Random updates on a Monday

1. We debated this season whether Ella was ready to try out soccer or not. I am so glad we decided to let her go for it. She is having so much fun and learning a lot. She has a lot of coordination and determination and it is so much fun to see how big she feels after being out there and learning new skills. Reese on the other hand is having fun but she prefers to pick flowers and come to the side lines to ask for a snack while she is supposed to be playing.

2. I am so so so glad that the temperatures are getting warm! We had 24 degree temperatures this week overnight but I really do think that may be the end of winter temperatures. I love that all of the neighborhood kids are out playing again most nights.

3. Most little girls, and some boys too, seem to be completely Frozen obsessed and my girls are no exception. They both watch the movie 10 times per week and luckily it is a really cute movie that I enjoy too and don’t get too tired of. Every day I am told that Reese is Elsa and Ella is Anna. I love that the story is about the love of 2 sisters and I hope it impacts my little girls.

4. Reese and especially Ella love taking pictures lately. So Neal and I end up with up to 40 pictures in a row on our phones that look similar to the below. At least they are entertained for periods of time.

5. We are planting a garden this Spring! My father in law is making some raised garden boxes and I am so excited to do this with my girls this year. I cannot wait to see how it turns out.

6. I am beginning to think Reese is almost done with naps, but the problem is that I am not done with them. I need that time. We have resorted to telling her that she has to have some rest time in my bed with a movie. It normally results in this so it is a win-win for all.

7. I cannot remember if I have mentioned before that we are having issues with Barkley jumping up on the counter anytime there is any sign of food up there. Well last week there was just a container that had had roast in it, no roast left, and she jumped up there and knocked off 2 platters that were up there that Neal and the girls got me for my birthday last year. I walked into the platters shattered in the floor. I didn’t talk to her for the rest of the night. I have to figure this out!

8. Lately Reese has been saying “no way Jose” often and Ella also wants to say this but instead she says “no Jose”. Neal and I laugh every time and she wonders why we are laughing at her.

4 years and 2.5 years

Reese, you have become super skinny and still very tall. You are completely potty trained for months now, even through the night. You weigh 36.6 lbs (75th percentile) & you are 43" tall (97th percentile). You wear a size 6 for length but need about a size 3-4 for width so we have to make due as we can. You wear a size 11 shoe. You have beautiful light brown curly hair that has only been cut twice. You love to wear braids in your hair lately like the sisters on Frozen. You are finally agreeing to wear bows in your hair, sometimes. You and Ella fight often but you have a lot of love for your sister and you are always quick to protect her whenever needed. You adore the movie Frozen. You love Anna, Elsa and still love Rapunzel & Ariel. You love just about all princesses and have great hopes of going to Disney World one day (you don’t know it yet but we plan to take you there next Spring). You love Sofia the 1^st, Doc McStuffins and Tinkerbell. You have begun to really like some movies that I watched growing up like Lion King and Beethoven. You still love your friend Reagan and always ask if we can have her come spend the night (not sure that I am ready for sleepovers yet). You love all things girly including makeup, dress up, high heels, fixing my hair and painting your nails. You say the funniest things lately and are absorbing all kinds of phrases that are hilarious coming out of a little girl’s mouth. You have been exiting the challenging 3 year old phase lately and have become a delightful little girl. You are very considerate and caring. We had your 4^th birthday party at Boingo Bounce (you reluctantly agreed because you really wanted it at jump zone but that place stresses me out too much and I refused). The party was a lot of fun and lots of your sweet friends were there to celebrate with you Frozen style. I love you more than I could ever express and wouldn’t change my life as your mom for anything.

This is a photo of you trying to keep the nurse out of the exam room because you knew she was coming to give you a shot.

 

Ella, you are getting big so fast. You are such a cuddly and sweet little girl. You are tall for your age but still much smaller than your sister was. You are wearing a size 3t and size 7 shoe. You have done so well with potty training. You still have the occasional accident but are wearing panties during all awake hours now. You have entered the terrible twos with a vengeance. I have never seen such extreme fits as you have been throwing lately. You are so independent, which will serve you well one day but can be challenging as a parent when you are two. You insist on doing everything yourself even if you cannot quite do something and you will spend great amounts of time trying to figure it out. This is really cute and fun most times but when we have to be somewhere at a certain time it can be really challenging because trying to come in and help results in an emotional and sometimes violent fit. You are very caring and love to play babies. You love to watch Tangled, Little Mermaid, Frozen, Doc McStuffins, Monsters Inc., Elmo and Bubble Guppies. You love your friends from school and are so excited to go see Caroline, Katie and Emmy (others too). You have such a fun personality like your sister. Last week you transitioned to a big girl bed. You did this with no issue at all. It took your sister months to make this transition and you gladly began sleeping in your new bed the 1st night we put it in and there hasn't been a single issue. You are such a sweet big girl. I love you so much and am so glad that I get to watch you grow up. 

