She's Six!

Again with the birthdays - they just keep coming!

Ellen had a great day - Chipotle lunch at school with Dad, her name on the school announcements, after school adventure with Grammy that ended with a bulldog (Briarwood!) that sings One Direction AND wears a Missouri Tigers shirt ("to freak out my Dad"), her most coveted gift of a Mummy Kit, a surprise visit from Mere, her favorite dinner (pesto tortellini), and a cookie with a candle in it. AND - the celebration continues this Sunday with our Ellen-Only Birthday Date to the lego store and a fancy dinner on the Plaza. It's good to be Ellen. It's good to be six.

Oh, and she has another seriously loose tooth - will likely be gone by the end of the week! It's true what that song writer said: All She Wants For Christmas is her Two Front Teeth ...

And despite my egregious lack of blogging (does anyone even read this but me?!), I have been saving some Ellen-isms and this seems as good a time as any to document them:

(Ellen dancing)
Me: Ells - where did you learn those moves?
E: Well, I was in discovery class and did this (breaks it down some more) and then I did some break moves of my own! It took a lot of math, science and industry.

We found a walking stick this summer in the Royals parking lot:
E: I hope it doesn't get run over! They are endangered!
Me: Well, Ellen, I don't think they are and a parking lot is a bad place to choose to hang out. Survival of the fittest.
E: Who said that?
Me: A famous scientist - Darwin.
E: Really?!? Or did you just make it up?

Ellen: I'm a really good loser, but not really a good finder.

Ellen: Mom - you should put a shirt in my backpack.
Me: Why?
Ellen: For when I puke.
Me: Why will you puke?!
Ellen: I don't know. I'm sure I will some day. I will be in school till 6th grade, you know.

We play the animal guessing game in the car quite a bit - give 3 clues and go!
Ellen: It squawks, it's yippy and it lives in brides.
Me: Brides??
Ellen: Yeah, a colony. You know - a bride of lions!

We were also practicing subtraction in the car:
Me: Are you using your fingers to help you figure it out?
Ellen: Yep.
Ellen (later): Ok, Mom. I'm using my brain now, not my fingers.

Watching her first KU basketball game:
Is there glitter for every player? (confetti)

I took Ellen with me to vote and we waited quite a while. We talked about how lucky we were to have the opportunity.
Ellen (thoughtful): Is Santa a kind of government?

Last night:
Santa doesn't have a naughty list, just a nice list.
Me: Oh yeah?
Ellen: Yeah. Know why? A naughty list is just rude.

And, more from me in my traditional sentimental mom post HERE if you're so inclined ....

Happy Birthday, Georgia!

We haven't fallen off the face of the earth and there is a lot to share, but most importantly, Georgia is TWO!

The Birthday Hat returns! She was not super happy about it ....

but with some tomfoolery from Erik, we got it done.

We had a great day - breakfast out (a treat, as we don't take our children anywhere to eat if we can help it), playing at home (too cold to be OW-SIDE!!), and then we explored Science City for the first time. It was really fun and I'm not sure why we waited so long?

I hope / plan / hope to have time to catch up on all other things Georgia (and Ellen, for that matter) but just know that she is happy and healthy and funny and ornery and TWO.

As usual, sentimental Mom post HERE.

July from my phone

A few other events during the month ...

Nice event at the Overland Park Farmer's Market one evening - music, drinks, vendors there selling fruits and veggies. Lots of opportunities for these two to play chase and fall and skin their knees. 

And the mattress saga continued - Erik and I found ourselves at Nebraska Furniture Mart over the Fourth weekend purchasing a mattress. The memory foam one we got in the spring was terrible, so we braved the crowds after lots of research. The biggest racket ever. Just talking about it makes my blood boil. (fingers crossed, though)

And, Erik turned ... older? 37 - eeps. Blueberry peach cobbler this year and a standard / only-average dinner at home, but later dinner at Q39 (delicious) and a day at the Ozarks with friends (too old for that).

