Update: Ellie, age 3.5 years

Since I'm doing updates on her sisters, I've got to do one on our quirky little Gabrielle as well.

She likes cats and dogs and dancing.  She loves wearing her backpack (puts it on upside down).  Ellie has warmed up to the color pink, her middle name, and praying (now fights along with her sisters to say it).  She is still not toilet trained (despite intense, though inconsistent efforts these past three months).  Elle regularly gets out of bed.  Sometimes we have to send her back to her room five or six times before she finally falls asleep.  And then, sometime between midnight and 2 a.m. she just wakes up and wanders into our room, climbs in to our bed, and cuddles up to Drew.  Lately she's been falling asleep in Lainey's bed (top bunk) and she still winds up in our bed mid-way through the night.

Ellie regularly delights/amuses us up with what she says.  When we tell her to do something she says, "Okay, I'm on it."  When she is in trouble she either immediately admits what she did wrong Gilly-like (remember Gilly from SNL?) or dissolves into tears and says, "You said you'd always love me!" (we're pretty sure that came from a recently-read children's book.  She calls her white leggings "ninja pants" and her BYU shirt, a "soccer shirt."

Much like Alaina, Ellie struggles with the S sound when paired with another consonant.  Alaina drops the S sound.  Ellie drops the other consonant so start becomes sart and scared becomes sared.  She still says "bup" for but (and starts a lot of sentences this way which always amuses us).

Elle is highly attached to her daddy.  She calls him her "bestest daddy" and says that she is "his baby" (and "mommy's kid").  When he's around she wants him to do pretty much everything for her (I can't say I mind this too much since she's hounding him not me).  Sometimes when I tell Ellie that I love her she says, "I love you too mommy, but I not as much as I love daddy."  One day she beckoned me closer to hear a "secret" and whispered to me "I love daddy more than you."  Sometimes Drew feels bad that her affection for him leads her to be so innocently inconsiderate of me.  I think it's hilarious.

A couple months ago Ellie's stubbornness met with her overwhelming preference for her father and she fell asleep sitting up in my bed waiting for him to come home and put her to bed (he was on a daddy-daughter date with the oldest two):

We're on our third set of glasses now. We lost the original set in the house.  I feel like I've looked everywhere but they just disappeared a few months ago.  We used our wire rim back up ones until I snapped off one of the nose guards when trying to adjust it a month ago.  Now we have a yellow pair.  I wonder how many we'll go through next year.  Thank goodness for cheap on-line glasses.

Annual Update: Lizzie, Age 10

Lizzie, at age 10, is a delight (most of the time).  She can be stubborn and opinionated and dramatic, but also very considerate, sensitive, and helpful.  She still wants me to read her stories at night, which I love.  She also still likes to play with toys, which I also love.  I hope she stays young as long as possible.

Liz is super helpful with her little sisters.  She regularly reads to them and gets them breakfast and, when she's with me, Liz buckles Lainey and Ellie's car seats about 80% of the time.  I just step in if the little ones are being difficult.  Sometimes Liz even gets Emma buckled and/or in the car for me.  On Saturday I was slated to take Liz to a play date.  I set my alarm so I could get up from a nap with Emma just in time to change my clothes and race out the door.  So, when the alarm went off I passed Emma to Liz and raced upstairs to get dressed.  Minutes later, when I was racing down the stairs and hollering at the kids for leaving the front door open, Liz met me on the stairs and announced that everyone was buckled in the car.  Then she handed me my keys and said, "Here are your keys so you don't have to look for them."  She knows me so well.

School Pic by Danelle Empey:

Stats:
Height: 52 inches (23%)
Weight: 60 lbs (14%)
Vision: 20/20

Elizabeth is sensitive about her size.  She doesn't like being the smallest (and almost the youngest) one at school.

