get her point across in ingenious ways. Add to that her every growing vocabulary, and she's pretty much able to get whatever she wants now.
I can't get over how smart and funny she is -- how much fun she makes life, for herself and everyone around her. I love my girls' big personalities, watching them grow and develop into their own people is by far one of my greatest joys in life.

Here's what I was doing two years ago today . . .

Our 6 pound bundle of joy.

Here she is at one year old -- this kid has always had the most infectious smiles. Her facial expressions and grins are one of her most frequently commented on features.

Birthday spaghetti dinner.

Not the greatest picture -- but I love how the birthday card looks half her size . . .

I wouldn't think to describe Ellie as 'cuddly', until I stop and think of how often she throws herself against my chest and wants hugs, and I realize just how affectionate and cuddly she really is.

Then, this morning, we had fudge pops (in Mom's bed) for Ellie's birthday breakfast. She thought it was possibly they coolest thing ever.

Happy Birthday Boo!

The Birthday Girl

Annie had a great fourth birthday today (until we put her to bed for the night, then there's just been sobbing from the previously overjoyed birthday girl . . . guess '4' is not the magical age that would bring about the end of the nighttime battles.) I think her favorite part (besides walking around and telling Ellie, "I'm the birthday girl, I am in charge") was getting phone calls from various relatives. She giggled and exclaimed again and again, "I love having people call to sing to me, it's the funnest and funniest ever!"
All day she talked about it being her birthday, and her turning four. So, I was amused when I put her down for bed tonight and she asked quietly, "Mom, when is my real birthday?" I was kind of surprised, since we'd been celebrating all day, and she'd been proclaiming her birthday-ness from the rooftops, "What do you mean, baby? Today is your real birthday." She nodded sadly and said, "No Mom, when do I really turn four?" Again, surprised, "Annie, you are four years old now . . . "
Her response, looking sadly at her hands and feet, "I don't think so Mom . . . nothing growed any bigger, I think I'm still three." I had to explain that she wasn't going to notice any dramatic size difference in her hands just because she was four, that she grows a little bit every day. I don't know if she believes me . . .

After Daddy got home from work, we opened presents. Ellie got to open a few of hers too. The best present though had to be the new sandbox Daddy built (and is still working on, as there is still about 3/4ths of the sand to be added, but the girls had a blast just playing with the one little sand hill in the middle.) Afterwards, Grandma Karine, Grandpa Robert and Uncle Cody came by (Cody gave Ellie a singing Elmo toy, which meant Ellie was bouncing around singing "Elmo's World", while regularly stopping to point at the toy and exclaim, "Doh-doh, Momo! Doh-doh, Momo!" Which is Ellie speak for, "Look! Cody gave me an Elmo!") And Aunt Andrea came to visit the birthday girls. They definitely loved having all the visitors and phone calls today!

Here is when Ellie gave Annie her gift to unwrap . . .

The birthday girl.

Ellie gave Annie a "Princesses Hair Kit", which came with plastic versions of curling irons, straighteners and a blow dryer that really blows air (a huge hit with the girls) -- this was definitely one of the favorites, and both girls couldn't stop playing with it.

Ellie got her own little cash register (Annie got a Disney Princess version, Ellie's is more a toddler-ish version) -- here she is paying cash for her purchase. Greg and I were a bit concerned when Annie was playing with her Disney one and we heard the phrase, "Thank you! Your total comes to 965 dollars." Seriously!? Not like, "$8.52" or something reasonable; my four year old's pretend purchases rack up near a thousand bucks!?

Out in the sandbox, definitely one of the highlights of the day.

The girls' favorite thing to do was climb on top of the little hill and jump off --

My parents brought back some dresses from their last trip to Mexico --

Ellie using the toy hair straightener . . . in her own way . . .