Oops...

To be honest, I had NO IDEA that it's been over two weeks since I've written on this thing. Although many hours in each day drag on s..l...o...w...l...y, the days as a whole disappear quickly and the weeks FLY by! I feel like Mitchell should only be about 6 weeks old instead of almost 12, and how is it possible that we moved from South Carolina almost 9 weeks ago. yikes.
But, all is well in the Moseley household. I turned 33 last weekend and had a GREAT birthday! My wonderful, wonderful sister-in-law was in town visiting, so she kept the girls for SIX HOURS one day while Adam and I got to walk around downtown, take our time window-shopping, went to an awesome Greek restaurant for dinner and the local (and maybe the best we've ever had!) Ice Cream shop! After being used to being mom to all three little ones, it was so easy to just have one kid with us for 1/2 a day!
***side note... we had Mitchell with us since he's still breastfeeding and we haven't yet tried a bottle at all...it's just easier that way right now! But, he needed to eat right before we got to the restaurant and we were checking out this really cool high-end furniture store. It was pretty much empty and the sales lady suggested I just pick a comfy chair to nurse him in so I'd be more comfortable than going out to sit in the car. very nice. I sat in a super comfortable upholstered rocking chair, nursed the kid, then we took off for dinner. Adam told me later that he looked at the price tag...it was about $3300!!!!!!! WOAH! I'm pretty sure that's the most expensive piece of furniture I've ever sat on...and I was just kickin' back like I was on our 5 year old kid-used, dog-slept-on couch!
Anyway, great birthday, good Thanksgiving (more on that later!) ...all is well here. More later. Thanks for checking back when I forget to even look at this thing for weeks in a row!

Stubborn, Stubborn, Stubborn...

I blame Adam's genetics, he blames mine...but Ainsley may be one of the more stubborn kids on the face of the earth. The most common battle is food. Simply put, she doesn't like to eat anything. Ok, she likes fruit and cereal. That's about it. So we're trying the "she eats what we put in front of her or she eats nothing". That's a fun lesson for everyone. How's it going? Horribly. One day last week the only food she ate all day was lunch. She refused eggs for breakfast (which she ate tons of just a month ago! I even put syrup on it to appeal to her sweet tooth!) and I took these pictures about 3 hours later. She stood at the pantry door, doing the sign language for "eat" while saying, "Me. Eat. Pwease" Over and over again! Augh. look at that face. I kept offering the eggs, but she wouldn't even try them. She was pitiful. But, I stayed strong and didn't give in. Notice she never even dropped her purse...it was that hard on her!





I finally pulled her away from the door and this was her two minutes later- happily playing with the lens cap.




She ate a great lunch an hour later, but then refused dinner totally. It was pizza, for cryin' out loud. What kid doesn't eat pizza? I guess mine...

Update

So, back to the "school dilemma" from a few weeks ago... we ended up switching Elise to the prestigious private school here in town. It just made sense on so many levels. I (Erica) HATED making the call to the Director and teacher of her school to tell them we were pulling her out. I felt like a snob, that I was letting them down, etc... but that stuff is just hard for me just being such a 'people pleaser'... I felt bad all day once I talked to them, had to explain to Elise that she was going to change schools AGAIN, etc... but that didn't last too long.
Elise's first day at the new school (3rd preschool in 7 weeks!) was on Monday and within MOMENTS of picking her up at the end of the day, I was 100% assured that we had made the right decision. She was 'herself' again. YAY! It's hard to explain that she just seemed depressed since day 1 of the other school here in VA. She was just sad, un-motivated, extra grumpy, etc...and not her typical self. She's back to being Elise now and this week was a huge turnaround. She already has a best friend in this school- and apparently they hold hands constantly, sit together whenever possible, share their lunches with each other, etc...so adorable. The teachers are great and we couldn't be happier!
So, the class was talking this week about Manners. I think we're pretty strict about manners around our house, but I guess it's different (and more memorable) when she learns it at school. A few things that SHE (yes, a not-quite-4-year-old!) told us this week:

"Mommy, please don't talk when you have food in your mouth."
"Daddy, that's called interrupting.That's not good manners"
"Ainsley, you forgot to say 'please' when you talked to me."
"Here, Ainsley, hold my hand in the parking lot. That's good manners."

Adorable. A little annoying when your 3 year old 'corrects' you, but I guess that's part of it all. Here's her little "I have an attitude" face that we rarely see out her...but it's pretty funny. She's such a sweetheart, but when the occasional 'look' comes out, it's hard not to laugh. I got it spontaneously on film last week: