Elianna Writes Her Name

Elianna has been working on writing her name. This was the closest she's gotten to this point, while she was signing Valentine cards. If you really look, you can see all of the letters are there! The "E" is facing down, and the "n"s look like a "D," but I thought this was pretty good for a two-year-old!

No More Birthday Invitations!

I can pretty much guarantee that this will be our last invite to any of Allysann's birthday parties. Elianna inserted herself right on the chair with her at cake time, then had the nerve to blow out her candles!!! Someone suggested they re-light the candles, and Elianna promptly reached over, pulled a couple out and licked them. *sigh* Other than this, they had a great time, and when I get a chance I'll upload more pictures.

First Sledding Trip

We got hit with another snowfall, and this time I just had to take the girls sledding. The snow was nice and deep, and it was a balmy 35 degrees. Plus, the sledding hill is about two miles away, at the most. This seemed close enough to justify driving in that nasty weather, but just to be safe I recruited Uncle Jon to go with us.

We get to the hill, and Jon realizes he has forgotten his boots. You can't very well sled in tennis shoes, so he headed off to get his boots. I labored up the hill prodding my two-year-old, carrying a sled and a portly 16-month-old. (Okay, maybe she only seemed portly since I was hauling her up the hill in all her snow garb.) We get to the top, all pile into the sled, and down we go. Naturally, being the caring, concerned mother that I am, I dragged my foot or hand as best I could to keep us from picking up too much speed. We get to the bottom, and I ask Elianna, "Was that fun? Do you want to go again?" She shrugs, "Sure." She did not seem impressed. So, we climb up again, and I am secretly wondering when the heck Jon is going to get there to help me haul them back up the hill. We get to the top, and Elianna turns to me and says, very seriously, "Mom, you make me go too slow. Can I just go down by myself this time?" I was shocked!!! Here I thought she would be terrified, and she was BORED. So, I loaded her onto the sled, and gave her a push. Down she flew!!! Then she was hooked. She must have climbed up the hill (all on her own, carrying her sled!!) and gone down about 20 times. Jon came back shortly, and then we were also joined by two friends from church, Josh and Faith.

Selah was not so impressed at first either. After about her third trip down she started to grin and say, "Whee!" all the way down. Personally, I think she had it made! Not only did she get to ride down with someone, but she got CARRIED up the hill each time. I tried to make her walk, but she would lean back and yell "Owie! Owie! Owie!! Up! Up! Up!" Nothing hurt, but I got enough dirty looks from people that I just picked her up to keep her quiet. (She always yells "Owie!" when she doesn't want to do something.)

Here is a video clip of Elianna on a solo trip:

And of course, you know if I went that SOMETHING had to go wrong. I was telling my friend that I was taking the kids sledding, and she tells me she can't sled with her kids, because it hurts her back too badly. I assured her my back was fine, I never hurt it sledding, blah, blah, blah... I get on the sled with Selah, and we take off. We're cruising along, Selah is saying"Wheee!" in her little voice... Yeah, we're having fun. Have you ever seen those little demon-possessed kids who pile up snow on sledding hills to make a ramp? They put all this work into it, then go down about 27 times and never hit it anyway. Well, apparently, some little demon-possessed kids had done so on this hill, and I hadn't been astute enough to notice... until about one second before we hit it! (For you Napoleon fans, I kept hearing Napoleon asking Pedro, "You ever take it over any sweet jumps?") Yes, there I was, in all my mom-ly glory, catching air with my 17-month-old in my lap. My brother was delighted to catch this on tape, and although it doesn't look like we flew very high, let me tell you my back/butt was complaining that night. There goes yet another Mommy of the Year award. I think I'm pretty close to being banned from those awards for life. Here's the video for your viewing pleasure:

Pink Pirate Syndrome?

My mom sent me this Sprite commercial, and it depicts another father caught in much the same predicament as Chad was!!! Too funny...

First Assignments

I received my first job assignment yesterday, and another one (twice as long) today. Hooray! I'm in business now! At this point, all of my work is gone over by my manager, who then sends it back with the required corrections. YIKES. It looks to me like I make a ton of errors, but she said I am doing well for this phase of the training. I'll have to take her word for it! And so it begins...

Easy for YOU to say...

Elianna was running around the house singing "Supercalifragelisticexpealidocious" from Mary Poppins, as if you didn't already know that. (I don't know why she bothers watching that movie. It has been her favorite for ages and she practically knows it by heart.) Anyway, Chad and I got such a kick out of her attempts, we thought we'd share them. Mind you, it was funnier when she was running around the house, but I made her sit down for the camera. One really funny part got cut off. At the end of the last video, she blurts out "JAMES!" Unfortunately, my card was full and stopped recording just before she said it.

Motown Winter Blast

If you are in Michigan, check out the Motown Winter Blast

Chad and I went to this a couple years ago, and it was GREAT! I would highly recommend it, as long as your kids are old enough. I saw some people wrestling with strollers, but with all the snow that's not a good idea. (Your kids would need to be old enough to walk around bundled up for 30-40 degree weather.)