And I got Ellen out of school early on her last day in the Pre-K classroom and we went to buy a new lunch box and got ice cream, just because. Going to miss this solo time with her!

Frosty Fun!

Can't get too much further in the month without recapping Ellen's Fifth Birthday Party!

Oh, but first, the night before ... a little Shepard girl in the school Christmas show! (she may or may not have picked her nose on stage)

We had a nice little party last year for Ellen and a few friends and we decorated cookies. We also usually have a little family party. Ellen has asked - all year long - for a party with all her friends. She gets invited to birthday parties all the time and it seems the Pre-K drill is to invite everyone to every party, which is lovely, yet also sets up big expectations. I just finally decided we would bite the bullet and do it because I knew she would love it and it would be the last big party for quite awhile (or, maybe forever).

We told her that her present would be her party and she was all about it. It took some thinking to find a place that was close, big enough and reasonably priced and we ended up at Foo's Frozen Custard, which is really close to their school. We were able to reserve the back room on a Saturday afternoon and I just planned for the kids to eat ice cream and do some crafts and be done. And then - as the RSVPs rolled in - I thought Ellen was really lucky to have so many sweet friends, and I started to panic about how I was going to keep 24 four and five-year-olds busy for 1.5 hours.

These are the best of the pictures because, 1. There was terrible lighting in the room and 2. Betsy (our photographer) was forced into "teacher mode" to help me wrangle children (along with my teacher friend Marie and all the other adults). Ellen's friends were really well-behaved, but man, I could never be a teacher OR have more than two children. We ended up making a snowman craft, playing pin-the-nose-on-the-snowman, coloring lots of snowman pages, running around a little, eating ice cream, playing tic tac toe, crying a bit here and there, and smiling that we made it to 4:30 without losing any children. Hooray!

I made a decision that we wouldn't open presents at the party because I knew it would turn into a free-for-all and we had to leave right at 4:30 to get to another party. (Yes! Over committed!) Ellen's friends do mostly open presents at their parties, but I polled my out-of-town friends and they said they never do, so I felt justified. We wrapped up the birthday party, headed to the Santa party (pictures to come!), then back home to open presents. It was actually really great - Ellen got to enjoy opening her presents, it was nice and orderly (my gift, I suppose) and she got some really nice things - lucky, lucky girl.

Crazy present-eyes!

We almost started opening presents and then I realized we didn't get a picture with the birthday girl! Thanks, camera timer!

FIVE

Yes! It's true! Ellen has lived with us for 1/20th of a century (not counting her time spent in utero, sucking up resources and not contributing to the household).

The traditional birthday hat ...

(She kept saying it was a "baby" hat and I told her to snap out of it because she will be wearing it until she is 40. I guess I will be breaking into her house with my camera - hope I'm still that nimble at almost 76).

Yesterday was a school day, so she got to take treats (Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe Joe's - go get some. Seriously.) Per her report: she got to pick her job for the day ("standing at the back of the line and telling people what to do"), got to stand on her chair at lunch to sing Happy Birthday, got to hand out treats, and got to sleep on "top loft" for rest time. All in all, sounds like a pretty good day.

My mom picked her up early for a little shopping adventure and ... let's just say ... so far what I've learned about being the mother of a 5-year-old is that it requires staying up late to watch YouTube videos of how to do Rainbow Loom.

We rounded out the day with a spontaneous pizza dinner (Spin pizza and "crouton salad" was the birthday girl's choice) with 3 of the 4 grandparents. What a lucky girl!

 Yes, this is the world's tiniest cupcake. Tiny, but delicious - thanks Dolce Bakery.

(Love this little series of pictures so much! World's Tiniest Cupcake Toppled by Too Big #5 Candle!!)

We are looking forward to her birthday party this weekend with 20 of her closest 5-year-old friends. If you haven't gotten Ellen anything yet, just send me some wine and we'll call it even.

Oh, and can't forget the sentimental Mom post HERE.

