Elli's Lovie

Lovies, every baby has one, right? The something they are attached to. The something they fall asleep with.The something every parent fears losing at the airport or the mall. The something that every parent buys a duplicate of and hides in an emergency. What was yours? Mine was a hand puppet made from a baby's blanket. 

It looked a lot like this...

I remember my sister and her waffle knit pink blanket. Like I said, every baby has something. 

Well, my sweet Brady BOO never had that something, I was actually kinda sad, I thought it was always neat to have a object to comfort. She was content with just sucking her thumb, which in hindsight was quite easy for me. 

Reese, now I knew there wasn't a necessity now for Lovies, but I still was expecting one. But I wasn't prepared for the lovie she would choose. She was my only paci girl and I would go bonkers at night when she woke and couldn't find a paci on her own so I kept about 5-6 pacis in her crib at night...see where this is going?

Reese would fall asleep with a paci in her mouth and a paci in each hand. The pacis in her hand she would shake so that the ring on it would make noise. Oh boy, was it tough to break her of the paci since I had to break her of her lovie at the same time. 

Well, now on to Elli's lovie. I thought for months her comfort was the muslin blankets, and for month is was. This is how you would find her. I stocked up on these babies...

Then her dexterity caught up with her and she has a new lovie. I have posted about her love of hair, but it has gone to a new extreme!

As soon as she is in my arms, her left arm reaches straight up into my hair and her right hand goes straight into her mouth. EVERY TIME! 

As you can see she is very gentle and just plays and twirls, never pulls. But when she goes to suck her thumb, she left arm reaches straight up for hair. So I never imagined her lovie would be part of a human.

Will be interesting to try and break this habit! Maybe she will outgrow it or just grow her own hair, but for now I love it!

Oh, and no pixie hair dos in my near future.

Right before your eyes

Kids bud and grow so quickly...

How do you measure it?

By inches? by lost teeth? by milestones met? by hugs shared? by shoes size? by new skills mastered?

So many ways to watch them grow, one of my favorite ways is observing their art. I am almost always wowed by what new creation they have for me. They get to tell a story before they can read and you get to have a glimpse into their amazing little minds.

Yesterday Reese drew Rapunzel's tower. "There are two Mother Gothels at the bottom and Rapunzel drew those lines so that she could have a door to get in and out of the tower and there is an elevator inside."

I love the concentration and the genius of creating a door, like "duh, Rapunzel make a door to get in and out of that thing!"

Teaching a new dog old tricks

So you may know that Brady's first word was "Dewy Dog" when she was a baby. They were barking at us while we were on a wagon ride in the neighborhood and when when passed our house she pointed and said "Dewy Dog." I always thought that was a neat first word.

Fast forward five years, same two dogs but two more daughters. New house, a house that the dogs are constantly being told not to stop barking... "No barking, Dewy" "Stop it, Pace" "Stop dogs, stop" come from my mouth several times a day!

Today we decided to enjoy the nice weather with an McDonald's picnic in our backyard.

Our fence isn't a privacy fence so the dogs can see every car that drives by or each person that walks by...so barking about every minute or two is common when they are outside. At one barking spell, I swore I heard Elli say Pace or "Ace"!!! I was pretty pumped, so I listened to her the next couple of barking spells, but then I swore I heard her say "barking" on more then one occasion. Okay, people time to get the camera out to try and catch her second and third word! So every time the dogs started barking I hit record...

Warning: Turn your volume down if you have dogs that will get worked up by barking because my dogs bark throughout all these videos. 

Tell me what you hear around 20 seconds. 

I think I hear it again right at the beginning of this video...

Do you think she is saying "Stop dogs" over and over again?

Now for the final video I shot... she is just flat out telling the dogs off, she has had enough of the barking! I am with you Elli, ENOUGH!

So Elli had her second word, Pace, third word, barking, and first sentence, Stop dogs, all within a matter of 15 minutes. Maybe this girl has been speaking all sorts of words to me and I just am not listening carefully enough!

Owl blanket Project: Nine Months

Have a really held my baby girl in my arms as many months as I grew her in my belly?!?! WOW

Soon, she will be bigger than the blanket.

You know I wish this kid would smile and be happy for once! She is such a grump...KIDDING!

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Habits:

-Her hair fetish is in full force these days. Plays with my and her hair while nursing. Can be found lightly touching her eyes to feel her eyelashes. Even likes the feel of dog hair. The most amazing part about it is, she does not pull hair, she is as gentle as can be.

-Since she broke a top tooth and working on the second top tooth, she has been smacking her lips a lot. I guessing it makes her gums feel better. I do however laugh she she does it right after nursing, makes me feel like I make some good tasting milk ;)

-When she wants attention...SCRUNCHY FACE!

Percentiles:

Well, the life of the mom of three has caused me, to my dismay, to not always be on top of this "baby book" info. I didn't realize until the day was almost gone that today was her 9 month birthday. I was quite pleased with myself that I remembered to get the pictures in before bed time. Well, now that I sit down to write this post, I realize I forgot to measure her. But you know what, she was fed, changed, cleaned, napped, cuddled with and loved on today. In case you were wondering ;)

And, look at those legs... She has chunk to spare!

Milestones:This has been the month of fine motor skill development

-Clapping! YAH!
-How big is Elli? SO BIG!

-mimicking Sign Language.
-Tossing toys from one side to the next:

The toy tossing game can keep her attention for quite some time. This video was caught about 5 minutes into the game.

-FIRST SNOW!!!

