tonights convo

Ellia: (at 8:30 p.m.) Mommy, Im hungry again.
Mommy: You are?? You must not have eaten enough for dinner. We'll eat again in the morning.
Ellia: But mommy I HAVE to eat NOW.
Mommy: Why?
Ellia: Because my stomach is grouching!!!


there are just some words I can't bear to correct :)

remi's new tricks

I finally captured just a few of Remae's new tricks on video! I had to do so while feeding her so she'd be the most happy :)
She can now say: Mama, Dada, uh-oh, Ellia (in her own way ;), no, yeah, num-num (food), s-tree (Christmas tree) and a few other ramblings
She can now: wave hi & bye, put up her finger for 1, clap, touchdown!, give high-fives, and a few other genius things ;)

I was able to get a few of these in this video. I'm just a little proud so don't mind me :)

a few of Ellia's favorite things...

so heres the little quiz i gave ellia as we were driving today + her responses. I thought it would be fun to ask her the same questions every now and then and see how her answers change. i was mostly just impressed by her ability to give an appropriate answer to almost every question.
love her.

Ellia...
what is your favorite thing to do?
nothing. (interesting... me too!)

what is your favorite food?
sandwiches.

what is your favorite drink?
juice.

what is your favorite color?
green.

what is your favorite letter?
R.

what is your favorite number?
7.

what is your favorite time of day?
the sun time & i like the shade too.

what is your favorite dessert?
pie.

what kind of pie?
yours. :)

what is your favorite bible verse?
the B-I-B-L-E. (not a verse... a song- but thats ok)

what is your favorite song?
the B-I-B-L-E.

what is your favorite thing to play?
blocks.

what is your favorite month?
december.

why?
cuz its december.

is it because its christmas time and your birthday?
yea, thats why!

what is your favorite shape?
triangle.

what is your favorite word?
ellie.

what is your favorite season?
Fall time.

where is your favorite place to go?
home. :)

Potty training Ellia, Patience training mommy

So today completed day 12 of our potty training adventure. What a ride... that we are still on I might add. Now I gave this a shot back about 8 months ago and saw pretty quickly that Ellia just wasnt ready. So we hung it up for a while to revisit when she was a little older. Deciding I'd like to have the task mastered by her third birthday, and not knowing the extend of the undertaking, I settled on starting now... well sept 8th to be exact. This time... I went all out. I was prepared to the max. Stocked with panties & had the bathroom practically looking like a princess playroom. Rather than the thought of having to train twice, I opted for the actual seat on the big potty vs. the personal mini potty we tried before. Of course, it is pink and has every disney princess character sitting along with her. On the wall is a princess potty chart where she can personally check if she has pulled her own pants, sat for a while, flushed, washed hands, and actually put something in. She got to mark with a little marker each of the flower checks and actually put a sticker when she went. How exciting. The bathroom was also furnished with a stack of favorite books and a special potty prize box. Here's where the bribing gets fun... we had cookies, brownie bites, stickers, dumdums, peanut butter m&ms, smarties, silly bands, etc. etc. all of her favorite things. Since I'm not going to bore you with a play-by-play of all the days happenings... I'll add that after a few days in, I realized we were going to need a little more incentive (especially in the #2 category). So we changed things up... the box now became the PeePee Prize Box and enter... the PoopyPrize Bag. Here we had things like new dora panties, a dora shirt, princess pens, big Reese's cup, gold chocolate coins, etc. a little bigger on the these prizes, hoping for some extra performance in this area. Lets fast forward...

This has truly been one of the most challenging things I've had to do. Next to labor, I've never been more physically and mentally drained at the end of the day (only to have to get up the next morning to do it again). I've spent most of the past 12 days sitting on the bathroom floor, reading, singing, pleading... Peter and I agree it has been like coaching our daughter through labor - every. single. day. not to mention the countless accidents in less-than-ideal places. i mean, im a full-out, trained & experienced janitor... put it on the resume! And if that wasnt enough, lets not forget I've got another little one to tend to - who I don't particularly like neglecting. Plus, (as if i needed one), I'm not particularly a home-body. I love taking the girls out, even just to the grocery, walks, wherever - just to get out of the house for a little while. Most days, we leave at some point. Well... like a huge chain tied to my ankle, while the walls close in around us, we've been stuck at home unable to leave.
Though I've wanted to scream, cry, tear my hair out, sit in the corner rocking, be admitted, and maybe check out a cliff or two, I must say that its all been for the best. We've just started a study on Philippians. In the first chapter, as Paul writes from home-bound imprisonment, he has an attitude totally unexpected. Because of his new life in Christ, his circumstances have taken on new meaning. It's no longer about him... its about Christ. ("Hey! Im not chained to them... they're chained to me! They've gotta listen to me gab about the gospel all day so all this is really only good... its been to the betterment of furthering the kingdom). God has allowed these circumstances for His glory... and because of them, I have become more mighty in the Spirit than ever before.
I can totally relate to Paul here... home-bound, chained to my circumstances that are pushing me to my limit. Having to realize, its not about me... its about Christ. These circumstances have been used to make me mightier in the Spirit, more patient and more apt to rely on the Spirit as my strength rather than myself. Hallelujah. What amazing freedom. What's even better... that truth applies no matter what circumstances I face. Its about Him, not about me.