One of my favorite little details was the "S'more Kits" you could buy for a couple bucks. They had little sticks, marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers. You roasted them at little roasting stations - YUM.

The "Taste of Detroit" was fantastic, and since you only buy a bite or two of all the foods, you can try a lot of different restaurants.

I wasn't brave enough to try the snow slide, but you could ice skate for free! (That looked less dangerous, but actually the slide may have been safer.) ;0)

Working Mom! (Like I wasn't before!??!)

I always thought that was the dumbest term. I mean, is a stay-at-home mom a non-working mom?! So here's a new one for the mix: I am now a stay-at-home-working-outside-the-home-without-leaving-my-home mom. I applied for an administrative job at a resume and transcription office, and the kicker is I don't have to leave my house! I will be able to do all my work right from my computer. The office offers a lot of services, but I will specifically be doing transcription. WOW - that is a very grueling job. I was expecting "dictation," where someone drones on into a recorder and you type what they say. That sounds easy enough. Well, transcription, on the other hand, is writing a transcript of any number of situations, including interviews, focus groups, etc. I aced the required grammar and vocabulary tests, which should come as no surprise to those whose English I have corrected (hee, hee), and she was impressed with the test transcript I had to send in. *doing the happy dance* The office manager said she is leery of stay-at-home moms who apply, since generally they just want a job they can do at home and actually don't know how to write a coherent sentence or spell simple words. I set out to prove her wrong, and apparently did so!!! We've spent a lot of time chatting on the phone, and she is a kindred spirit. We both cringe when people write "could of" or "allot" instead of "could have" or "a lot," and we both are used to our friends and family rolling their eyes at us when we morph into the role of Grammar Police. She assured me it's an addiction, and that I am free to embrace it. I mail out my contract this week, and then I am on probation. I am VERY excited about this opportunity, since it combines my love of English, my love for working on the computer, AND being home with my girlies! Unfortunately, it will also cut into my computer time, which is already sparse. So, I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up with blogging... We shall see. I'll keep you posted!

Zoobilee!!!

Cabin Fever was creeping in, so my mom and I decided to take the kids to Zoobilee. Fun for them... and getting out of the house for me! What a deal.

We all had such a blast, and I sure got a great work-out!! Elianna needed some help climbing up the platforms, and I was saddened to see that somehow (it's a medical miracle) she managed to inherit my gene that completely voids any coordination or athletic ability. It didn't slow her down, though, it just made climbing harder!! I tried teaching her several different climbing methods, and she was able to climb a bit on her own without my help. Selah is fearless, climbing on anything she could reach and laughing hysterically when I dropped her down the slide. She looked down her nose at the little toddler area, and kept begging anyone near the climbing platforms to pick her "Up, Up!!" (There was only one platform low enough for her to climb up on, and she got bored with that one after a while!) Elianna was more cautious, but after about 10 minutes or so she was whizzing down the slide on her own as well. I didn't get picture of her playing on it, but Elianna's favorite part was the little mock suspension bridge. (You can see it on the picture above.) She and the two friends she made spent a large chunk of time running back and forth over that bridge!


Elianna swinging on the ropes... while Selah (in the background) gleefully climbs the only platform low enough for her to reach!


Leave it to my girls to keep heading to the Reading Area... and I just kept kicking them out. Literacy and problem solving skills be darned, I didn't pay 9 bucks for them to do puzzles and read books! We could do that at home, or for free at the library. Get out there and climb, CLIMB my money's worth!! (Okay, I read them each one book before I kicked them out.)


They do puzzles as a team - Selah pulls off all the pieces, and Elianna reassembles it.


The pathetic little toddler area. Neither of the girls was very impressed.


Elianna saw one of the dads playing this video game, so she pulled up a chair to give it a try. It got boring, though, since I wouldn't give her any money.


Fun flying down the slide! Yes, I had to fling Selah down on her belly. If she went down on her bottom, she would slip back and bonk her head.


All tuckered out, relaxing for a bit!

Elianna's Stage Debut

Elianna sang in church for the first time with the "Patch Club." I was a little worried about how she'd do, but she actually behaved very well!! There was the minor mishap of her taking off her shrug and shoes while waiting to go on stage, then handing her shoes to the teacher once she got up there! (I didn't get that on video, but you can see in the picture that she's handing the teacher her shoes.) When her friend started playing around, she got this very serious, disturbed look on her face, and leaned over to see what the teacher was going to do about this. It wasn't until everyone started laughing at the other girl that Elianna realized things were okay. Elianna is a stickler for doing things "by the book," so you can tell she really didn't know how to take it when her friend started hamming it up. (I am glad they are letting her in this class. It's technically for 4-year-olds and older, but she is doing great and really enjoys it.)