Cousin snuggles with their dolphins. Yes, this is the cousin who jumpstarted Ellison's love of dolphins. Livy brought her giant Daisy dolphin and her Pillow Pet dolphin (and Ellison has the very same two), and they even joined in on the birthday morning in Mommy & Daddy's bed.
Little Miss Princess all dressed and ready for school. She wore her "Birthday Girl" tiara for the morning. She is just so into posing lately, silly girl.
God, I love this face!!!
After a fun school Friday, complete with cupcakes for her class' snack, we (G&G, Olivia, and me)picked her up to take her to Chick-Fil-A - her fave place to go for lunch. It just so happens that Grandpapa has a particular fondness for Chick-Fil-A when they visit.
Daddy ended up taking a spontaneous half-day off work, but wasn't able to make it in time to join us for lunch. After playing for a while with Liv, Alyssa came over for an hour while her mom was working. It worked out good, because Ellison will always take any time she can with Alyssa or the twins. Alyssa was sweet to even bring Ellison a birthday gift.
Then, Ellison couldn't stand it any more, and asked if she could open her presents...
Her new LaLaLoopsey doll that Livy had picked out especially with her in mind when she was shopping with her mom.
Lite Brite set from Aunt Carrie & Uncle Jeff...
Cinderella polly castle set from Aunt Andrea, Uncle Josh, and her cousins...
A whole collection of various Squinkies from G&G...
Yes, a tool belt, from G&G - Ellison loves helping Daddy fix or put together things with tools.
A camera from Mom & Dad so Ellison can stop using ours all the time. :-)
Her new pink hat from Aunt Andrea, Uncle Josh, and the kiddos (she got a black one, too, from G&G)...
The Rapunzel wig she had wanted, from Aunt Carrie & Uncle Jeff. She's always wanted long hair. Now she wants long hair so she can put in a side ponytail (like Liv did when she was here).
While Ellison was at school, and even after she got home, we had been decorating away in preparation for her birthday party the following day.
Alyssa, Hannah, Mary Grace, Ashley and Destiny (two of the three neighborhood girls that moved in a few months ago) all came over to check things out. Word spreads fast in the 'hood. They're always bringing each other over to see what cool things Ellison has. That sounds braggy, and that's not what I mean, but Ellison does have a lot of fun things that family likes to shower her with - she's very fortunate. Anyway, we took the opportunity to sing to Ellison, light some cupcakes, and share them with the girls. Hannah and Mary Grace brought her some of their things they don't play with anymore, which Ellison always loves.
L to R: Ashley, Alyssa, Olivia, Ellison, Hannah or Mary Grace (not sure which), and Destiny
Our token recliner birthday shot with a homemade sign. :-)
In school, each kid gets to take home Bubbles the birthday bear for the weekend when it's their birthday. They (meaning us parents) then write a little story telling of the adventures Bubbles got to go on with them for their birthday. So Bubbles got to go to Natty Greene's with the Pappenheimer/Soto clan. Ya think Ellison was getting a wee bit tired?
After a yummy dinner, we went over to the store, Just Be. Olivia loved that store the last time she visited. She was so sweet, and bought Ellison a necklace to match hers, and a little coin purse out of the money she had to spend on herself. Such a sweetheart, and so special for Ellison.
Whew! What a day, and what a fun birthday! Hope you enjoyed it, Mookie. We hope it's a birthday that will always be a special one for you, full of fun times, friends, and family. We can't believe how rich our lives have felt over this past 4 years. We are grateful that God gave us YOU to be a part of our family. We'll never deserve that much goodness in our lifetimes. Mommy and Daddy love you all the way to Ponyville and heaven and back again! (That's our thing that Elli started - she tells us how "far" she loves us to, and we of course top it, just like the book "I Love You This Much".)
[November 5, 2010]
This will make for a very lengthy post, but I have to write about our Ellison and what she is like at 4 years old...
She still is completely attached to her Teddy, and still holds him in that particular way with her three fingers wrapped around his neck and under one arm. She mentioned the other day how someday she will be bigger and she won't be able to hold Teddy anymore because her fingers will be too big. She loves so many stuffed animals in general, and for the last few weeks she and Teddy are attached to Tiger and Shiloh (the pink dog from the twins, named after her cousins' real dog). She still is into everything to do with dolphins. Giant Daisy dolphin sleeps in her bed, and occasionally so does her Pillow Pet Daisy dolphin. All of her dolphins are named Daisy.
Bedtime is still a struggle in this house. She's going to bed better at night if I don't give her a nap (which is difficult because she's SO tired in the afternoon if she's had lots of activity), but I cannot believe I am writing that she STILL gets up in the middle of the night!!! Going on 6 months of this now. We thought we made a breakthrough the other night when we had 2 nights in a row of straight sleeping (except for Mommy having to pee constantly!), which was complete bliss. But the last two nights she's been up again, though it's only been once or twice at least. I sense her getting a little better, though, and am hopeful this will all be behind us soon.
She recently has started plugging her ears in response to my lectures. (!) They're not bad lectures, just life lesson lectures, and she shuts her eyes and covers her ears because she doesn't want to hear it. Oh boy...
She much prefers showering to bathing these days - as long as she doesn't get her face wet. The other day she talked Daddy into letting her shower by herself while he coached her through it. She wants to wash her own hair and body.
