Little girl in a big body

Little Miss Evelyn is not so little! At her 6-month appointment earlier this month she ranked in the 65 percentile in both height and weight. This is a first for this mom. Most of my pip-squeaks are in the 10-15% at this age. I had to break out the 9-month sleepers for her. She also got her first two bottom teeth a few days ago. She's not crawling yet, but she can get around. She rolls, pivots, and creeps to get to where she's wants to go.

She started going to a sitter 4 mornings a week for a few hours. She's loving the attention at my friend, Malissa's, and is thriving on the routine. I am loving 12 hrs a week with no kids!! I'm hoping to devote all of this time to my office, but I'm still playing catch up on everything around here from a busy, busy summer!

Big girl in a little body

Amelia is such a little peanut - which we've known for quite awhile. But I'm reminded now as we start to get fall/winter clothes out. Let's see - she turned 2 back in May, so you'd think she'd fit into 24mos/2T clothes this fall. So far, that's not working out. Most pants are just falling right off of her, and are about 2 inches too long. But I'd like a break from last winters clothes, since it's quite possible Evelyn will be wearing them the first of the year. We are predicting that she will pass Amelia in clothing size.

On the bright side, she has been working on potty training the past month and is very successful at this point. She's wearing big girl panties now everyday (which doesn't help the pants issue, since a diaper could help hold the pants up!) and doesn't have too many accidents. I love what this is doing to my diaper budget!

A couple of funny Amelia sayings: "Sleeping Judy" - Sleeping Beauty
"Jingle Bells" - Tinker Bell

First Day of 1st Grade

1st Grade, Aug 20, 2009

New shoes and a new outfit! Kind of chilly this morning, needed a light jacket.

Air guitar!!!!!

New haircut

Back of the new hairdo!

Ellie started 1st grade today. She has Mrs. Raineri (rhymes with canary) and is very excited to start back! Nicole came over yesterday to give her a new haircut. It turned out very cute! I think this will work well for the school year ... hopefully not look all nasty by the end of the day. We can still put it up, but it won't be a necessary part of the morning routine.

I hope she feels okay today - she was up twice last night complaining of a sore throat and an ear ache. And yesterday she had hives. I guess we are starting the school off in the right direction with some virus germs! But she was up and dressed before my alarm even went off - so to keep her home would have been devastating!

While you were out

Here is the mural that was painted on Ellie's entire southside wall. It was painted by a friend of ours from church, Candice Smock. It's beautiful and the colors are so vibrant! It matches the comforter set I found online with the Paris cityscape.

Rest of the mural - I can't get it all in one frame.

Dresser before - stained and messy

Dresser after

Room before - plain walls, no curtains

Room after - still needs to finish painting.

This week Ellie is staying at Grandpa Dennis & Jane's. So I've planned to get her room all done for her while she's away. I started today by getting one wall painted - and a friend is coming to paint a mural this week. I'm also going to paint her dresser, make curtains, organize, hang things on the wall - the whole bit! I'm very excited to take some video of the process and then her reaction kind of like how they did on the TLC program, "While you were out!" I always loved that show. I'm sure she'll be surprised!

Some other photos

Jack with some serious "bling!"

Pampered Chef Amelia

Amelia: "Cheese!"
Evelyn: "Oh my!?!"

My 4 kids

It's rare to be able to get all 4 of them to stand still for 2 seconds to get a photo of them. And as you can see, Amelia didn't really want to be a part of it. I love Evelyn's expression here. I snapped four shots as quick as I could - and this was the best one.

1/2 Birthday!

Enjoying some homemade ice cream!

Evelyn had her 1/2 birthday on Friday, August 7th. As we parents always say - "Wow! That went fast!" She's a pretty delightful girl. She's starting to get better at playing on her own. She's not sitting up on her own yet, so I think she is just tired of the belly and back thing. She's ready to have a different position. If we sit behind her she does pretty well.

We started solid foods last week and so far she's liked everything we've given her. Sweet potatoes, carrots, applesauce, pears. Billy gave her mixed veggies tonight. Amelia HATED fruit, so I'm glad that Evelyn likes them and we can keep the variety.

She's really rolling a lot -- and putting her in one place in the room does not mean she'll be there a minute later. She'll roll all the way across the basement to get to wear she wants to be. She can be very temperamental though, as most breast-fed babies can be. She doesn't like to be away from mommy too much. I'm anxious to get her to a sitter 12 hrs a week when school starts. She needs the time away from me and with someone else besides daddy and her own house. I like my kids to be comfortable being with new people and in new places. So like when you take them to the church nursery they don't freak on you!

I'm amazed!