New York, Baby

The girls have a book that Neal got them a couple of years ago on one of his trips to New York called New York Baby. Ella wants to read this book most nights before going to bed. She loves hearing about all of the things to do in New York. We plan to take the girls one day when Neal has to go for work anyways but want them to be a few years older. 

Neal goes to New York for work fairly regularly. I have gotten to join him for the weekend a couple of times in the past couple of years. I am thankful that my mom has come up to hang out with the girls both times. I know it wears her out but I really appreciate the time I got to spend with my husband and the girls love their Emmie time. This last trip I did a lot of shopping, eating, got a foot massage and saw a show. This is a picture of Neal and I at times square about to go into the Disney store to shop for the girls.

Ella is a complete mommy's girl. She loves her daddy but she definitely clings to me. When Neal goes out of town he typically prints a picture for each of us and writes a note to us. Mine usually appreciates me for the things I do and lets me know how much he will miss me. Reese & Ella's usually tells them how much he loves them and will miss them and says to be a good girls for mommy and to help me out. I forgot to give them the notes before I went up to NYC for the weekend so they ended up getting them about half way through his trip. The girls both wanted to bring their picture/note to school each day. I got a text from Ella's teacher letting me know that Ella wanted daddy to nap with her and she sent me this picture. 

I sent it to Neal and he loved it. The next day another teacher sent Neal a note letting him know how much she loved the picture and that she'd been hugging it all day and again wanted to nap with him. He got this picture.

The day before he got home she again sent him a text saying that Ella had wanted to make him a picture so they made this.

I am so thankful that their school keeps us updated with pictures and messages like these. It means a lot. That night before he came home I talked to the girls about how he would be home the next day and would be picking them up from school early. When I walked into Ella's room that next morning she popped up out of bed and yelled "my daddy home?". It was sad to have to tell her he wouldn't be home for another couple of hours but she was so excited to see him once he did get home. The girls have an amazing daddy and they really love him a lot, as do I.

Star Student

Monday night at about 7 pm Reese announced that she was the star student of the week and that she needed me to send “lots” of pictures to school the next day. Reese has a habit of not telling the truth lately so I really did wonder if this was true plus I thought someone at school would have told me about this if it was true (maybe even the week before) so that we could plan for the things we needed to bring and have time to order pictures. I asked if maybe she misunderstood and if she was the start student next week. She began to bawl and said “I am the star student, I really am, I need pictures”. I told her that I believed her and that I was going to send her teacher a note to find out what this means and what we needed to bring, her crying escalated and she said “no don’t send Ms. Kassi a note, I am the star student, I just need you to get lots of pictures for me and a book”. So I just told her okay and sent her teacher a note anyways. It turned out that she was in fact the star student and she did need pictures. Walmart photo lab was closing a few moments later and I was scrambling to figure out what to do because I knew not sending photos was not an option if I didn’t want a completely disappointed 3 year old…this was clearly a BIG deal to her. We dug through drawers and found some old photo paper and just printed some photos off at home. I let her pick a few and once she went to bed figured out the rest. Reese was thrilled with our choices the next day.

 

She has had such a great week knowing that she is the star student and getting to bring a fun item to show each day. Wednesday she got to bring her favorite book, Thursday her favorite stuffed animal and Friday her favorite small toy. Neal had a good idea and decided we should surprise her and get her lunch and show up to eat with her on Wednesday to make it even more special since it was clearly a big deal to her.

 

I am glad that her school does things like this because it has made for a great week for her.

 

Dance, gymnastics and licking glass

Reese and Ella have recently begun a gymnastics class (Reese’s class is half dance, ballet & tap, and half gymnastics). They both love gymnastics and it is so much fun to watch and participate with them. Reese’s class is 1 hour. The first 15 minutes of the class is tap dancing, the second 15 minutes is ballet and the last 30 minutes is gymnastics. During the first half of the class the dance portion is done in a smaller room next to the large gymnastics room. These rooms are separated by a glass wall.

