Sunday, March 28, 2010

Easter Party

Ellison was in rare form for her preschool Easter Party. She nervously played with the collar on her dress during all of the song performances, but managed to mouth a few words and do some half-hearted choreographed bunny hops toward the end.


Baity, Ellison, Anna, and Nevin
Before snack time, the little people partook in an Easter egg hunt.



At snack/lunch time, Ellison completely was not herself. She wouldn't eat a thing (except for the mini-doughnut) and just pouted and whined for me the whole time, and repeatedly kept asking for the Easter favor baskets. Very non-playful, and I have no idea why, just an off morning, I guess. Poor babe.

[March 25, 2010]

Daddy's Day

We so enjoyed celebrating Daddy's 42nd birthday this year. Complete with homemade cards with the cheeziest decorations (Tools made out of construction paper? Really, Christina? And Ellison's decorations were of course precious and beautiful). Ellison obviously thinks highly of my sick skills, though, 'cause I had to duplicate each paper tool so she could put them on her card, too. I'm not sure Jonathan even knew what they were. Back on track, though...
After Ellison called Daddy to sing him "Happy Birthday", we swung by Maxie B's Bakery to pick out the most delicious cupcakes ever, picked up a birthday balloon, then headed over to surprise Daddy at work, the whole while praying we could catch him before he skipped out for lunch. Ellison was SO flippin' excited. We quietly made our way to Daddy's cubicle, where she exclaimed, "Surprise!" Jonathan actually was surprised, even though he told me Ellison busted our cover a few nights previously after I went to work. After repeatedly telling her not to tell Daddy about our plans for his birthday, she apparently did just that. Jonathan explained that he was a little puzzled when she mentioned it, but completely forgot about it until he saw us. So I guess you could say it was successful. It was fun, nonetheless. :-)



After making Daddy's requested birthday meal, we enjoyed some yummy ice cream cake from Carvel's (Daddy's fave). Teddy joined in on the festivities, too.



Hope it's a fabulous year for you, Papi!!! We love you to pieces!

[March 26, 2010]

High Fashion

Little did I know I don't have to worry about getting rid of my old clothes anymore. For some reason, I've had trouble parting with a skirt I bought in Spain, and Ellison apparently took notice. She asked to put it on, and we "refurbished" it into a flowy dress that she loves wearing around the house. It now has a halter top with some lovely safety pin detail.



Stories with Papi

There's just something I love about stumbling upon special Daddy and Mookie moments.


[March 20, 2010]

Friday, March 19, 2010

St. Patty's Day

After going to Miss Debbie's class on St. Patrick's morning while I went to Bible study, we headed home where our little leprechaun felt content that I let her use my Philosophy lipstick - her favorite. I love turning around in the van to see lipstick shmeared all over that cute little mouth.

Daddy came home to join us for a picnic lunch outside since it was such a beautiful day.


Setting the table, a chore she loves to do.


Sucking on a bite of food, like always. She still does this, and mealtimes still take 67 minutes each because of it, and after 3 bites she claims she's full, then runs off to play, only to start whining 10 minutes later, "I'm hungry! May you get me a snack?"





Spring has arrived!

[March 17, 2010]

Lunch with the Perez Gals

After a fun morning at school (Ellison excitedly described how a leprechaun, whom she called "a little man", came into their class and did tricks like turning their chairs upside down), we met up with the Perez girls whom we hadn't seen in forever! We got together for a fun lunch at Tex & Shirley's, and all the girls were great. It was so nice to catch up since our meetings have been rare this past year with Ellison and Caroline being on opposite preschool schedules. The two big girls played SO well together! It was so sweet - they were playing doctor with their little dolls with each other, and giggled together like 2 school girls. We're looking forward to summer and hopefully being able to get our circle of moms and kiddos together more often. Our little Latinas need to stick together! Ha! Thanks, Perez chicas, for a great lunch!



We had to hit the "Hopscotch store" (aka Carters) to return something, then I made the executive decision to scrap the nap/quiet time that day to take Ell over to Barnes & Noble to play. She headed right for the Disney Princess books, and just sat and perused them for the longest time before having me plop down to read them to her.

