Happy 5th Birthday, Ellie!

My sweet girl is FIVE! I can't believe it.... I asked her how it felt - she said a lot different! LOL!

I wanted to post a few shots that really are HER. These are my favorite recent ones....

She loves "Butterfly Music" (aka Beethoven's 5th) and will sit and "whistle" it and conduct....




She just has that look that makes you realize that somehow she knows much more than you can even imagine....


And her pure joy of life shines through in so many ways....


Happy Birthday, my special girl! I love you dearly....

The funny things my girls say...

Sammie is a thoughtful child. She comes up with some really funny, yet insightful things that make me smile.... Here are a few (with dates at the end)

"You are such a goofy kid, Sammie!"
"I not a kid, I'n [sic] a girl!" 2/10

"Sammie, why did you hit Ellie?"

 "Because I wanted my way!" 3/1

"Sammie, stop crying!"
"I'm not crying, I'm whining!" 3/1

"Sammie, what are you singing?" (She is constantly singing something different. It's so adorable!)
"My berry song"

... a little later...
"My windy song" 3/27

I have a pair of feet! 5/5 (This was just a revelation for her! It was so sweet how her face just lit up!)

Ellie's funny little things are different. Some, I think, are different because of age. But I think many are different because of who she is....

"Walmart is like a big fat guy" 1/24

"bone arrow" = bow & arrow  2/8 (We argued about this - apparently I'm wrong!)

Girl stuff: mermaids, volcanoes, rockets
Boy stuff: dinosaurs, rocks. 3/11 (I love how her mind works - I just don't know what to do with girly stuff, but rockets and volcanoes I can deal with!)

These are real live stinky buses! 3/27 (She was SO excited to "smell" them!)

Why is the sky blue?

Where do frogs sleep? (The snow was still up to the edge of the water and she was quite concerned that they would get cold.)

How does the world spin?

Where did the earth come from? 5/'08 (These are just a few of the fun questions she asks - and she'll listen to the answer and then come back to it later! Amazing....)

Long Summer Nights

Thinking back to my childhood, I remember those long summer nights. Those days that felt like they went on forever. Being outside, the long twilight, playing and eating late. Staying up past my bedtime and falling into bed exhausted.

It's funny how my girls getting to that age - that age of being able to remember it as an adult - has spurred my memories to the foreground. I remember being 6 or 7 (Ellie's going to be 5 on Friday) and running around in a flowy nightgown pretending I was... flying... a princess... beautiful... a bird... who knows.

Jumping off the picnic bench while mom and dad worked in the garden, dad listening to the baseball games. Playing with my little brothers, doing my own thing, sneaking the juicy, ripe tomatoes out of the garden to eat whole - and getting "yelled" at for not washing them first. Going to bed while it's still just barely light with the breeze blowing the curtains - snuggled in my parents bed for some unknown reason.  Hearing them in the above ground pool in our back yard giggling. (Turns out they were skinny dipping! LMAO!) 

Checking out the stars. Seeing the moon rise so big over the yard that I thought it was a planet.

Riding bikes on the back track. Building a tree fort. Playing in the "woods". (A small strip of trees between our back yard and the dirt bike track behind our house.)

Wow. The amazing memories!

I love how my girls growing up doesn't make me feel older, doesn't make me feel every bit my 42 years. Rather, it makes me feel younger, brings me back to those carefree, innocent times of singing my heart out with no care of what anyone thinks....

Maybe I need to sing even louder and without a care in the world.

I love my girls! Thank you for this precious gift....

Update on the acupuncture...

Just a quick update, actually.... I will just leave it that I wasn't as happy with it as I was hoping. Yes, I did see some changes and it seemed to give Ellie some relief, but there were other aspects of the person doing it that I wasn't as happy with. She was sweet to Ellie after giving the acupuncture, but didn't do very much to ready Ellie for it - nor calm her much afterwards. That was all my job. And while I appreciate that I'm much more capable of it, I wanted her to get Ellie more prepared for it....

Ah, well! Back to homeopathy only!

Ellie's Hot on Thursday

"Mommy, I'm hot."

"Well, Ellie, let's get a short sleeved shirt for you."

"No, mommy. That only works on Mondays."

Laughing.... "Ellie, that's the silliest thing I've ever heard!"

"Mommy! I'm serious! It won't work today! Is it Monday? It only works on Monday!"

Acupuncture? On a KID?!!

Well, with Ellie's eczema raging out of control and homeopathy not seeming to help her yet and her itchiness just driving me insane (let alone what it's doing to HER!), I decided to see what acupuncture could do for her. After two treatments, I'm FLOORED at the difference. (I did take before shots I'll have to post some before/after shots later.) Her itchiness is almost completely gone and her eczema, which had been flaring for WEEKS is subsiding. We'd tried everything and nothing seemed to work at all.

She was amazing. Sure, she sobbed during her second treatment, but she held out her arm for the pokes on there and was SO incredibly brave. And literally less than 5 minutes later, she was joking around and being silly! As a matter of fact, she didn't even remember that she got poked on the back!

While I hate putting her through the trauma of getting poked with needles, if this is going to be as successful as it's appearing, it will be totally worth it. She won't be as uncomfortable and itchy and my heart won't break for her when I see the awful scratches on her skin.

I'll update later on how successful it is in the long run!

Doin' Some Landscaping

Well, it started out innocent enough. Chris did the lawn so I decided to churn the dirt under the spruce trees, dig out the pine needles and generally get it cleaned out. And plant just a few columbines. Then we started thinking about the area to the left of the front door - should we do this? Should we do that?

And Chris was off to the Alpen Gardener to buy a few things.

While he was gone, Ellie and Sammie were invited to go to watch a movie with Journey, our neighbor, and Journey's mom, Lisa and I sat and chatted about gardening. (She is the gardener for the Wedding Garden in Mt CB and knows a TON about landscaping.) I weeded, raked and cleaned up in anticipation of Chris returning.

When Chris returned, she mentioned a rock stash to him and they went off - and came back with the Beastmaster so loaded down with rock that it was almost a low rider! They went for a second load after realizing we didn't have quite enough and then we set to work tearing everything apart. (I think they did more of the work - Chris dug and Lisa used the pick ax on the ground! LOL!)

So we're all getting reading right now to head back out to do more.... (I think I'm about to get yelled at. LOL!) I must run and get dressed!

Ellie's Graduation

Yup, as odd as it may sound, Ellie graduated from preschool! LOL! I thought it was silly at first, but watching the kids in their homemade caps singing sweet songs, receiving their diplomas and bringing flowers to the parents was incredibly sweet. I admit that I even teared up.

Congratulations, Ellie! Off to Kindergarten in a few short months.

My little girl is growing up....

(Note: No pictures today - I'll have to update this post later since I haven't edited them and uploaded them yet.)

Shooting Rockets - on Mother's Day!

A few months ago when we was in Colorado Springs visiting Nana, Papa, Grandma Judy and Grampa Tom, I stopped at Hobby Lobby for a few things. I noticed some small model rockets and thought, "The girls would love putting those together with daddy!" So I bought them....

I later gave them to Chris to give to the girls. And the first thing out of Ellie's mouth? "Daddy! Can we shoot these off?!?!"

*doh*

So he headed to Gunni and bought the necessary items and we had a BLAST (pun intended) shooting them off! It was an awesome Mother's Day!

We redid the office!

"We" being my mom, dad, Ellie, Sammie and me.... LOL!

About two weeks ago, I walked into the office and got a bug up my.... you know. I thought, "This office is ALWAYS a mess and I need to do something to it!" At first, my goal was going to be to rearrange and then paint quickly. But as I thought harder and harder about it, I realized that it needed some serious work.

But the catch - I wanted to do this while Chris was gone WITHOUT him knowing what I had planned! Crazy, eh? I knew he was leaving on Sunday and wouldn't be home until Thursday. Plenty of time to clean the office, caulk, paint and put it back together.

Before I go through the process, here is a shot of the office before the redo:



As you can see, it was quite full of... junk. And very poorly arranged. I couldn't stand the shelves along the back wall - they weren't very useful and when you looked close, you realized how out of date it was. Ugh!

So the first thing I did was pull EVERYTHING (except the shelves along the left side) out of the office. Needless to say, this created quite the mess in the rest of the house - but worth it for the final result! Then I pulled the shelves off the wall. That's when I realized that there was no way to get around texturing - not just the walls, but the ceiling. As you can see in the following shots, the ceiling tape was very visible and the shelves left some pretty bad scars on the walls.





A big job. One bigger than I had planned! Whoops! How could I texture the walls and ceiling AND paint and caulk AND put it all back together by Thursday? Only one way.... with help. My parents called on Sunday night and when I told them what was up, they actually offered to come help! They ROCK! (But they are kinda like that - willing to drop things and help out. Very cool.)

So I cleaned, caulked and generally did a LOT of little things before they arrived. I also found the old wallpaper. Very interesting!





My parents showed up the next day and we managed to get the walls textured and the most of the trim painted white. The girls helped with painting the trim, thanks to my mother's patience!



And while mom and I painted, textured and caulked, my dad entertained the girls. Or was it the other way around?



We finally started getting the REAL paint on the walls and booked through to the end!



Finally! The room was coming together - just a few hours before Chris came home. Unfortunately, my parents had to leave before he got home - I wanted them to see his reaction. Luckily, he was THRILLED with the (almost) final result!

Note the printer station in the corner - that will be replaced by something shorter with slots for different kinds of papers.


Chris' reaction!


See the baskets on my shelves? Hiding a bunch of my random stuff - much nicer looking. (Still more to do, but it helps a TON!)


On a side note, this isn't completely done. We've got a little more left to do. Some cabinets above each work space, Chris gets a new desk and chair and a few other minor odds and ends. I'll post pictures when it's fully completed!!!

And finally, a slideshow with a bunch more photos of the whole thing: