Julia’s 6th Birthday Party

Julia celebrated her 6th birthday on November 24, 2013.  We had a party for her on November 23rd at Bella Danze Artz, her dance studio.  Miss Diane and Miss Kathryn put on a ballet dance and tea party for Julia, complete with a ballet dance taught by Miss Kathryn and tea and hot cocoa with sandwiches and cupcakes.  Friends from daycare and Kindy came to the party to celebrate with Julia.  This was also a Snow White party, by Julia’s request.  She had a great time!

Julia getting her tutu put on by Miss Di.

Raven having her tutu put on by Miss Di.

Julia by her cake and party table.

Julia’s Snow White cake.

Julia in her Princess crown.

Raven with her friend Drew from daycare.

Miss Kathryn teaching the girls a dance.

The girls having their tea and cakes.

A happy girl at her party!

Selecting a cupcake.

Sophia and hot cocoa!

Opening gifts.

Julia with her cake.

Getting ready to blow out her candles.

Julia and Miss Kathryn.

18 Months!!!

Guess who is 18 months old today!!??!!  Anna!

It is amazing to me how much Anna has changed in the last month… each month she changes more, but this last month has amazed me.

Still our super blondie… not so blue eyes anymore.  Finally long enough hair for mini pigtails.  Stats… we’ll know in a couple of weeks at her 18 month check up.

She talks… yes… mostly jabbers, but she talks, in baby sentences, and occasionally words pop out that we know.  Auntie Lis taught her how to say “please” when asking for things, one of her favorite words is, “baby”, and she’s added a load of others to her repertoire… owl, hi, bye, dada, ball, down, out, duck, owl, coat.  She tries hard to say “Minnie Mouse”.

She walks better every day and now only crawls “for fun”. 

She loves to wear her shoes around the house and recently moved into a size 6. 

She also loves her coat.  We used Raven’s coat from last year (3T), but she’s really wearing 2T for clothes… so big already!

She loves to read books, sing songs, and make a mess in her sister’s room.  (If you can’t find Anna, chances are that she’s digging in a toy bin in Julia and Raven’s room.)

Anna knows her family, and if you ask her, she will point to all of her family members, including Dante and Auntie Lis.  She has a new special bond with Dante, she has grown to love her Auntie, and generally has opened up more to people being in her space and she loves to play with her sisters (and “brother”).  She thinks that chasing and being chased is super fun.  She enjoyed her first dive into the leaves this fall too.

Suffice to say, our baby is a toddler… but she will always be my baby.  And when I ask her where Baby Anna is, she giggles, puts her hands over her mouth, and then pats herself.  Yep, that’s my girl.

Words

I neglected to write a post on Anna’s 17-month-birthdate, and sadly, I didn’t even think about it until the day after.  (Bad Mom!)

However, I thought today to post because Anna said another new word and I thought, wow, I haven’t blogged her new words recently!

New today: “Done” (“Duh”)

Other new ones: Juice, Book, Sock, Fish, and This.

(Note, she drops most of her consonants at the end, but it’s obvious when she points, etc., that she’s saying something specific.)

These are added to: Uh oh, Mama, Shoes, and Up

Quite the obstinate little lady, so don’t expect her to actually say a word if you ask her too.  *grin*

Our Bubby:

Guess who’s 16 months old?

Wow, so much has changed in the last month!

Anna is officially walking… she has slowly been working up to full-on walking the last couple of weeks, but today I found myself noticing the times she crawled as opposed to the times she walked… and that was very little.

Words are still few, though she does say: uh oh, mama, shuss (shoes), and uh (up) now.  Very cute!  And she’s a chatterer!  She chatters and jabbers and points and generally has learned how to get her point across when she really wants to.  Obviously being a toddler we’re going to have tantrums for quite some time, however, it’s been a nice break that she attempts to tell us what she wants as opposed to throwing one all. the. time.

She wants to do what her sisters do, eat what her sisters eat, sit where her sisters sit.  Even though she needs her own space, she very much wants to be one of them and isn’t really the “baby” anymore.  Anna and Raven fight over who sits on mom’s lap, and Anna isn’t shy to fight for her spot.

She loves to giggle and laugh.  She loves to be tickled.  Combined, her laughter is a force to be reckoned with.  So contagious!  This weekend we both ended up in a fit of giggles when I grabbed her foot, pretended to tickle it, and she acted as though she was being tickled to death – to funny!

Shoes – girl LOVES LOVES LOVES her shoes.  She tries hard to put them on by herself and will go and get them and bring them to you.  Mama’s girl!  Ha, I love that “shoes” is one of her first words.

Favorite books appear to be Waddle!, Twinkle Toes, and Baby Einstein’s First Words.  Really, she loves to sit with any book in her lap and act like she’s reading.  She’s still not a big fan of being read to, so usually I’ll read a book to the older girls and give her her own book to flip through; I think she’s listening to the story but thinks she has control over the book.