We've been working on her independence more. She makes her own bed, feeds the fish by herself, and is getting herself dressed and undressed more now (the latter was a product of my fault - I never really started having her do that until recently for some reason). She sets the dinner table by herself and has to carry off her own plates when she's finished. She brushes her teeth by herself in the mornings (and we help out before bed), and occasionally likes to do her own hair. She's getting quite good at making her own peanut butter sammies (and even makes them for Daddy), and dialing the numbers on the telephone to call someone. Speaking of phone, she always answers with a sweet little, "Hi". If she's into it, she'll talk on the phone forever, but if she's not, you can only get a "Hi, bye!" out of her.
Eating still remains the other sore subject in the house. She's still the world's pickiest eater!!! She's so stubborn when it comes to food and trying new food, it makes us crazy! We're really starting to draw the line, now, and we've gone away from catering to her in that respect. If she won't try at least one bite of everything on her plate, she has absolutely no treats or snacks (only healthy food) until she either changes her mind or until she tries again with dinner the next day. We had a disaster when we attempted to continue to only offer her the dinner food even into the next day; even getting ill will not change this girl's mind. I'm praying God uses her tenacity for something very special someday.
She loves coloring, anything artsy, Barbies, Pollies, Disney princesses, playing Go Fish, dress-up, Squinkies, and Silly Bandz. Jonathan and I are almost sick to our stomachs with how many material things she has now, and are vowing to try to really change that (after Christmas. :-/) She's also started playing with baby dolls much more lately, I think in anticipation of her little brother or sister. She likes playing on her Nintendo DS (still called a "GPS"), and likes to play games on Daddy's iphone, too.
It's still our morning routine to always have her crawl in our bed where she eats her breakfast on her tray while watching cartoons. The very first words out of her mouth ever single morning are, "I'm hungry," and she starts pitching a fit if you don't move on it right away. It's great fun to discipline diva behavior first thing in the morning. She loves to watch Oswald, Little Bill, Olivia, Caillou, and more recently My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake. She still loves any Barbie movie, too, and the Gigi movies.
She does an awesome job of drawing, writing her name and other letters, and she's even starting to read and spell three-letter words now! She's SO into phonics - several times a day she pronounces things very phonetically (e.g. "p-p-p-p-pumpkin" starts with "p"!). If you ask her how to spell simple words like "box" she will sound it out and spell it. If you're reading a story to her, and ask her what a three-letter word is, she'll sound it out and usually get it. She loves to look even at big word titles and pretend she's reading it while her little finger follows the word.
One little thing I just love, is that she honestly thinks children are called "sweeties". She's say things like, "I'll be the mommy, and you be the sweetie." Or "What's wrong with that sweetie?". She also says "impossibly" instead of "possibly", like, "She impossibly doesn't want to."
She loves school this year, even though we've had a little bit of girlfriend drama (sigh). After letting it go long enough, and after me and Megan talking with the teachers, it seems that the little girl bullying has toned down after several interventions and the addition of a third teacher in the classroom. Thankfully, through it all Ellison has seemed to be pretty resilient, and still loves school, which is most important. It's also been a good teaching opportunity. She adores all of the little girls she's in class with, and gets very excited about all of them.
Ellison's still every bit girl, and in general doesn't care to play with boys. She doesn't avoid them like the plague, and is very friendly with them, but they usually play rougher and are louder than she cares to be around. As one of her teachers said, "Ellison's the type of kid who wants to sit down and have a conversation, and most boys at this age are just more rough and tumble than that." We have a couple of different regular playgroups we go to - one for "lunch bunch" every Monday after school, and another one that's twice a month on Thursdays. Unless she finds a girl that wants to start engaging in pretend play, she usually just does her own thing. Perhaps a little brother would be good for her. :-)
Just before turning 4, Ellison was about 38 1/2 inches tall, and was weighing 32 pounds. We won't have her check-up for a little while yet, but she seems like she just went through a little growth spurt.
Ellison is so into posing right now. She looks at pictures in magazines or on TV, and tries to morph her body into the same exact poses. It's pretty funny. She still loves to dance, and is doing well in her Thursday evening dance class with Miss Adrienne.
She likes to be the one to say the prayer before our meals, and usually uses the "ABCDEFG, thank you, God, for feeding me. Amen," prayer. On occasion, she'll go into a random prayer where she'll start thanking God for dolphins and unicorns, and starts rambling all over the place. We usually hide our snickering and smiles, then have to help her land the sucker. As far as dinner time, it's very frustrating because she is the BIGGEST lollygagger! We would literally be sitting there for 2 hours if we let her be. She takes a bit, and sucks on it for about 5 minutes, then will find any excuse in the book to try to be excused, or she'll curl her body up into a ball on the seat. Makes us crazy to coach her on eating like a little lady, how she needs to chew her food, swallow, then repeat.
In the evening, she likes to get all hyped up and wrestle with Daddy now. Just when Mama is trying to tame the beast and get her calmed down for bed, these two just mess around getting all riled up. But it's good for her, too, so I try to shut up (which is very hard for me). ;-) Now every night Daddy has to give her piggyback rides from room to room in preparation for bed, even making stops "at the fish store" to feed her fish, then "to the book store" to pick out her bedtime story, then he has to do a fun leap onto the bed where she falls off in a bundle of giggles.
Well, that's all I can think of for now. Ha! Stay tuned for the continuing saga... :-)
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