for the tooth fairy

First Girl lost two teeth at the beginning of April! Both on the top. Second Girl had two loose ones too.

Together they created things and placed them on the floor of their room for the tooth fairy to enjoy. Like when people leave a treat out for Santa Claus (who we don't talk much about in our family). It was so fun when I discovered what they had done. The cookies are bits of Larabar, and they made a little wardrobe with clothes that the tooth fairy could try on. I love their creativity!

They like to keep their teeth, but luckily the tooth fairy left First Girl some coins anyway. It was $1.75 in a sandwich bag with a tiny note.

She spent $1.08 of it on a Frozen harmonica (50% off).

almond art

Second Girl came up with all of this herself, a few days ago. The last part of her lunch was some almonds. I did not even think of making them into something, but she sure did. And I was in the kitchen, not with her in the dining room, when she announced, "Look, Mommy! I made a cross, like the cross Jesus died on. It's a good thing almonds are brown."

Then she told me that she had made a tree, "because Jesus made the world, and it's part of the world."

Our kids make me so happy!

And here's a picture of her from a couple weeks ago, having fun with her great-grandma's bracelets!

L at four years old

Here's another update (finally). This time it's about Second Girl.

I think she's even cuter in this July 4th photo than in the June photos.

This gorgeous girl turned four back in June, so she's four years and five months old now. Daddy was at AT as usual during more than half of that month, so we had her party in July. The party was a success, but I don't feel like uploading those photos. We had it in the church's Primary room with a few of her friends and some extended family. The kids enjoyed playing musical chairs.

Her actual birthday was fun and simple. The first fun thing was our healthy breakfast banana-oat cookies that each had four dark chocolate chunks on top. I make the cookies often (based on this recipe and I replace the oats part with oats / cooked beans / unsweetened shredded coconut) but had not put those chunks on them before. L's cookie was the biggest and we put her "numbah foh" candle in it. I think we just relaxed and did what we needed to at home. Then we went to a park we hadn't been to before and played there for a long time. She and First Girl are such good friends. It seems like we went to my mom's house, maybe for dinner. The day ended with homemade frozen fruit bars and her for some reason falling asleep on the living room floor.

She makes me so happy. She's almost always the first kid up in the morning, and she comes to find me and give me a hug. From age three to age four she became good at drawing people and other things, and she learned how to write her nickname. She doesn't need help with anything when she uses the bathroom anymore, unless it's #2.

She has learned to love preschool, which she started on October 1st. We had to wait for an opening in the free one at the elementary school -- the school First Girl attended last year. I think the preschool friend L has mentioned the most is David B. (who also has a sibling attending the other school for dual immersion, so his mom picks up First Girl for me on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I pick up her daughter on Fridays). There are also three other kids from our ward in the afternoon preschool class with her. L loves the art projects, and telling me about the stations in the classroom and the snacks. The teachers said she is quiet and behaves well. She did very well on almost everything they tested her on a few weeks ago, like knowing letter sounds and which words rhyme.

We all love the songs she makes up. She has an imaginary song folder for her songs -- I'm not sure if this was her idea or her sister's. She'll say "this is a song that I have in my song folder." There was one about colors and there's one called "There's so many of me." Last December she said, "I like to say 'hey!' at the end of songs. But always they don't say 'hey.' But in my ones they say 'hey.'" A weird song she sang just last month included "It is the best thing you could never see: curly hair."

Her speaking voice is so cute, too, with kind of lisp. I wrote down (then typed up -- I guess you can say "wrote up" but you can't say "typed down," can you?) some of the funny, imaginative, and smart things she has said since the last time. This is only a few of many L sayings I've recorded. My sentences have curly brackets around them:

{There's our car.}
This is ours van.
{Yeah.}
Yeah, tug ['cause] it's white.

(After I sang part of a song from a kids' show I had removed from our Netflix queue, so it had come off our our TV.) We yoost have it on our tee-dee, but then it cummed off.

My food just fell on the floor and I picked it up.
{Your banana?}
Yeah, and my Craisins. It’s not really good to tell your parents that.

(As we walked home from the van after taking S to school, I saw our animal on top of the bush by our patio. She said something about giving the animal to S when she gets back.)
{Because it’s S’s?}
Yeah.
{You love her, don’t you.}
Yeah! I didn’t want to look when the doctor gave her the shot. I was gonna cry.
{Aww, that’s so sweet. You’re being like Jesus. You care about people’s feelings.}
Jesus knows everything. I don’t know everything.

A dog wouldn't want to eat that [gunk I cleaned off the stove].

{But sometimes dogs eat things that people think are yucky.}

Like Bwussel pouts like I don't like?

{I don't know, but some people like me like them.}

I think a dog would like pizza.

(After talking with her and S I figured out that she was thinking of the dog in the Stephen Cartwright 1-2-3 book.)

{Are you good at coloring?}

Yeah, because I’m cute.

{Does being cute make you good at coloring?}

Yeah.

When I said I needed to go poo, it was a joke.

{You're a joke.}

Oh, I know why i'm a joke. Because I love to eat artijokes!

You’re just a servant, not a pwincess. . . . [We wouldn’t break the bed] but if you jump on the bed you will, but for weal. . . . I’m pretending that I’m talluh. . . . they won’t bweak the bed, ‘cause they’re more magical -- the people that are fancy. And I have a fancy cat. . .. I have so many stuff. And my cat can talk. . . . Servant? May you please make muffins. 

{You mean waffles.}

Yeah. I forgot. I have a very silly queen. I am very silly. I get all mixed up.

Mommy, have you ever seen a baby butterfly?

{I don’t know if I have.}

I think I know why you haven’t seen one. They might not be on this earth.

{Butterflies are on Earth. You’ve seen them before.}

I know a other ansuh [answer] why you might not have seen ‘em. They might be kinda shy.

(While coloring the Daniel page and paper food from Primary.) So his mom said, ‘be very careful when you carry the food who are in dishes, because they're bweakable.’ . . . So that's what he was doing when he was cahweeing [carrying] some. But on the way he accidentally bwoke one teeny piece of the bowl. . . . If the whole dish bwakes, I'm gonna be weally mad. That's what the queen said. The queen is his mom. And he was wehwing [wearing] vewy pretty clothes. . . . If there's a problem that happened, he should tell his mom wight away.

{If something happened?}

Yeah, to the dishes, and the dwink. . . . If he dwopped the corn then his mom wouldn’t be weally mad, ‘cause it’s not in a dish, and it’s not a drink. It was only on the gwass. And he was gonna bwing his pet named Octo to the picnic.

The other pwincesses, they have black lipstick on . . . Someone fired their lipstick, so now it’s burned. . . Yeah, so that why it’s black. . . . I was so so pwitty that they didn’t wanna fire mine.

{You mean burn?}

Yes.

I don’t like the way you are talking [in a British accent].

{Why not?}

It’s funny and I don’t like funny.

{But you’re doing it, too.}

No I am not.

Another day during AT -- we sent this to Daddy in a text message. These girls both love to stand on any big rock, and they usually do a little song and dance performance on the rock, too.

August {2012}

{How is this already the second half of October??}

August was my husband's second month of working a freight position full time. It's his "until I get a better-paying one" job, in addition to his three-evenings-a-week job and the Army Reserve. I probably mentioned before, but he is working 50+ hours a week (about 68 when it's drill week). August was also the month in which a railroad company paid for him to fly out for a panel interview for a manager trainee program. We felt like he was very well qualified because of his specific background in the military and his bachelor's degree. He thought he would get the job . . . but he didn't. However, he learned from the whole experience, and while on the short trip he got to go (with another job candidate from our state) to a cool museum:

It was my mom's birthday, and we went to a farmers market. My husband took this picture.

For about six weeks this summer our van was our only working vehicle, because the Civic needed an expensive repair. We decided to sell the Civic instead, nearly ten years after he bought it. It sold very quickly, and that was kind of a sad day. But the stereo had been stolen -- for the second time while we've lived here -- a few days earlier, and it was time to say goodbye to that car. We bought a PT Cruiser. Although the van needed two repairs in order to pass safety and emissions testing, and the Cruiser already needed a small repair (I don't remember what they needed), that total is still a few hundred dollars less than what it would have cost us to fix the Civic.

