More Easter Fun (and Thoughts)

With kids, I've been loving Easter this year. Besides being the most significant Christian holiday (which, of course, we emphasize), it also has its share of fun traditions and goodies. I already described all the happy treats and gifts we've been getting in the mail and how anxious Ella is to wear her "princess dress and hair" on Easter Sunday. Today we dyed eggs after lunch with her-- a tradition in Dave's family. Sunday we look forward to a day with our California VM family where we'll share in a big ham dinner pot luck and egg hunt. And Dave and I have already eaten about 6 bags of jelly beans, chocolates and whoppers (is there nothing better than Easter candy?) However, what I'm loving most of all are the glimpses of perception we see in Ella. We've been reading from our new favorite Jesus Storybook Bible and she says things like: "God made Jesus die on the cross." or "Jesus is sad because the people gave him ouchies." or "The soldiers didn't roll away the big rock, the angels did!" Today she watercolor painted a picture of the cross and made it black because "it is very sad." In my attempts to explain this story and its meaning to her, I am overwhelmed and humbled by the complexity of it. Yet, she seems to see it pretty simply and some how has found understanding.

Practice

I LOVE having daughters! This morning we are doing a little hair experiment with rollers for Ella's Easter do. Being the girlie-girl that she is, she's totally excited about her "princess hair." Of course, the big dilemma is what in the world am I going to do with Delia's hair? :) I hung the girls' Easter dresses out (generous hand-me-downs) and Ella asks me every day, "Can I wear this princess dress?"

Yep, she's 100% girl!

A Public Thank You

This thank you blog is intended for our family, but you are all invited to read along and appreciate with us how thoughtful and generous they are! We are blessed with a family that first, and most importantly, loves Jesus and knows what Easter is all about. But also, our family loves our girls and loves to celebrate and have fun with them. A number of festive Easter packages for Ella and Delia have been rolling in the past few days. Here's a glimpse of the goodies...

Two years ago Auntie Karen sent Ella a monogrammed Easter basket. This year she picked out the matching one for Delia. If Delia's gets as much love as Ella's, it will be used to not only hunt eggs on Easter, but also as a purse and general tote for anything needing to be collected or carried.

Uncle Kyle sent gifts to stimulate our daughters' minds and taste buds. Delia thought his card was delicious and Ella is already obsessed with the neat book of easy-to-memorize scripture passages for kids. The book's illustrations are great and the verses are organized into categories making them recall-able. Ella already has some Bible verses memorized, so she is more than ready to add some more to her arsenal. The book gives us parents pointers on how to teach this even more effectively.

Grandpa and Grandma sent a huge box full of Easter treats: bunnies that click together to make towers, jelly beans, sticker books, a bunny purse, a stuffed Trinity Troll doll, some cute new outfits, finger puppets and edible flowers. As you can imagine, this package was a blast to unwrap and the fun we'll have with ALL these gifts will last for days!

So, thank you family!!! You made our girls very happy!

Look What Else I Can Do

I guess the world from ground-level is not exciting enough anymore. Or maybe at Friday's playgroup Delia learned another trick from Cora. A few nights ago I watched Delia muscle her way up onto her feet in order to investigate this toy box more carefully. She's done it several times since-- pulling up completely on her own then standing with no support from me for several minutes (usually until I need to take my eyes away and help her down). Suppose it's time to start bolting the shelves down!

Look What I Can Do!

Today marks Delia's 8 month birthday, so I thought I send out a quick update of her latest tricks.

• She is completely mobile. While her crawling technique is a bit unorthodox (sit, fall forward, roll, "monkey walk" on hands and feet, repeat...) it does not hinder her ability to move wherever she wants. She especially likes hiding under things, like Ella's bed.

• We think a tooth is on the verge of popping though. The drooling and gnawing on things has increased quite a bit as of late.

• She talks! She says, "Mamamama" and intentionally, we think. When Dave goes in to get her from sleeping, she looks past him to the open door and says it. Yesterday she threw her arms around my neck, hugged me and said it. Mostly she says it when she's frustrated about something, though.

• Sleeping has been going great! After 4 days in the room with Ella, we realized she was not ready. The first night was okay, but in later days she would wake up constantly, thus waking up Ella as well. One night both girls were screaming-- trying to top each other, probably. Anyway, we moved some furniture out of the office, put the crib in and set up a temporary and make-shift nursery for Delia. This seems to be what she's been wanting the past 8 months. She moves all over her crib, sleeps on her tummy and goes looong stretches (8 hours last night, 12 the night before!). We'll do this for a while then move her back in with her sis. Have we finally won this sleep battle?

• Last, she has a new game that cracks us up. Watch this video to see her playing peek-a-boo. She initiates it all by herself and smiles and laughs when we react. (She LOVES watching this video too!)
  
  

Our Network Television Debut!

I have blogged about my first cousin Anna before. She works for a graphics production company in LA. Her company designs the introductions to shows and any cool graphics you may see during the show. One of her latest projects is a new ABC show called Miss Guided. I guess this is a show about a nerdy girl who grows up and goes back to her high school to work as a guidance counselor. Well, the intro needed a montage of yearbook pictures and guess who's pictures are getting used! Yep, Anna pulled out our old Timothy Christian yearbooks and put me, Dave, Karen (Dave's sister), Chris and Eric (Dave's brothers-in-law) as well as Melissa and Steph (some high school friends) into this quick slide show of pictures!

Anna warned me that it will flash by fast and ABC reserves the right to change it all, but if all goes as submitted you can see us (or the high school versions of us) on TV March 20. Check out this link for more info about the show: http://abc.go.com/fallpreview/missguided/index

And drop me an email if you'd like me or Dave to autograph anything for you! Yay! Friends with influence!

62 and Snowy!

What a super day we had in the snow yesterday! We left first thing in the morning to meet up with Dave and the youth group at their mountain cabin. The drive through the rolling green hills was beautiful and I and the girls were in a great mood. Not before long, the twisting, turning, roller-coaster hills turned into sequoia and pine forests laden with white snow and we were at our destination, after just an hour of driving. Is is crazy that I didn't even pack coats? I knew the weather was going to be sunny and 60s. We donned our snow pants and gloves (Delia earned the nickname "Peep" from her high school buddies because of her yellow, marshmallow snow suit) and ran out behind the big cabin, where the kids traditionally play and build on the acres of property in the woods. Two snow bunkers were in the works, later to be used for an epic snowball fight, seniors versus everyone else. The long, steep tubing run, complete with jump, was already built too. A little bunny hill for my girls was made, but after just one run, Ella decided she would rather go on the big one. Daddy was happy to take her, as were several high schoolers. Even Mommy was brave enough to try that one a bunch of times, though my screams probably woke any hibernating wildlife! As you can see from the pictures, a good time was had by all!

Who has more fun...the kids or the leaders? Here's Phil getting some serious air on his jump. He also sculpted an amazing snow octopus with tentacles that ran over the porch of the cabin and had some fun with a dead squirrel he found, creepily in-tact. And look-- Dave can fly!

Though it was just the right speed for Delia, this little sledding run was apparently too tame for Ella.

"Again! Again!" she would say as we hiked up the hill after racing down and flying over the jump.

Ella said her favorite part of the day was making and throwing snow balls.


Yay! Finally some Daddy-time!

We stayed until about 3:00, enjoying lunch with the group, playing games in the cabin and making 3 separate trips out back to the snow. Here's Ella soaking in the sun during one of her warm up/dry out sessions.

Our Hard Working Man

This has been one of those insanely busy weeks for Dave. It started last weekend with his biggest fundraiser of the year, the Italian Cafe. Though requiring much planning in the purchasing and preparing of food for 200 people and much delegation in keeping the 30 some high schoolers busy and actually working, the dinner went off perfectly and raised thousands of dollars for summer trips. Then Dave preached on Sunday, led junior high youth group on Monday and high school youth group on Wednesday. Since he is the Stated Clerk, his responsibilities at Tuesday's all-day Classis meeting also brought tons of work, stress and even a nightmare about being eaten alive in a pool of alligators! Last, Dave left for the annual 3 day Winter Retreat with his youth group this afternoon. He spent the rare and spare minutes of his week preparing the spiritual theme and buying supplies for this big event. Needless to say, we haven't had too much Daddy-time this week.

This morning we were able to steal him for about an hour to go out for breakfast. Though a list of errands sat waiting, it was nice to have a little family time. We'll have some more tomorrow as I and the girls drive to the cabin Dave rents in the mountains for some fun in the snow.

The name of the game when we are Dave-less is distraction. This week we kept busy ourselves with bike rides through the country, Bible Study, a few trips into town, a mega-walk on Wednesday, and this fun afternoon we spent with Jonathan running around and riding bikes in our church parking lot.

Tonight we joined up with Jetta and gang (her husband Phil is one of Dave's youth group leaders, also gone on the retreat) for some girl bonding. Ella loved jumping, playing, getting dirty and showering with her 4 buddies. Delia spent lots of quality time with her 2 buddies, getting some crawling lessons from Cora and just chillin' with Peter-- who's either going to love or hate this 9 to 1 girl/boy ratio some day! Since Jetta doesn't own a TV or computer, her family rents a movie from the church library and watches it theatre-style with projector on bed sheet every Friday night. That plus the pizza and dessert we brought added up to a great night that sure beat sitting at home alone. Next year we're all bringing our jammies for a giant slumber party!

More "Bloomin's"

Chasing Sick People?

After explaining the health benefits of kiwi to Ella (200% vitamin C-- learned it from the Gilmore's Health-Full blog...), here's what she had to say after eating TWO of this favorite fruit:

"My body is healthy! Want to see? (removes jammies) Now when my friends are cold I won't catch them!"