Liz wants to keep her hair long and wear it down.  She prefers jeans or pants and refuses to wear dresses or skirts to school (and gets upset when I make her wear them for family pictures).  She is still a pretty picky eater especially when it comes to vegetables.  Liz participates in Activity Girls and Girl Scouts.  She takes piano (private) and trombone (at school) lessons, plays recreational soccer, and loves to read.  The public library is right next to Lizzie's elementary school and she asks to visit at least a couple times a week.  I've noticed that she says "good gravy!" as one might say "my goodness!"--not sure where she got this.

Birthday interview:

Favorite colors - green and light blue and turquoise
Favorite food - Ritz cracker chicken, hot dogs, cheeseburgers (tried them for the first time around her birthday), pizza, ice cream
Favorite "healthy food" - mashed potatoes without the skins
Favorite book - the Tale Dark and Grimm books
Favorite song - Thrift Shop (the clean version, but still .  .  .)
Favorite thing to do - read (for reals, I love it)
Want I want to be when I grow up - an artist
Favorite person to spend time with - Jordan, Mom and Dad
What I do really well - I think I'm pretty good at drawing and soccer
What makes you laugh - tickle fights
What is the best part of day - The school day? .  .  .  Reading late at night in my bed
Favorite thing to do with family - go skiing (Drew loves this)
What do you love to learn about - math at school, I like doing more complicated ones
Where do you like to go - to the library
If you could have one wish - for Jacob to be back (ditto, Honey)

Annual Update: Alaina, Age 5

I'm a little behind in my annual updates on my kids.  After all Lainey's birthday was in early September. 

Anyway, Alaina's stats:

Height 40.5 inches (15%)

Weight 36.3 pounds (26%)

School pic (taken by the amazing Danelle Empey):

School: Alaina is attending preschool two days a week and loves it (I love it as well).  She seems particurly taken with her science teacher/class and the fire drill from two months back because that's what she talks about most (I get a play-by-play recap of the fire drill at least once a week).

Extracurriculars: She took a soccer class in the fall and will soon finish up her dance class (just in time for the holiday craziness).  The dance class has been particularly fun.  I have fond memories of her teaching Drew to do jazz hands, pretending to be a prima ballerina, counting to three in French, and begging for point shoes (okay, that last one wasn't so fun).  As this semester has been winding down she has started to lose steam.  On day she whined that she didn't want to go class.  She said, "I can't remember all the steps and Ellie keeps falling over!" (hehe, sounds about right).

Style:  Lainey still mostly sticks to dresses, with an occasional leotard day, but she has warmed up to pants a bit (meaning she doesn't cry anymore when she has to wear them).  Of course Lainey somehow manages to put her clothing on backwards about half the time (and also inside out for about half of that).  She also wants to wear things that I think are a little too grown up: makeup (I let her for Halloween and she didn't like it as much as she thought she would), high heels, and pierced ears.  She regularly points out little girls wearing heels and/or pierced ears as evidence that she should be allowed to do the same.  Too bad for her that Drew and I set the age for piercing at 12.

Speech: Laina leaves out the S sound whenever S is followed by a consonant (top this intant!).  Sometimes it's confusing.   Last month she asked me what "tile" was and I described flooring for while before I realized what she was trying to say was style as in hairstyle. Recently heard from Lainey: "plate mattress" instead of place mat.

Family - Lainey really enjoys her sisters.  She is a good playmate with Lizzie and Ellie, and, more than her other sisters, Alaina wants to hold Emma.  When the baby spits up on her she doesn't seem to mind much.

Birthday Interview:
Favorite color - purple and blue
Favorite healthy food - broccoli
Favorite treat - candy
Favorite animal - horses and elephants
Favorite thing to do - make up stories
What do you want to be when she grows up - a person who is in charge of sign up sheets
Who do you like to spend time with - daddy
What are you really good at -  I'm getting good at goalie
Best time of day - when daddy is home from work
What makes you laugh - funny faces
What are you afraid of - I'm not afraid of anything
What do you like to do with your family - act out the nativity (be the angel), go with dad somewhere
What do you love to learn about - God
Where do you like to go - Chuck E Cheese
If you had one wish what would it be - That I could go on a Daddy-Daughter date with daddy

4 mo old Emmaline

Emma hit her 4 month old mark last Friday which meant shots and measurements!