-The first top tooth came it...Check it out

Now for some of my favorite pictures from the month

Scrunchy Face

Elli has a new favorite face... SCRUNCHY FACE (look at that top tooth coming in!)

 Dang, I make cute babies!

 Hear me roar! (actually see isn't making a sound in this pic)

The older girls wanted to show off their scrunchy faces too

Valentine's Through the Years

2008

 

2009

 

2010

2011

 

 

 

 

2012

 

 

 

2013

 

Thoughts on V-day

I honestly have never been a big Valentine's Girl. I try to show my family how much I love them every single day of the year. I don't need a random day in February to tell me to do that. I do enjoy the candy however, something I try not to do every single day of the year ;)

Honestly my disassociation (not hate) with the holiday, I would probably have to admit, comes from childhood /teen years/ early adulthood when I never spent the holiday with a man. Then by the time I did spend it with a man, I realized I was surrounded by love all along and there was no reason to get sad on this day to begin with. And why would I like a holiday that makes some people depressed?!?!



Today, I had reason #3127 why I am glad I have never looked forward to this holiday.

I bought the girls new running shoes yesterday, Nikes. $45 Nikes. They were super pumped even though they are the exact same as the ones they just grew out of, but hey I am glad they liked them. The both eagerly wore them with their pink heart outfits today. They were dressed and ready to go 15 minutes before time to depart for school and choose to play outside and wait on me. Within FIVE FREAKING minutes of having on those shoes, B had dog poop all over the bottom and side of one shoe and all over the sidewalk in our backyard! REALLY? At 8 in the morning I am scrubbing dog poop off her shoe (and the sidewalk is still waiting on a scrubbing).

But since to me this is basically another ordinary day, I did the chore and went about my day.  No need to cry over smeared poop.

However, for me, on a holiday, I want things to run smoothly. I have higher expectations for the day. I want it to be a day of bliss. A day of no whining, no chores, yummy food, laughter, no tears, etc. So if I had considered today a special holiday, I would have been having a CRAPPY day, but since I don't look forward to this day, I am not having a crappy day, I am just scrubbing it instead.

Only at base housing

Only at base housing can you walk to a food court that is a tenth of a mile from your house, eat among many in uniforms and listen to a brass band!

It kept Elli super entertained!

Someone pull the plug, please

As most of you are aware, my situation at home is temporarily different (message me if you are confused). This temporary change has left me feeling like I am drowning. I have not struggled with similar changes in the past quite like this time, and this time the change is in short increments. I will say to myself, I am drowning and I need to pull the plug. One night when I had a long list of things to do after the girls bedtime it hit me. I struggle most after they are in bed and I still need to eat dinner, do dishes, pack lunches, fold laundry, pick up toys etc etc etc. So to 'pull the plug' I need the girls to help me with some of this. In the past I when just ask them to help out when they could, but I never had a regular chore list for them.

Things are different now, I explained to them during this time of change I need their help more then ever. Brady and Reese were very receptive to this. Actually, they were down right excited about it. Lots of people have posted lately about how they organize chores in their home, so here is my new system!

 I believe in choose for the kids. Children build confidence when they are able to make chooses about the direction their life goes, even are 4 and 5. Now, I am not talking careers people, just what they are going to do the next five or ten minutes. So I decided to let them have chooses with chores too. They must do as many chores as years old they are, but they get to choose which chores to do. I wrote the age appropriate chores on a clothespin. When they complete that chore they get to move the pin over to their pipe cleaner letter so they can keep track of what is completed.

If they do more chores then their age, they will then get to choose a prize from the prize bucket (mostly hello kitty $1 or less items) or they can ask for $1. Interestingly enough, at this age money doesn't motivate them, so the prize bucket is always sought after. Brady, almost always chooses to do way more then 5, and Reese always does one more then 4 to take a trip to the prize bucket. I have done this for about 8-9 days now and only once did they choose to just do their age, and that was because they wanted to work on making valentine's instead.

People, for now, they are excited about chores. One day Brady forgot to ask to be excused from the table because she was so eager to do her chores.

So, my girls have pulled the plug, the water has drained and I am breathing again! And top of it all, my kitchen is now swept daily and my dishwasher has never looked so shiny!

If you feed a baby some beets

If you feed a baby some beets, she may sneeze

If she sneezes, you may notice your dog licking the wall

So then you get a rag to wipe beet splatters off the wall, while you do that you may not be able to see the baby.

While you may not be able to see the baby, she may choose to help you clean the beets off her tray.

If she chooses to clean the tray she may do so by wipe her hand all over the tray.

If she wipes the tray 'clean', then she may ask for more beets.

If she asks for more beets, you may just give her another spoonful.

Circus bound?

Reese told me that Pace had her PJ tutu. So I went downstairs to retrieve it, what I saw next gave me a good belly laugh!

My wiener dog is a closet cross dresser!

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Only at base housing

Since living on base housing I have come across a few 'situations' that have me chuckle and say to myself "only at base housing"

So I decided to start a new running post on here, so drumroll please...

Only at base housing,

1. Do you look at your window at 7:45am and see six missiles pass by on a flat bed truck

2. Does a street full of happy, noisy kids playing in snow become completely still and silent from the playing of a tune. (When the flag is raised and lowered each day a song is played over the base speakers and if you are outside you are suppose to respect the flag and stand still).

3. Do you drive by a marching band one tenth of a mile for your house

4. Do you have to take a detour two tenths of a mile from your house due to a suspicious package

I am sure there will be many more installments

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