Miss Elley

My little Elley has a very big personality. She is the most social 5 year old I've ever met. I never have to worry about her having friends, she will make a friend where ever we are. The more friends the better. She is mostly a happy girl. I say mostly because everyone has their bad days. She is cheerful, playful, and loves being a kid. 

Going to school is the best thing for her. She gets to be social, learn, and do all the fun things that go along with being in kindergarten. When I drop her off in the morning, I usually have to yell for her to come back and give me a kiss. She just gets so eager to meet up with her friends. I love that about her. I love that she's okay going off to school. That she loves to be social. That she loves having friends.

We just had our first parent/teacher conference this past week. She is doing fabulous! She is right on track even excelling in a few areas. She was even recognized the other day for being a respectful student. Her teacher told us that a classmate of hers was trying to get his things all gathered up and ready to go when he dropped his backpack and all of his papers fell all over the floor. This happened right as the class was trying to line up to meet parents at the end of the school day. Her teacher told us that all of the other kids were busy getting ready to head out the door when Elley saw that this little boy dropped all of his things. She put down her backpack and helped this classmate gather all of his things. Her teacher said she didn't even give it a second thought, she just did it! 

What a sweet girl, I just love her.

I also asked her teacher if she was having a hard time with her social personality in the classroom? I did at this age, which resulted in some hard lessons learned. Her teacher told us that there was no problem at all. She knows when its okay to talk to her friends and when its time to pay attention. Thank goodness, that was a hard one for me to learn.

I bought some bandaids the other day...not just any bandaids, BARBIE bandaids. You should of seen the looks on the girls faces. You're pretty cool if you have a bandaid, but a Barbie bandaid. The girls kept asking me if they could have one and I kept telling them no, bandaids are for cuts, scrapes, and blood. Well, also for uncontrollable crying.....it's amazing what a bandaid can heal.

Later that day Elley was helping me empty the dishwasher. She had the pizza cutter in her hand and she was looking at it as if she had never seen one before. As she was looking at it, she asked me if I thought it could cut her finger. I said yes and asked her why.

"Because I really want a Barbie bandaid."

Yikes Elley! Here..... heres a Barbie bandaid. Don't cut yourself! :)

So glad she is a part of our family!!

    

Makeup Party

The girls got together with all their little friends the other day and had a makeup party. I loved sneaking up on them to take their pictures. They were so involved with makeup, it was like they didn't even know I was there. I mean, look at that concentration on Molly's face. 

I was so worried that this lipstick was going to stain this little girl's face. She has fair skin already and it was pretty bright lipstick. No worries though, baby wipes did the trick.

These girls were naturals, like they instinctively knew what they were doing. Just look at that pucker!

Just love this little girl! That smile gets me every time!!!

One Set of Piggies, Two Sets of Piggies, Three Sets of Piggies

It's that time again. The time when my cute little bald baby's head turns into a mullet. I knew it was coming, it always does. 

Here is Addison with her first set of piggies. It had to be done, her mullet was getting pretty fierce. 

For your reading enjoyment I've included the links to Elley and Molly's first set of piggies too. See, every set of first piggies is blog worthy.  

Addison has hair EXACTLY like Elley's....Exactly! It's straight, it only grows in the back for the first 2 years, and it's light brown.

Some Very Special Visitors

We were very lucky to have some very special visitors a few weeks ago. Jay, Leah, and their family came to visit us for a whole week. We had so much fun just hanging out, working out, and playing games like crazy. We are so sad they moved away and miss them all the time. But, better opportunities awaited them in Washington.

Every night, these 3 girls had a slumber party. They sure love each other! This is probably the toughest part of having them move away. Look at that love!!!

While they were here, we had the chance to go camping over night to Warm Lake. It was really pretty up there and we had a great time camping, eating and swimming.

 This is a picture of Jay and Leah's camp site from ours

Look at these cute girls collecting wood for our fire and roasting sticks

Elley got a hold of my camera. Good thing she did, I'm hardly on this side of the camera. And, just look at our little buggie camper. She did awesome. I was a little nervous considering the time camping before this, she was up all night crying.

Awwww, look at those happy campers. 8 years...that's right, 8 years! We celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary this same weekend. 

Yummy foil dinners. This seriously was the best dinner ever!!!

Dinnertime

Molly, you need to use a cup! 

Who, me? I was thirsty!!

Mason playing with bubbles...I guess it's one of his favorite things to do!

Getting dark

We love camp fires!

The moon was so full and pretty thing night.

 Mommy's favorite thing about camping. I'd go camping just for the smore's

Beautiful Mara Bear in the morning.

 Addison and Elley taking a walk

After breakfast, we all just hung around and did our own thing. They girls were exploring the campgrounds and decided to show off their jumping skills. Here they go....

                                       

 We were sad to go home. We had such a fun time, good thing we plan on doing this again next summer!!

Big Things Happening for a Big Girl

It seems to me that life is happening at record speed right now. The girls are getting so big and learning new things everyday. I thank my lucky stars daily for the 3 sweet girls I have. I truly am the luckiest mom.