Sitting with her legs just like Aunt Carrie always used to...

[March 16, 2010]

The Pillow Pet Project

Thank you, Nick Jr. or Disney's Playhouse, for gearing your commercials toward children. Ever since the commercials for Pillow Pets came on, Ellison would stop dead in her tracks and be in complete awe, saying how much she wanted a Pillow Pet. It got to the point, and I'm not exaggerating at all, where she actually pitched the concept to me. "Pillow Pets are washable, and it's a full size pillow, and I can put my jammies inside to go to Grandma's house." I think it's fair to say she was REALLY listening to the commercial every time. Anyway, we decided we would introduce the concept of working for something to her. If I had only known how well it would work, I would've made her work for it for 3 months instead of 8 days. OK, so we were just as excited for her to reap the rewards as she was. Anyway, we made a chart for her with 2 categories, and each time she went to bed like a very big girl (without calling for us for non-emergencies, and without getting out of bed needlessly) or she got ready in the morning without any spunking, she would get a sticker to put on her chart. We were having such frustration with both areas until the chart was developed, and it WORKED LIKE A CHARM! She was Pillow Pet owner-bound in no time.
The day arrived when the unicorn Pillow Pet (she immediately decided on the unicorn from the 20+ animals) finally arrived in the mail. We were SOOOO excited!






Explaining to me how to turn the pillow into the animal...



Way to go, Mookie! You did such a great job earning "Unicorn"!

[March 11, 2010]

Updated Cubby




Thank God for Grandmas that are handy when Mommies are not. When Grandma visited us, she rigged up Ellison's cubby curtains so that they are the right length now, and they look so cute. The next step is to buy some real furniture for her room now, and we'll be soon converting her from her toddler bed to a big bed.

More Elli-isms

"I want to wear a dress with not a shirt, and not a jacket, and not tights, and not leggings, and not shoes."... A really long way of saying she wants to basically wear her summer dresses. Heard all winter long.

"Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish for more feathers!" After completing a really cool story about a guardian angel that Uncle Josh, Aunt Andrea, and her cousins got her last year (we never got all the way through it before); at the very end a feather was stuck in the last page by the author. It was so cool to be surprised with it, and a very sweet conversation ensued about angels. She kept a death grip on that feather, and asked if there would be more feathers on her pillow from her guardian angel. She had to sleep with it on her pillow that night, and as I was tucking her in I told her it was okay if it got lost in her covers in the night and that we would find it in the morning. She chose to hold it tight in her little fist as she fell asleep.

She's all about the Disney princesses. After finally getting to see some of the movies (some of them repeatedly by request): Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, etc., she suddenly didn't want to watch them anymore. She said they are too scary, and frankly, I couldn't agree more. She still loves the princesses though, and anything with their pictures.

"Thanks, Mom. I'm sorry I am acting that way."... After taking a moment to think about her actions when she had been spunking that she didn't get the shoes she really wanted at the store (never mind that she got 2 other pairs), and I began lecturing her about getting too spoiled and being thankful for all that I did buy her. She actually says this phrase fairly frequently after getting reprimanded now.

Very excitedly, talking a mile a minute, complete with hand and facial expressions: "I saw Wubbzy and Walden, and they come to the door and Wubbzy had big red eyes, and he was running... I saw that behind my eyes!"... Her first recognition of having a dream after taking a nap.

Our favorite pasttime when in the car or just talking is to play "I spy with my little eye..." or what we call "The Silly Game". The Silly Game either starts off, "Have you ever seen... [insert something like, "an alligator riding a bike on a roof while licking a popsicle?], or we describe what our silly meals consisted of, for example: "For breakfast I ate a chair, and I drank some mud, then for lunch I had some leaves and lightbulbs, and for dessert I ate some stickers topped with glue". We go back and forth for the longest time coming up with silly things, and she loves it.

Ellison covers up my eyes and asks me not to look whenever there is a romantic part in one of her princess movies. She gets totally embarrassed. I also have to "go out and shut the door" when she has to do #2 on the potty. If we're in public I have to at least "turn around" since I won't leave her alone in some of the potty stalls.

