Showgirls

There is always lots of singing and dancing going on at our house. We make up words to our own sings, sing our favorites, and dance to any beat.

I caught Elise singing yesterday and was able to get a little video. I think she's singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", but mostly I hear her singing the same words over and over: "Up above the world so high". You'll love the little yawns in there too. She was fresh from a nap, but obviously still a bit tired. (If you look closely, you'll notice she's trying to color at the same time.)



And once I had the video camera going, Claire insisted a get a clip of her. She singing: "There's no trouble in a bubble as you're floating along" over and over. It's a song from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse I guess. She was watching it while I took a shower, so I didn't catch the original context or lyrics.

Claire: 4-1/2 years

Claire had a well child check-up last week. Somehow we got off schedule from her birthday, so I'm not sure if this was a late 4 yr check-up or an early 5 yr visit. I guess a combination of both. But since she won't have another check-up before she starts Kindergarten this fall (Wow! I know!), she got all of her pre-K shots. Including the H1N1 vaccine, Claire got FIVE shots that day. She was so brave and whimpered a little, but didn't cry. I was so proud of her!

My little "Claire Bear" is getting so big! At her check-up, she weighed 38 lbs and was 42 inches tall.

She still spends lots of time creating: cards, pictures, books. That's her latest thing: books. She and Thomas will illustrate a story and then dictate the text to Mom or Dad to write down. I love to see what her imagination comes up with! She is very inquisitive and is always asking questions about how things work or what they do or where they are. She keeps me on my toes!

She also loves to sing and dance and always has some song stuck in her head. She's always talking about something, even if no one is listening. She loves attending preschool at Faithful Friends twice a week and attending Creative Movement dance class in the middle. When there's no where to go (Mondays and Fridays), she begs me to take her "somewhere special" (usually the mall). She likes to be out and about and keeping busy.

Elise: 15 months

Some days we just look at her and think, WOW! She has been growing so fast! It seems like she got really big all of a sudden. She is no doubt a full-fledged toddler now and her baby days seem like so long ago! Her 15 month check-up was great. She weighs 25 lbs 2 oz and is 31-3/4 inches tall. I'm not sure where that puts her on the growth chart as far as percentiles, but she's a healthy little girl, so I'm not so worried about the numbers.

Look at those front teeth finally starting to come in! That brings her up to 5 total and I know there are more to come! Elise has been gnawing on EVERYTHING, including and especially her little fist. She's always got her hand in her mouth.

This is Elise posing for the camera. When I say, "Elise, say cheese!", she turns to me with an open mouth and squinty eyes and says "ahhh!"

She continues to stay busy, chasing after her siblings, climbing the furniture (we can't keep her off the kitchen table or the coffee table and she climbs freely on Claire's bed and the couch). She has been singing and dancing. She loves to scribble with a pen or crayons (trying to imitate Thomas and Claire). Last night, I found her coloring on the living room end table. Don't know where she found the crayon up there...she is full of mischief, but in an innocent and curious way.

She talks a lot, but doesn't have a lot of words yet: Mama, Dada, Claire, Done, Ba (for bottle), Hello, Bye, Up. She has often repeated words, but doesn't use them regularly, like: Uncle Bud (soooo cute!!), dog, cracker, and (I swear!) Tylenol (she's been getting a lot for her teeth)!

Climbing to the Top

Elise is a climber. She climbs on everything she can reach and she has no fear. Earlier this week, she figured out how to climb up on the kitchen chair. And from there, of course the kitchen table. Later that afternoon, she figured out how to climb something else: the ladder to the top bunk! She's been working on the ladder for awhile now, but never made it past the first step or two. Now that she knows how, all she wants to do it climb up and play on Thomas' bed. We're working on detaching the ladder so we can put it up during the daytime. In the meantime, I allowed her to have one more trip up there and caught her feat on camera for you. She's so proud of herself!!

Here's a video of her entire climb up the ladder to the bed. And her victorious playing afterwards. She's got a lot to say, but doesn't have very many words that actually make sense yet.

Christmas Morning

We celebrated Christmas at Grandma Irving's house on Christmas Eve and enjoyed visiting with the Suttons. We got back home pretty late. The kids helped me set out cookies for Santa and went straight to bed. They must have been pretty wiped out because we got to sleep in a little and didn't get up this morning until 6:30 am! The kids waited for me to turn on the Christmas lights and grab the camera and then they came down the hallway to see what Santa brought. Claire was so excited to see a princess tent!

And Thomas was thrilled with his Bakugan and Pokemon gifts!

Finally, at 6:45, I went to check on Elise (who normally wakes up at 5:00 most mornings). I woke our snoring baby up so she could join in the fun. She fell in love with her giant bunny rabbit and didn't seem to care that Thomas and Claire opened the rest of her presents!

I love the magic wonder of Christmas morning through a child's eyes. I hope your day was filled with such magic and many happy memories! Merry Christmas!

Baby #4 Update

I had an ultrasound on Wednesday and the baby looks good. All measurements are on track for a May 16th due date. The sonographer checked for boy/girl parts and sealed the answer in an envelope. We opened it together on Christmas Eve. And this is what we found:

The ultrasound picture with the card points to the area between the baby's legs and on the bottom, she wrote "?Girl". I'm not sure what the question mark means, but I'm going to hold on to the boy stuff for now, just in case they see things a little differently on my next ultrasound! Here are some more pictures. I like the one of the hand (top left corner)! The baby was waving at us!

Our Little Art-tiste

In the last few months, Claire has really come to love drawing and creating anything out of paper and crayons or markers. (She loves to stamp too, of course!) I think she brings home more art than anyone else in her preschool class. I keep joking that I'll open a little gallery in a hallway, but that's not a bad idea! I really should photograph more of her artwork. Here's a little sample of her latest creations:

She drew this self portrait for her dance teacher. She signed her name and I wrote down what she said she was doing in the picture: "doing twirl spins in dance class". She is quite shy in class, but absolutely loves it! Oh! And any time she draws a picture of a girl, she includes eyelashes! One picture she drew of the family included eye brows only on the boys and eye lashes only the girls. The eye lashes are not always, but sometimes, coming right from the eyeball.

This next picture is a cow that she made last month. She has made several other animals and even a "church person" in the same manner. She draws the body part, cuts it out, and glues it all together. My favorite part of this one is the huge spiky udders that are almost as big as the cow's legs!