A Ride Through the Country

Don't hate us, but today we had another sunny, gorgeous day in the 70s. We just had to get outside and decided to test Delia's sitting abilities with a bike ride. The girls were cute-o-rama cuddled up in the carrier together. Instead of just peddling around our neighborhood, we decided to follow the orchard lined streets out to the country roads. Besides the amazing almond trees in full bloom (the "beautiful bloomin's" Ella calls them), we also took in cows, horses, chickens, ducks in a pond, goats and dogs (including a suicidal Chihuahua who kept trying to leap in front of my speeding bike tires!). My favorite animal spotting, though, was a field full of lambs and mama sheep. They all "baa-ed" a greeting when we pulled up. I loved watching the frisky, but clumsy baby lambs nursing and playing in the big green pasture with flowered orchards and mountains as their backdrop. The emu farm was a pretty exciting find too. We've lived here 5 years now, but the lifestyle we've become accustomed to-- warm weather when I expect it to be snowing and a veritable "Old MacDonald Had A Farm" less than a mile bike ride away-- never ceases to thrill me!

Happy Birthday, Annelies!

My friend Jetta must be gettin' into the grove of having 6 kids because today she went crazy and threw daughter #3, Annelies (who turned 4), a big birthday party. In attendance were 14 kids, 6 moms and even 2 grandmas. We did your typical birthday party stuff including sing "Happy Birthday," eat brownies and ice cream and watch Annelies rip into her presents. But we also did some unique birthday party things like bounce on the "jump-o-leen" (as Ella calls it), go on an Easter egg hunt, eat our sloppy joe lunch outside in the warm February sunshine, play in mud puddles and examine the pile of cow and coyote bones our country friends keep on their patio. It was a fantastic morning that left me in awe of my busy friend and left my kiddos so exhausted they fell asleep on the 5 minute ride home!

My Goofy Girls

Being a mom is stressful, exhausting, patience-testing and tedious at times... but it is also my greatest joy. My girls find ways to make me laugh every day. Here is a series of posts about their at-home antics. Ella has been really into being the doctor lately. When Delia had her appointment a few weeks ago, Ella blew us away by asking if she could have a shot too! Since then, no person, pet or stuffed animal in our house has escaped getting a shot and check-up. I found some of that crinkly paper to make her examination table more fun and pulled out some stickers for her to give her patients.

Today she gave herself a shot and then pronounced herself SO BRAVE! That is why she deserved all these stickers...

DO Box Me In

Happiness to Delia equals being put in some sort of container!

The Mouse in the Oven

I hate to admit it, but a while ago we had a mouse living in our kitchen-- under our oven. This was a combination of fascinating and terrifying to Ella. She would love to explain how "Daddy is going to catch the mouse with peanut butter then bring it outside," yet when I would say things like, "Should we name our mouse?" she would reply, "NO! He is too scary to even talk about!"

To make us laugh even more about all this, we got a hilarious letter in the mail from Auntie Kris. Here is an excerpt: "My heart finally just stopped racing! I went to the kitchen to wash the coffee pot and Melvin was running all goofy CHASING A MOUSE! Even just to write it down there makes me want to run to the bathroom and check my undies!! So I screamed my lungs out and locked myself in the office where I am now huddled on a chair wearing a bike helmet I found in the closet..." Of course, as soon as Ella heard she had a mouse buddy, she had to call Auntie Kris to compare mouse stories.

Recently we found this very realistic play mouse at the bottom of a toy box. (A shout out to our wacky friends Nick and Amy who send us random and silly things in the mail. I think a fake gold tooth was also included in this mouse package...) What did Ella do when she found it? Marched right over to her play kitchen and put it in the oven!

Roommates

Last night a major transition occurred in our home: Delia spent the whole night sleeping in her crib! The crib is actually not a foreign place to Delia. She does take some naps in it and likes to cuddle up with Ella reading stories in it. This move to the crib for night time sleeping, though, was prompted in part by a conversation I had with a friend at Bible study yesterday. She also has a real mama's girl of a daughter and made this comment, "If my daughter knew I was just a foot away, she'd wake up a thousand times during the night too. We had to move her away from us to get sleep!" So we figured, what have we got to loose? A night of sleep? That would be nothing new!

So, how did it go? Good news, it was not a disaster! We think the girls (at least Ella) knew about each other, so they were good at going right to sleep and not making too much noise during the night. Both roused and called out separate times, but never woke each other. Delia still woke up her average 3 times and instead of just grabbing her from the cradle at the foot of the bed, I had to trek down the hallway...but that is okay. We are encouraged and hopeful that this could be an important step to enhancing all of our sleep. I will miss my little roommate, but it is time I let her move in with her sister, as has been the plan all along. At any rate, it was WONDERFUL to read in bed with all the lights on last night and be able to talk above a whisper.

Party Under the Coffee Table!

Look out, she's mobile! Lately Delia's been rolling everywhere. Tonight she discovered a world of fun under the coffee table.

Ella used to love this too...

And apparently still does!