TWELVE

Didn't forget! Must get these pictures noted here before the holiday season sweeps us away.

Quite a bit harder to capture the calendar shot this month - glad we are done with the monthly child rodeo!

Georgia had a great 12-month check up. Her stats:
Weight: 18 pounds, 10 ounces (40th percentile)
Height: 28 1/4 inches (25th percentile)
Head circumference: 18 1/3 inches (90th percentile)

You can see Ellen's 12 month pics and stats HERE. Georgia is gaining on her!

Otherwise, according to the notes in my phone (i.e. my pocket brain) milestones between months 11-12 include: giving kisses! (sloppy, open mouth), waving in the mirror, playing in piles of pillows (her most favorite activity), throwing her pacifier and dee-dee out of bed at naptime and wailing for attention, pulls to stand easily and cruises around furniture, wakes up in the middle of the night and bangs on the shared wall between our rooms (fortunately, a passing phase), stands for just a few seconds, makes a "thhhh" sound for pacifier, signs All Done, More, Milk.

Since her birthday, she continues to walk really well behind a push car, but no independent steps. She signs Please and Thank You and has a funny "raise the roof" sign for Night-Night. She has figured out how to open kitchen cabinets and empty their contents. She moved to the Bears room at school and takes one nap there (on a cot!), but still two at home. No more bottles as of this week! Tooth #3 has broken through, with #4, #5 and #6 following closely (poor baby). She takes her shoes and socks off in the car Every.Single.Time we go anywhere. She is starting to use a spoon and is SO PROUD of herself!

Picture courtesy of Becca Spears: Did someone say cake??

 
We did have a little party for Georgia, just family. I was originally going to do a combo family party for Georgia and Ellen because their birthdays are just a month apart, but I didn't feel good about it for her first birthday. The rest? Probably so. And, the theme was really easy - Golden Birthday! Already had all the stuff from Ellen and I had rather fortuitously ordered the gold shoes months earlier because I thought they were so cute. Win win.

She had never worn a skirt before! Quite unsure what it was for.

Piggy, piggy. I paid for the 23 raspberries she ate for days.

I made her cake, as I did for Ellen - carrot cake with yogurt frosting. Delicious, actually, though not so beautiful.

Thanks, Aunt Betsy, for your camera work!

365 days

They say it's your Birthday!

Happy Birthday, sweet Georgia!

We started our day with the traditional Birthday Hat. This is, honesttogoodness, one of the most favorite gifts we have received (thank you, Lenna!). I originally had no intention to keep up the tradition, but now I just love it so much that our girls will be scowling and wearing this hat when they turn 18, so help me God.

It was nice that Georgia's birthday fell on our "home day", so 3 of the 4 of us didn't have to rush out of the house. She slept late (my gift, I suppose) and was happy as a clam upon waking, per usual. We will have a little family party on Sunday to celebrate, so today actually included errands and other boring things, but she got to eat Costco pizza crust for lunch and skip a nap, so that's something, right? By the by, the skipped afternoon nap (her choice, not mine) resulted in the first real tantrum with arms flailing, layed out on the floor. Great timing, G.

I did manage to get the girls out of the house for some pictures in the gorgeous fall leaves as this is probably one of our last really nice fall days.

And, of course, I can't let the day pass without some sentimental goop. You can see that HERE on my "mom blog". HERE are Betsy's picture of all of us in the hospital the day Georgia was born, and, Ellen HERE and HERE at 12 months.

Family Party

Round two of the birthday party extravaganza. We are so lucky to have 90% of our family living in town, and our girls are lucky that it will often mean they get to have two parties! Tried to keep it simple this year with pizza, salad, and Best Ever Chocolate cake. Along with some shenanigans from the cousins, of course!

Ellen and I made her shirt with my most favorite freezer paper stencil technique. And her birthday hat is courtesy of my co-worker who also gifted her the candle hat! Love!

Again, lots of nice gifts and good times. And, leftover chocolate cake for the nursing mother. Win, win, win.