I didn't mind being at home more (grocery shopping was one of the few challenges). The girls and I couldn't do M__ Park Monday and F__ Park Friday anymore. Many days we walked to nearby playgrounds, or just walked to see the ducks, or ate lunch outside in our neighborhood. They love pretending and coloring in our fitness center while I use the treadmill. Oh, and we swam (the girls mostly sit on the steps) in our pool a few more times. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I love swimming for exercise, even though I doubt my strokes look very good and I'm still a slow swimmer. It's never felt as good as it did this year. We reorganized our dresser drawers and Shboogoo was excited about folding things "the new way" so we can see everything. Some days we cooked delicious new recipes I found online, like this Mexican bean and rice casserole. If we wanted to see friends, they were able to come to our place. And we're thankful that we were never down to zero working vehicles.

Marbleworks

We like to make flowers out of fruit.

Here's a picture of my husband and me on a date in August. We're trying to go out together at least twice a month. We are also having regular meetings and writing down what we discuss in a notebook; it was his idea and it's been very helpful. We're more aware of things, and we're starting to actually budget!

Might as well include this here. He sent this photo to my phone one day, after asking a coworker how to write it in Spanish.

On August 29th, I had the baby in the actual seat part of a shopping cart, and let the other two kids sit in the part where you put whatever it is you're going to be buying. I wasn't looking at the kids and accidentally bumped the cart into the corner of a display. That made L fall right back out of the cart and hit the back of her head on the hard floor. She had been sitting on the edge, not down where she was supposed to be. She started bawling right away, and a bump formed. I took us straight to the closest emergency room. Daddy was working his part-time job but came over before we even got to see a doctor. The doctor said L seemed just fine; she didn't think there was any reason to do a CT scan.

The next day L was a little different. She was not her happy self and did not have much of an appetite, so in the afternoon I took her to the pediatrician. He said, from the way she was acting (maybe I don't remember everything) she had a concussion and we needed to give her extra fluids. 

Then, when she was in bed about 9 p.m., she threw up. The next morning (August 31st) she threw up a little two times. I called the pediatrician again, who told us to go right to the ER. At the hospital they examined her and of course I had to explain several times what had happened. They did a CT scan to see if there was any internal bleeding. She was not afraid at all, just laid perfectly still during the CT scan. Daddy came up from work, and by the time he arrived we found out the results were good. The last doctor who saw L said he thought she did not have a concussion, and that the throwing up was not related to her fall, since she didn't throw up until over 24 hours after she fell. It was a 12-hour stomach bug, I guess. We're so glad she is fine!