She loves pretending she's getting married. She will have me rig up some blankets to wrap around her that will form a train, then she'll walk slowly while humming the Wedding March (which I'm not sure where she learned). If her train gets all messed up and isn't spread out she has a fit.

Whenever we go to Garden Ridge, she collects all the little fake flowers that fall off the stems and lay next to all of the baskets of flowers. She creates a bouquet with them either for "married" or to give some to Mommy.

She will pick a little dandelion or other flowering weed, and say, "Here, Mommy. I picked this for you." My heart is always so melted - I have a very hard time parting with it after it's wilted. How do you throw away a "flower" your little one picked for you?! What if she saw? Ugh. Tissue, please...

Ell's favorite toys are definitely her Polly Pockets. She's amassing quite a little collection of the Disney princess Pollies and the regular Pollies. She also loves her Barbies.

Thanks to a suggestion from her little friend, Ella (and after amazingly seeing a 2 year old rattle off the sound every letter makes), Ellison now knows the sounds of all the letters, too. No, I was not pushing my child to learn them at the age of 3, but Ella was in love with the Leap Frog "Letter Factory" DVD, so I thought it might be fun, and bought it. Ellison was obsessed with it for weeks, and still LOVES watching it, and learned the sounds in no time. She's starting to actually sound out simple words now, like "stop", "up", "bat", etc. when we come upon them when reading stories or seeing them on signs.

Our Resident IT Person


Anytime I need (or want, rather) to get on the computer, Little Bit is right there pleading her case about how she should get to use it first. Am I really arguing about computer usage with my 3 year old? Before you know it I'll be setting the timer to make it fair, for the love of Mike. She loves visiting www.Nickjr.com to play all sorts of games. I'm amazed at how much she knows how to do, and how well she navigates the site. After once finding about 10 pages of her computer artwork printed out, she at least now knows she has to ask permission to print out things, then is able to proceed independently. Taking right after her Papi.
[February 28, 2010]

The Fun of "New" Stuff

We recently rearranged a couple of the bedrooms upstairs. Daddy put in a lot of hard work coverting the office closet into a computer nook, then the former office was turned into the spare bedroom. The former spare bedroom will hopefully be a future nursery, but in the meantime we will use it as a playroom to house the majority of Ellison's toys. Having a new bedroom, which she refers to as "Grandma & Grandpapa's room", was fun for Ellison for a little while. She frequently made a playground out of the bed.
On this particular day, I also started going through her closet to switch out seasonal clothing (does anyone else hate doing this?!), so she was THRILLED that I was finally getting out some summer clothes that were hand-me-downs from her cousins. Finally, she no longer had to wait to wear her summer dresses "with not sleeves". She immediately started changing clothes several times, trying on all of the "new" garb. Mmm, mmm, mmm... Ellison's going to need to start babysitting at the ripe old age of 8 to start saving up for her clothing and shoes...





Posing in her "new" bathing suit
[February 26, 2010]

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Goodbye

Tuesday was a tough day... Saying goodbye to the parents is never fun, but it's super not-fun when you are coming off a hormone high. Thankfully, Elli had preschool that morning, so she was able to not witness the breakdown Mommy had as she got some alone time to finally process everything. I was thankful she had that distraction for her sake, as well - she was all smiles saying goodbye to G & G since we had an agenda that morning. Just look at her totally mushing up Grandma...



Silly girll giving very squishy nose rubbies to Gram while giggling.
[February 23, 2010]

"D Day" and Sewing

Again, we are so thankful my parents were here during our family ordeal. I was able to have my D&C done while Gram & Gramp could hang with Mookie. It totally took the pressure off - I was able to sleep the morning and early afternoon away after returning home, while Ellison got to assist Grandma with lots of projects. (Parents are the greatest! Remember this, Ellison, during those times as a teenager that you will swear you hate us.) Grandma finished off Ellison's sheers for her cubby in her bedroom, then went to fixing the curtains in her room for us. Ellison even got to help Grandma use the sewing machine, which she thought was way cool. She has since made me pretend to sew things while we play... "No, Mom, you have to say 'zzzzzhhhhhh' (or whatever sound sewing machines make) and watch your fingers! (as she supervises me with a very steady eye)."


[February 22, 2010]