So... no, we are not done potty training... we haven't arrived. But yes, we are making wonderful progress - Ellia on the potty and me in the Spirit.


come on - shes a really cute panty princess...

more soaking

so thought id give a little update on the Bible verse sponging. If you remember this video of Ellia saying John 3:16, you may be as impressed as I am at her progress. She now has 4 verses down pat and a few more (not in the video) that we are working on as we try to integrate the words into daily life. In case you can't quite understand her like I can...Check her out saying the following verses:

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. Whoever believes in Him will have eternal life." John 3:16

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6

"Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as Christ Jesus forgave you." Ephesians 4:32

"I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13

Good daily reminders for her and for me. still couldnt be more proud.

remi - Kisses

remae's got a new talent... kisses! too cute for words so i thought i'd just show you. who doesnt need a few remi-kisses in their life??

on the move!

within a mere 3 days or so last week, remae went from being relatively immobile (just slight rolling) to sitting up like a pro and now crawling. Yup! my little 7 month old girl is officially on the move! NBD you say? not so fast... this means way less work will be accomplished - overall productivity is going way down now. No more letting her play on a blanket while I do a few things, no more laying still while I shower, no more couch, no more... well lots of things! Already within seconds, she's almost across the room, inevitably finding something she shouldn't. Go Remi Go! I love watching her grow and change... but this is yet one more harsh reminder of just how fast time goes. One running, one crawling... yikes!
here she goes...

car-noisseur

i gotta document this because... well, i think its pretty impressive. and what better place to brag on your kid?

so i secretly pride myself on being fairly good at recognizing cars and their model. by absolutely no means knowledgeable or even at an "excellent" or "great" level... but pretty good - for a girl. from my experience, most females are fairly clueless about cars, which is totally understandable. its not exactly the most interesting thing and lets face it: there are just so many other much more exciting things to fill up those brain cells with than useless car info. all that being said i have been beyond impressed with ellia lately. almost every time we've been in the car over the last couple weeks, we will inevitably drive past another CRV. when we do, ellie will yell out "mommy! that matches our car, only ours is white!" i mean, come on right?? she has consistently spotted the same model of CRV as ours and she never gets it confused with a similar vehicle. whats even funnier is she also seems to be able to tell the difference between the higher-level model and ours ;) i think i could safely say that there are many grown women who couldn't do this.

i like to think she gets this skill straight-up genetically from me :) Gotta love the useless knowledge starting at a mere 2 1/2.

Sew fun

this morning i decided to teach ellia a little sewing. shes always interested when im working on a project so i gave her one of her own. just used a few pieces of construction paper, punched holes and got an old shoe lace (pretty much the ole learnin-to-tie-your-shoes trick). i also tried it with a some scrap fabric. love those cost-free fun projects. She was a pro seamstress in no time! check her out:

first food fun!

so tonight was remae's first encounter with the spoon-fed world. bananas was the first-taste flavor of choice. we wanted to try somethin crazy, but we considered her reputation with handling change (hint: switching from breast to bottle was a D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R!)... so alas, bananas it was. I was shocked at how well it went as she immediately grabbed the spoon and brought it to her mouth. She was an old pro... and didnt seem to mind the taste either!
Benefit of having an older sibling: there won't be any wasted extra baby-food - ellia was all over it. Can't believe im to this stage with my second already... slow down time!

sponges

so i always pictured my little girls going to sunday school, neighborhood bible club, etc. and similar experiences like we had... places she could absorb teaching about our Savior. never did i think at 2, ellia would be able to learn bible verses. shes amazed me so much already with spouting off her months (in order i might add), her abc's, too many words for me to count, so many different songs, and basically being able to carry on a fairly normal conversation with us. so it just hit me the other day... if shes soaking so much in like a sponge, why not hit her with some verses from the Bible. although she can't quite grasp the full meaning yet, she will hopefully be able to hide these words in her heart. this is what 3 days of medium-effort work on John 3:16 became (p.s. i couldnt be more proud):


on a much much lighter note... in the same sitting as the previous video, we captured ellia's recreation of her fav commercial. in my opinion, staples has got nothin' on her...