June and July {2012}

I usually underestimate how long it will take me to do something -- including a blog post. I want to be quicker at it. Lately I have been trying harder to make the best use of my time, focusing on taking care of my family, myself, and our home. I use (at least I feel that I should) the computer mostly while I nurse the baby or the kiddos are all asleep. I think I will still blog, but I have been writing in my journal more. I finally printed two photos of C and put them in frames on our living room wall. I also want to make more digital scrapbooks. Anyway, here's a look, without all the photos, at a few of the things my family has done so far this summer. 


~~~


My husband's AT (annual training) with the Army lasted for three weeks in June. It felt really long. The kids and I had two fun sleepovers, one at the home of my friend who lives a couple of hours away, and one at my step-mom-in-law's. Besides that, we had lazy days, went to parks and the craft store, and we attended birthday celebrations -- three with family and one for a preschool friend. After the dinner celebrating my brother-in-laws' birthdays we asked an employee to take a picture of our group. My mother-in-law sent it from her phone to mine and my husband's, and we were really confused when she said that it wasn't a good picture of her or me. It was like, "I think my wife looks beautiful." "You do?"

Then she noticed that she had only sent us the wrong picture (the good one), so she sent the right picture (the bad one). I think it is so hilarious.

While my mother-in-law hosted a Princess Party with her granddaughters and her friend's granddaughters, my husband and I had a great date night. (We took the third photo during our date. Next time, maybe we'll get a photo of us, not just the yummy food!)

 

On June 30th my dad's family had a big reunion, five years after the last one. It's crazy that I hadn't visited my old piano teacher -- who is married to my dad's cousin -- during those five years even though we now live just a few minutes away from him. Here are a few photos we took at the reunion. I am excited to get the professional shot(s) of everyone who was there. We felt bad for those like my cousin Steve's wife, who had to kneel for a long time, so it better have been worth it!

My dad and step-mom's grandchildren at 6, 3, and 2 months old. One of the two other December babies in the family came to the reunion, too, and it was fun to meet him.

 

The reunion five years ago.

It was nice to spend all of July 4th together as a family, with my husband not delivering pizzas from 5ish to 10ish pm like he has a lot of other years. I love being with him. I'm also glad that I live in the United States of America. After AT his first day back at the pizza place was July 5th. By the way, he started a full-time entry-level freight position July 2nd so we can pay the bills (now that he doesn't receive the GI bill), and he is seeking a better job/career to replace that. He works hard at three jobs, up to about 60 hours a week. I'm proud of him and I'm probably not as stressed as he is. We're optimistic about our future. But I'm getting off topic. . . . I almost regret that we didn't go see any fireworks this year because Shboogoo really thinks they are beautiful. But L hated them last year, and we didn't know how C would react. We also didn't want to keep the kids up so late. Around 1:00 we left home for a party at my husband's Aunt Karen's house. He hadn't seen some of his cousins (a bunch of boys close to his age) in years, and it was a lot of fun. People complimented me on my salad: kale, spinach, romaine, avocado, lemon juice, a little olive oil and salt . . . and I don't remember if I put anything else in it. We played volleyball, and my older girls and I joined a few others at the next-door-neighbor's swimming pool. Then we headed to my mom's house to hang out for a little bit. It was after 7:45 when we got there, but since we still weren't hungry after all the food at Karen's, and we had not even known that my mom wanted to see us that day, we didn't go out to eat with them. 

He LOVES this picture I got of him putting sunscreen on L.

 

 

 

July 24th, Pioneer Day, I was stuck home because our car needed a repair, which meant my husband needed the van for his long work day. My mom and my sister and her kids came over to my place. We ate Cafe Rio salads for lunch and then went to the swimming pool. It was C's first time in a pool. It was adorable how much she loved it and kept splashing the water with her palms. I think it's interesting that our kids who were born in the winter had a positive reaction to the swimming pool, at 6-7 months old. Second Girl was born in the middle of the summer and her first experience with a pool was not until she was 12 months old. I wonder if that one had cooler water, though; it was at a hotel, not an apartment or condominium complex. 

 

 

 

On July 27th we had a Tiny Girl birthday party for L. We have not found the two plastic dolls she received last year that she calls "Tiny Girl" but for a long time she had wanted that to be the party theme anyway. I was so grateful for the help from my husband, sister, mom and mother-in-law. Of course all the children had fun even though I didn't have enough time to make all the decorations and other things that I wanted to make. For example, they didn't pin the outfit on the tiny girl or boy, but they did get to drink from tiny cups and put tiny stickers on tiny party hats. My balloon flowers -- an idea from pinterest -- did not fit the tiny theme, but I was proud of them. L loves playing with her "numba fee," meaning the 3 candle. We had a small family celebration at my mom's house on the actual birthday in June, too (see the last three photos). L still talks about how she liked the lemon teasecake I made that day. She's a sweetie.

This was the first Tiny Girl she lost (shown inside a shoe, inside pajama shorts).

Soon before the party started, my girls decided they wanted to wear costumes: their aunt's old dance uniforms

 

 

three years old