Amelia "reading" Dinosaur Roar! to Gma Barb on the way to Joplin, MO

I am just amazed each day at how much Amelia excels at things. She was an early talker -- putting full sentences together that most anyone could understand before 18 months. She's really picked up her colors this past few months (which Jack has really struggled with), and yesterday I was shocked at how many shapes she knew. I was drawing them on a pad and she just zipped them right out: square, triangle, circle, star, heart. I stumped her with hexagon though!

Billy shared this cute story with me tonite. Jack and Amelia were in the basement playing together and watching some TV. Billy heard them arguing and started to come downstairs to see what the rucous was about. This is what he heard:

J: "Amelia, the Grinch is not green!"
A: "Yes, he is!"
J: "No, he's not! He's red."
A: "I'm going to go tell my daddy! Daddy, the Grinch is green."
B: "Jack, sorry buddy, but Amelia is right. The Grinch is green. He has a red hat on though."
J: "Hmph!" (arms crossed - mad face)

Uh-oh. I'm a little worried about his self-esteem. Will the little smartie-pants sister that excels in colors, shapes, and other things make him feel stupid? Hopefully it just makes him try harder this year in preschool.

Bedtime

Since I'm gone in the evenings a couple of days a week, I miss out on the bedtime routine with the kids. Billy does a pretty darn good job getting all four to bed on time and has some nice routines with the kids. I was recently informed that he tells Jack each night, "Now, don't be tootin' in bed!" And Jack just smiles and giggles. But tonite when Billy said it Jack asked, "Why not?" Billy responded, "Because you'll blow the roof off the house."

Can you imagine what sort of picture when thru that little 4-yr old boy mind of his?

Chicago Trip

I took my usual July trip to Chicago for The Pampered Chef National Conference. I really look forward to this trip each year. It's a great time to re-motivate and it's an awesome girls trip in a fantastic city. We are so lucky to be close enough to drive - which makes it a quick, inexpensive trip.

This year was quite a honor for me because I was asked to speak at a workshop for the first time. My workshop topic was on booking shows. My co-presenter and I received great feedback - so hopefully that means it wasn't too bad. I just received a cd recording of it in the mail this week, and I'm anxious to give a listen.

I also received stage recognition for earning Top Sales in the company in Top Performance Cluster. I was also excited to be in the Top 10 in Sales and in Recruiting in the McMillan Downline - which is out of nearly 500 consultants.

I've been so blessed to have a great year! Thanks for letting me "toot my own horn!"

Photos to share

Amelia thinks she needs to be the baby sometimes. I find her playing in the bassinet. Yes, we still have the bassinet up. We lost the bolts to the crib in the move - have been hoping they'd show up. They haven't - we've ordered replacements.



Not sure where she picked this up - but it was so cute, I had to share. She really did say it in context too -- she slipped and said, "Whoopsy - daisy!"

Ellie did a day-camp in Zearing in June with her cousin, Lilah. There were only 4 kids in the class, so they received quite a bit of attention. They had a blast learning about bugs and rocks and other nature-y stuff. The last day they invited the parents out for a show. They created invitations, programs, costumes, the whole bit. Ellie was the star for one skit - the sheep from Pixar's "Boundin'."

Adventureland

Amelia had her first Adventureland trip earlier this summer. Billy's work pays for us to go each year and this year we took the whole crew. While walking into the park - we ran into our good friend's Matt & Annelie Heinen and their two girls. Big park - small world! So Juliana and Amelia enjoyed some rides together.

I took Ellie on The Dragon for the first time. Which loops upside down twice. She bumped her ear on the shoulder harness right when it started - so she cried the whole ride (which is about 20 sec). I wonder if she would have enjoyed it more if that wouldn't have happened.

The new waterpark was the best part. No lines - and a great place to cool off after a warm day of lines and rides.

4th Of July Family Vacation

Ellie with a bit of frosting on her face.

Amelia enjoying a frosting and star-adorned cupcake from our neighbor.

Jack met a young girl next door a year older than him one day. He asked me if I knew her name and told me that she was beautiful. He was very shy around her that evening while roasting marshmallows and blushed when we talked about him liking her. It was the first time I had seen this side of him.

My two favorite boys

We are ready to hit the sandbar! Beers all around... I mean, juice boxes.

The reason Billy goes to the Mississippi!

A Mississippi Spa treatment

Evelyn enjoyed stretching out inside the boat under shade

After a long day of boating - Amelia fell asleep on the ride back.

Ellie with her oh-so-sweet High School Musical sunglasses

We took all the kids up to my parent's cabin in NE Iowa near Marquette over the 4th for a few days. It getting to be quite a trip to take 4 kids - a family of 6 - on vacation. So the short-ish drive and free accommodations is a blessing. Well, plus it's my favorite place on earth - that helps too.

We had a great time - the weather was a bit cool, but we still got two opportunities to hit the sandbar and let the kids enjoy the water.