Stats:

Head 16.5 (69%)

Height 24.5 (50%)

Weight 15 lbs (67%)

 

She almost rolls over, she coos, she smiles, she grabs, she blows zurberts, she delights us all.

Also, she likes to suck on her two middle fingers and we are trying to transition her to a binky instead.

Busy weekends:

Last weekend Drew was out of town for his niece's wedding and ski patrol training.  For my part, I  managed to get Liz to a soccer scrimmage and soccer game, and held family movie night.

This weekend Drew went out of town for a boys weekend (or shooting), but first he took the girls to a basketball game and coached Lizzie's last soccer game of the season (glad it's finished for the season).  Liz also had a girl scout activity and group piano lesson, and I had a friend over to watch Downton Abbey (almost through season one). 

Trick or Treating

We went around the neighborhood with the families on our street, as usual (lots of fun, also as usual).  It was good that we were out with a group because Lainey and Ellie couldn't keep up with Liz.  Drew and I stayed with the little ones while Liz raced ahead with the older ones.  Drew commented that "Ten years old really is the perfect age for trick or treaing."

Lainey kept saying, "Can we go home now?  I want to eat my candy." 

 Ellie was surprisingly timid about approaching house.  

Ballerina & a "ballerina kitty cat":

Emma was adorable.  She fell asleep pretty quick.  

Cutest robot ever:

Drew commented that "Ten years old really is the perfect age for trick-or-treating."  I agree.  Old enough to handle her own costume (and this year, makeup), old enough to walk ahead of us a bit,  young enough to be excited about dressing up, strong enough carry all her own candy, unobservant enough that we could eat a huge chunk of it after she went to bed every night .  .  .  Quite nice.

 "Scary" vampire:

Ellie trying to steal Lizzie's candy:

 

Costume Parade

Costume Parade at Preschool.  Observations: Ellie seemed a little bewildered by all the people and noise.  She usually had a "deer in the headlight" look.  Lainey pranced around like a ballerina and kept motioning to me to take more pictures of her.  She wore the ballerina costume because the preschool didn't allow "scary" costumes (and specifically listed witch in the no-no list).

Trunk-or-Treat

Getting the kids ready in time for the event was a little tricky.  We had limited time and the kids were fussing over makeup and costume tweaks and whatnot.  In frustration I pointed out that I was still in my jammies (yeah, at 4:30 p.m., but I had just been home cleaning and making chili and all . . . ).  I said, "I still need to get dressed.  I do NOT want to go to the party looking like a dirty housewife."  Lizzie helpfully suggested that "dirty housewife" could be my costume.  Nope, I wear that too much already.  During the drive to the church Alaina brought up my costume situation again and suggested I could be "a dirty housewife that is wearing makeup and is angry."  Um, yeah.

Unbeknownst to each other Drew and I each signed up to bring a dish to the ward trunk-or-treat.  I chose corn bread because I already had a mix at home.  Drew volunteered to make chili and then got sick (what I had last week) so I made the chili.  Actually I made two pots of chili (white bean and standard) so we were ready for Halloween night (Liz insisted that I'd "ruin" Halloween if I made them eat soup before trick-or-treating).

 

Drew was not excited about walking in the costume parade with Ellie and Emma, but he was a pretty good sport.  Ellie claimed to be a "kitty cat" or sometimes a "ballerina cat."  Emma was a robot.  I bought her costume two or three years ago on clearance for just a couple dollars.  I thought I would sale it for a profit, but never got around to it and now I have a cute baby to wear it!!

 The actual trunk-or-treating:

Alaina decided to use her witch hat instead of her actual candy bucket and reminded me that I did the same thing two years ago.

 Vampire turned out to be a fairly popular costume choice for girls Lizzie's age.

Happily the girls were able to get all of their costumes our of our costume bin.  Hooray for no money out and no more costumes for me to store.