In June this girl turned three. (I blog slowly nowadays.) After her baby sister's photo shoot that week, L was too tired to cooperate. We ended up doing L's ten days later -- same park, and same photographer friend who did {these}. I am so glad that Anne and the camera captured some of L's beauty. 

She smiles / has fun / loves life, but would not smile even once during the 60+ minutes that Anne took pictures of her, even though she does know her. Afterward when I told L that I was sad she hadn't smiled, she said, "I will smile for you, Mommy" -- meaning when I'm behind the camera. Maybe she hadn't had enough sleep the night before and was feeling tired, but she also refuses to "perform" in front of other people when I or anyone else (i.e. the pediatrician) asks her to. 

At this age she usually cries or makes a frustrated "uhh uhh" whine when something is wrong, and won't say any words about what the problem is. She hates getting her hair wet in the bath no matter how we do it, and her crying about that always hurts my ears. She may talk less when she's not at home, but trust me, she's very talkative. She often deserves the nickname "Freakout." It's kind of interesting that some children scream for fun. She really is a good and polite kid, though; her nursery leaders and babysitters tell us she is. She always remembers to say thank you.

Anyway . . . she has changed so much -- from a toddler to a kid -- in the 14 months that we have lived in our current home. She seems a lot older than she was when I wrote {this}. The gap between her age and Shboogoo's seems smaller. She loves being a big kid, able to do things without help. But I love that she still comes to me for cuddles and wants to hold my hand in the parking lot.

L passed her three-year well check with flying colors. She was 8th percentile for weight (she has been 1st percentile, so that's gone up a little) and 9th percentile for height. C's six-month appointment was the same day, and it was sweet that after L's shots she started to cry again just because C cried out during hers. She is a good big sister. Just now, as I was typing with C  on my lap, L came and gently touched C's cheek and looked into her eyes as she quietly sang "wa-ah-ah."

Some L Sayings (you could call some of them Funnies), in order starting with mid-November 2011, show how she's speaking more like a grownup.


One day she gave me a cup and wanted juice in it. She told me, "In there, in the fridge. Have niny fridge, too. Daddy bought." She wanted me to know where the juice was and that we had a tiny fridge also. (However, Daddy didn't buy it, it had been my grandma's.)

She had Daddy's older iPhone in the new iPhone box, and said something like this: "Bad guys. not. get. phone keep fafe [safe] . . . Bad guys. not. get daddy’s phone. out this box. It my box for my phone.. . . It Daddy’s phone."

Did someone have a tiny hole in their shorts? "Niny hole in yois hoits [your shorts]?"

At bedtime she asked, "I dress up little minute? I put on priiiiiidy dress, be princess!"

L: I have more soy milk? 

Mommy: Have another bite of your peanut butter bread. 

L: Soy milk not candy.

(Meaning, "it’s not bad for me like candy is, so I can have more." Smart thinking!)

 

About The Emperor’s New Groove: [When] we watchin’ this funny show, him say “no touchy. No touchy.”

L: I brush my hair with this baby brush? 

Mommy: Yeah. 

L: Otay. Waint you [thank you].

Can you believe she scowled like that?

Mommy, at 8 a.m.: Do you want some oatmeal?

Yeah. Let I see if it’s morning time. [Runs to the patio door.] It is!

Layin' on Mommy.

Singing about getting something in the right order: I dog it in right oh-duh! I dog it in right oh-duh! 

After I drank almond milk from her cereal bowl: I didn’t know you can drink milk even a spoon is in.

Forcing the smile didn't work. Neither did getting out fruit snacks and showing her that whenever another kid smiled, he/she got a fruit snack.

Mommy: We need to get a little stool so you can get on and off the potty. And learn to wipe yourself. 

L: You can teach me to do anything. 

Mommy: I can? 

L: Yeah. And Daddy can.

Look at me. I can do amazing things. (She was holding her praying bear upside down with just her thumb through the loop of the tag.)  

I a good -- big girl, S! Do you know that?

On her birthday, she slept in. When she came in my room around 8:45 a.m. I said, "Happy Birthday, L!" She said so adorably, "But I still two and a half." I asked her, "Do you want me to tell you when it's the time that you were born?" She answered, "Yeah." Love her!

Edited to add: 

During her third year:

• She started to like drawing scribbles ("fribbles') on paper. 
• She potty trained (started just before age two and was good at it, with an adult's help, by two years and four months, then had more accidents for a little bit after baby sister was born). She is always dry in the morning, but we have some Pull-ups just for her to wear when she sleeps at one of the grandparents' houses, just in case. She has peed in her undies, maybe once a month?, if she is busy playing and doesn't tell anyone soon enough that she needs to go. She just starts to cry as she wets herself. Poor girl. Enough about that, though.
• She learned how to count to 10; sometimes to 18 or so, but she usually leaves out at least one of the numbers. 
• She can identify colors, shapes, and letters.
• She sings the whole alphabet song with other people. When she sings it by herself she starts with the middle of the tune and says "abcdefg" over and over again.
• She learned how to give a real kiss (at 24 months she couldn't do the smack).

L loves:

• the colors red, pink, and green
• running around, with or without her sister
• our little board book Maisy's Favorite Clothes, and other books
• her Mickey (my Steamboat Willie stuffed animal her daddy gave me when I was 17)
• jumping onto the couch from the coffee table
• watching a kid show on Netflix when she first wakes up; she is almost always the first child awake
• choosing what clothes she will wear
• "tacking" (snacking) on anything
• "helping" mom or dad cook or -- if we make it seem fun -- do chores, and "helping" dad play video games