Friday, March 20, 2009

Life Happens

I have to say that for all the graceful duck that I try to be there's a whole lot of paddling that happens below the surface that only those who live with me get to see. (Or those who happen to spend the night!) :-) Ellie's party was one of those paddling times and I have to say that the party was great and pulled off without a hitch. Those all happened before! I can laugh now and I love having people in my life who can see the humor in things. Eric's mom stayed with us the night before the party and was a tremendous help and just keeping me on track was part of it.

I seemed to do everything in twos and threes and really didn't even have time to do it once! I had to make Ellie's cake twice, the cucumber sandwiches in a double batch because the first one was too salty and the amount of times we set the table to accomodate for my different China patterns was pretty funny. Life happens and it's not events that make up life but the road that leads up to those events and how we deal with them that make up our life. I've shared my life verse before and it comes into play here too...."For who is God besides the Lord, and who is our Rock except our God. It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect." ~ 2 Samuel 22:32-33

Here I am less than 10 hours from people arriving and I don't have something that even looks like a cake! Ellie is wondering how this gets frosted....

This was a Rose bundt pan for Ellie Rose and the cake got stuck into every crevice. Needless to say we had a beautiful yogurt parfait with crumbled strawberry cake!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

My Boys

Since I've posted so much about Ellie lately, I didn't want to leave out the boys. God definitely gave me opposites in them in most cases but I wanted to share some of the similarities of "My Boys." First and foremost (and all the uncles will be proud) they both equally HATE pink and pretty much anything associated with that color. Even Tink-r Bell gets an "Ewww" out of both of them even though she's associated with blue. They love it for their sister and other girls but NOT for them. Daniel can like red and green and Luke blue but they both despise pink!

They compliment each other and I don't just mean they can work well together although that can happen too. It's the verbal ones I'm talking about. The other day Luke told a friend of his that, "I do everything Daniel does." In context he was saying not that he can do it all, but that he wants to do it all simply because his big brother does it. Daniel is constantly saying how he loves something that Luke does. Just yesterday Luke was looking at a drawing he did about six months ago that had lines that were more than a little squiggly. Luke was saying that he didn't like it and Daniel was the first to jump right in and say he "loved" his work and how he "did a great job." Luke and Daniel, without either of them knowing the other was doing it, tried to get uniform numbers that were the age of the other. Daniel got number 4 and Luke was sad when he didn't get #6.
They both LOVE fun! Really who doesn't? But these two can join forces when tickling or tag or laughing is involved. As any youngster does, they love the slapstick comedy especially if it's cartoonish. They love to make up their fun from tents out of couch pillows (sound familiar anyone???) to goofy stories. I love hearing their deep belly laughs when they get tickled to their high squeals when they're chasing eachother. That has got to be the best sound!

Finally, they're both competitive. Whether it's a race or number of catches or how many M&M's they ate both of them love to compete and win. This may just be because they're siblings and they're so close, but it's one more similarity. They challenge each other (and sometimes me!), but when they work together they become an amazing team that I love to cheer on. Go Boys!

(And now a random picture I've been meaning to post. :-)

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Happy St. Patty's Day

We're looking for Leprechauns here. Don't forget to wear green or you just might get a pinch. ;-)

Monday, March 16, 2009

Ellie's Makeover

The last few months I think we've seen what Ellie loves to do. Most of you know how girly my girl is, but lately she has turned it up a few notches and today she finally did what I've been dreading! They say imitation is the highest form of flattery and although I'm flattered, I'm also flabergasted! My daughter cut her hair!!!! I recently did a sort of bob thing with my hair and Ellie really did not like it (neither did the boys but Eric did) so I assumed she wouldn't want to cut her hair either. She must have decided to try it out herself though and then decided she liked it long; because although there's 2 1/2 inch pieces in places on my floor she managed to only give herself layers and there's very little change to her hair overall. THANKFULLY!!!! All that to say that this was only the culmination of her "makeover."

I walked into my bathroom to find this greeting me.

Then I found some more and then even more!

The makeover started at Grandma's house a few months ago when we thought things were a little too quiet...

Her first make-up removal.

Then just last week Ellie found little stamps in the shape of a small lipstick. So guess what she did?
I hope we are now complete with our makeover since I've had to address everything from mascara and eye shadow to "lipstick" and now hair cuts. I thought this happened at 13 not 3!