Elley especially is growing up at warp speeds. She is learning and picking up on things faster than I expected. She surprises me daily with even the little things she picks up on. Needless to say, Adam and I have to be really careful what we talk about in front of her. She is a sponge!!!

It all started about a month ago. I was in the garage cleaning up a bit when I saw her bike with the training wheels on. I thought it was about time to teach her to ride without them. The next morning Elley asked if she could go out and ride her bike. I told her the training wheel fairy came and took her training wheels off. This made her very excited and she was riding her two-wheeler that night. I had been working with her on and off all day, then Adam came home and said, "Keely, you've gotta let go."

He then started running with her and just let go. Elley screamed but just kept peddling. I wish I got a good picture of her face, she was so scared and so serious. Now she rides like a pro, like she's been riding for years. It's one of her favorite things to do. She thinks she is so big because I let her ride around the block with some of the neighborhood kids.

Another big milestone, she lost her first tooth. She was so excited when I wiggled her tooth and told her it was loose. We had just been to the dentist and the hygienist told her that it would probably be another year until she lost a tooth. She wiggled that tooth for weeks, and weeks, and weeks. Just when I thought it would fall out, it didn't. Finally, her primary teacher came over and got that sucker out. Her primary teacher is a dental assistant and was so surprised every week when she would come to church and her tooth was still in her mouth. She tried a few times at church but nothing happened. So one day after work she came over and popped it out like it was no big deal.

It was so loose that she could twist it all the way around. It literally was hanging on by a thread.

Her primary teacher brought over this numbing gel that I think helped a ton.

She just tied some dental floss around the base of the tooth and out it popped. The gums were starting to get all red and irritated and the other tooth was coming up. It was time to get that tooth out. 

She couldn't believe it finally came out.

It was so little and it actually got dropped and lost a few times. I finally had to take it away so we didn't lose it and the tooth fairy could come and make a visit.

The tooth fairy came and sprinkled sparkles all over the floor. She also left two sparkly dollars (she learned from Pintrest to spray paint dollars bills with sparkly paint) after much contemplation about how much kids get for teeth these days. She even asked a few friends. ;) One tooth down, 19 more to go.

Just had to insert this picture because I think she looks so big with her legs crossed.

And then we had the big fist day of school. WOW! Kindergarten, here we are. What a fun time in her life. She loves school. I knew she would. She has 2 girls in her class that she went to preschool with, she was very excited about that. She has now been at school for a week and a half. She loves P.E. and playing basketball at recess. She has computer class, music class, art class, and even went to the library last week and checked out a book. They are learning about colors these first 2 weeks and wears the color they are learning about everyday. She picks out her outfits the night before, she's usually dressed before I come out of my room in the morning. She is such a big girl, so anxious to learn and be involved. I love her so much!

She had to have a picture with Addison, she is such a good big sister.

Here she is at school with her friend Felicity.

Driving In My Car

Addison loves this car. She gets in and the girls push her around everywhere. She loves it, and Molly and Elley love it. The little boy in the picture below is Gavin. He is Molly and Elley's good buddy. He is so sweet to the girls.

I love how these pictures show off her mullet. Give it a few more months and we'll be doing piggies....I may or may not have already tried. :)

One Year

It's been 33 days since Addison turned ONE. I use to be on top of this blogging thing. 

Well that year flew by so fast. I know it's a very mom-ish thing to say but it's true. She was born, I blinked and she was ONE.

This little girl is loved soooooo much. Her sisters cannot keep their hands off her. It's boarder line annoying. I love that they love her, (I know I've said this before) but come on girls, leave sister alone. Its worse now that Addison is walking, and independent, she just wants to do things by herself. We try to explain to Molly and Elley that she'll never learn if we do things for her, and that we can't force her to do things she doesn't want to do. But seriously, who could resist this......  

Addison is now walking. It took her a month to kind of figure this new little trick out. One morning she woke up, I set her down, she stood up, walked into the living room and never looked back. Sometimes, if she needs to be really fast she'll do a crab crawl on all fours, that's usually if she see a sister coming towards her to pick her up.

She's got a good chunk of teeth coming in and she's handling in very well. Even her pediatrician looked  into her mouth and said, "whoa, her teeth look like their all coming in at once."

She's 10% weight...17 lbs, and 20% height. 

She is very ticklish, she loves yogurt bites, she loves the water, daddy is her best buddy, and she has a VERY strong will. She knows what she wants and she stops at nothing to get it. She arches her back, kicks and screams, and even hits...yikes! The pediatrician said, "put her in time out!" Really? How can I put this in timeout?

But we do. :(

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE her!!!

We had a little birthday party for her when My dad and Judy were here for a visit. (more on their visit soon) Pizza, gifts, cake. Mark, Jordan, and their family came too! She got some new clothes, toys and a new book.

I'm sure another year will fly by just as quickly if not faster than the last. We love her more than words can tell. Happy Birthday Addison, thank you for coming to our family!!!