And teeth.  My girl’s got teeth.  I can’t say for sure how many are fully in, but as of a week ago, she was working on four new ones to bring her total up to 16.  My goodness!

Love you Bubby Anna Banana!

erin

Raven is 4!

Middle turns 4 today!  How is it that 4 seems older than 3?  Not a baby anymore, but a preschooler, learning her letters and numbers, learning to write.  She is growing up so fast!

Raven, there aren’t words to express how perfectly you fit into our family.  You are a perfect mix between your older sister and your younger sister.  There is spunk in you to be a great “little sister”, and yet the love you have for your baby sister pours from you and that makes you such a great “big sister”.  No one else could be you; perfectly in the middle, but definitely not lost in our crowd.

I thought I’d interview Raven for you, to give you a little flavor in her life:

Favorite color: PurpleandPink (they ARE one color)

Favorite friend: Avery (at daycare)

Favorite food: Sandwich (bread, cheese, and meat)

Favorite clothes to wear: Skirt and a shirt

Favorite song: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

What do you want to be when you grow up: A ballerina

How old are you: 4

Favorite animal: Elephant

Raven still sleeps with her lovies every night – Sheepie and Elephant.  She also loves Pink and White Blanket.  (We don’t get too creative up in here, apparently.)

She started 4K at daycare this last week; we’ll see how she does this year and whether we (with her teacher) think she is ready for Kindergarten next year.  Amazing how much changes in a year!

We’re prepping for a Minnie Mouse birthday party, and our very first “friend sleepover” (Avery)!  Wish us luck!

Happy Birthday, my dear Raven!

Rules for Kindy

Julia is 1.5 weeks into Kindergarten, and on Day 5, Mom and Dad learned the class rules.

Work Hard

Be Nice

Be Safe

Lincoln Academy practices Core Knowledge Curriculum and these rules are tenants for Kindergarten.  Julia already has them down pat, and we are working on how they apply to home life, and not just school life.

Ways we work on that at home… we work hard on our homework – Mrs. G said she’d send it back home to be worked if it was obvious that it was rushed… we work hard on learning new words, helping parents, and performing tasks around the home.  We are nice to our sisters… which usually isn’t a problem for Julia, but is always something that can be improved on.  Moreover, we use nice language with our parents – please and thank you.  And, being safe – this is one that we’ll have to research a little bit… for example, there is a difference between tattling and ensuring that our family members are safe… and, perhaps we need to reinforce that more, as Julia immediately starts to tattle when one of the girls writes on herself or eats a crayon… but thought nothing about Raven and Anna going outside (IN THE FRONT YARD, NO LESS) by themselves yesterday morning while I was in the shower.  Eek!

erin

Bath Time!

Someone simply LOVES the bath… she gets a bit irritated with mama when I turn the water off.

Plumb Wrong

You never want to walk into your laundry room and step in water.  Ever.  You immediately begin thinking, “when did I last run the washer? did the toilet overflow?  did the sink overflow?  WHAT HAPPENED?”  You stand there and wonder and suddenly… drip.  You feel a drop on your arm and it doesn’t immediately register that your ceiling may be leaking… maybe you splashed too hard on the floor… until you feel… drip, drip, drip.

Sunday, August 4, we started a week of many house fails, and the first being a busted copper pipe.  After feeling those drips and realizing that they were coming from above, I looked UP and saw a bulge – a BULGE – in the ceiling.  My first thought after that was to run to the upstairs bathroom and figure out WHAT was running/leaking/otherwise.  Checking faucets, pulling things out of cabinets, checking the tub and the toilet… nothing.  Everything was fine.

So, when Adam came home, he literally burst the bubble and a flood if disgusting water came rushing into the laundry room.  After a bit of investigating, he determined that the drain pipe from the upstairs sinks had disintegrated and had been leaking into the ceiling for an undetermined amount of time.  Thankfully it is not also the drain pipe for the toilet or tub.

After making the hole much bigger…

…. to assess and address the problem…

… my budding plumber was able to fix the pipe himself.  (YAY, Adam!)

However, then we were left with a hole in the ceiling.  THANKFULLY my darling Aunt Chris and Cousin Dru were coming to visit that weekend, and they took on the ceiling without issue – by the time they went home the following Monday, we had a patched ceiling that only required paint – and I finally finished that this last weekend.  YAY!

So thankful that we didn’t have to call a plumber and that we didn’t have a bigger leak than we did… so thankful that we have a drain in our laundry room floor… and, well, while I’m not very happy that it turned out to be the first of a couple of different problems that week, I am very thankful that I have a handy husband.

erin

Angelina Ballerina Camp!

July 29 through August 2 I took vacation from work so that I could ensure that the girls made it to… Angelina Ballerina Camp!  I signed the girls up for camp at Bella Danze Artz so that Julia had something to tide her over until the new dance year started and so that we could determine if Raven really wanted to start dance class.  So much fun!

Adam, Anna, and I ventured to camp on the last day to see the girls’ recital that they learned that week.  They performed a ballet, tap, and lyrical number.