 

Reese is not particularly fond of ballet or tap while her sister is within eye shot having a blast in gymnastics. She will sometimes participate in some of the ballet. During the tap portion she sits against the glass wall and stares at her sister while she is doing gymnastics. Recently she has begun licking the glass while wishing to be in the gymnastics room. So Neal or I will be sitting on the other side of the glass in the viewing area instructing our child to stop licking the glass wall. This seems to be rather amusing to all of the parents sitting around us. I have no aspirations of my daughter being a dancer if she does not want to be but I think we will stick with it for a few more weeks to see if she likes it any better because she begged to be in ballet for weeks prior to the start of this class. If she is still licking glass at that point we will switch to an hour long gymnastics class.

Coco Key resort year 2

This winter has been the coldest winter I have ever experienced with the most precipitation. I am ready for spring more than I ever have been. Last weekend we had a bit of a break from the cold by going to an indoor waterpark in Kansas City. This was our second year to go to this waterpark/hotel and we again had a blast. Last year we went with Reese’s friend Reagan’s family. This year we went with 2 of our neighbors and good friends. We all had a really good time but I think Reese would have more fun with a little girl her age to play with so if we go next year we are going to try to make that happen for her. The weather the week of the trip was terrible. We had multiple snow events and we really weren’t sure if we were going to be able to make the trip until the day before. There was still a lot of ice and snow on the ground but the main roads and freeways were clear so we decided to go.

 

This hotel has an arcade, an indoor pool, waterpark, small store with ice cream bar and a restaurant. The waterpark is definitely the main attraction. The girls had so much fun playing. How cute is Ella with her little baby bff?

The restaurant is pretty good and just so convenient so we ended up eating all of our meals there. The waitresses are so good with kids and one morning Coco the bird stopped in to visit. The girls loved this part. We weren’t sure if Coco was going to visit or not but Reese remembered him from last year and the trip wouldn’t have been complete if she had not seen him. Neal had to have a talk with the front desk about when he would be making an appearance because staff kept telling us times he would be there and he wouldn’t show up. I think the front desk nearly asked Neal to get into the bird costume because no one really wanted to do it. Luckily they realized the importance to our little group. Reese had been telling everyone about him and the other kids really wanted to see him also.

Reese was really daring this year and did all 3 of the really big slides. 2 of which you go down in a tube and one you go down with no tube. She did them over and over. Ella did the medium sized slides, which for Ella is pretty daring. They both had so much fun and were really worn out.

 

Neal’s cousin took care of Barkley for us. I know Barkley loves her but I think she worries about when her family will be home when we are gone and may not sleep as well. She always sleeps so hard when we come home and snores so loud you can hear it from the next room. I adore this sweet dog.

Random updates on a Monday

I'm behind on updating so I thought I would do a "random updates" to cover a variety of topics.

 

1. First and foremost, I am so proud of Ella! She has been wearing panties for more than 2 weeks with only 3 accidents! This is 5 months earlier than Reese and it has been so much easier so far. Look at how happy she was to be putting on panties for the very first time.

 

This picture is the end of the 1st day and she is still in the same pants and panties. She didn't have a single accident! I am so proud!

 

 

2. Reese started a ballet, tap and gymnastics class at the Little Gym 3 weeks ago. We went only planning for Reese to start this class but we discovered that they have a gymnastics class for Ella's age at the same time and they let her try it out. They both had so much fun so we've enrolled them both. This is a really fun activity to have to look forward to for each of them.

 

 

3. Saturday before last I could tell that Ella was really tired at nap time. When I took her up she threw a big fit (she never does this) and refused to rock with me. She went over to her door to try to escape and laid down instead. She fell right to sleep. It was so sad and cute. I rocked by myself for 10 minutes and once she was deeply asleep I moved her to her bed. She slept for 3 hours.

 

 

 

4. Sunday before last I spend an hour drawing with the girls. I took 2 requests from each of them. Ella requested Elmo and Minnie and Reese requested Daisy and Sophia the 1st. I love that they think my drawing attempts are masterpieces, ha.

 

 

5. Ella loves having her picture taken lately. She sits down and usually places something beside her and begs me to take her pictures. She then wants to see the photo and will study it for a few moments. She is just so cute.

 

 

6. I have been waiting for a while for Ella's hair to be long enough for pigtails. At about this age Reese wore her hair in pigtails every day and I thought it was just so cute. Ella's is barely long enough and it will look much cuter a month from now but I am so excited that we are to a point that it is possible.

7. Reese looks so big in this picture. She is growing up so fast and I want to slow down time. She still has the unbelievably frustrating 3 year old side to her but so often she is such a delight. I love her so much and am having a lot of fun at this age.

 

8. This year after Christmas I punched holes into each of the photo cards and put them on a ring. The girls love looking through the photos. I think I will do this every year and I might even save them. I really love this.