just like a butterfly!

6 days out of the week, Elise doesn't sleep during "naptime". She just has rest-time, really. She stays in her bed (thankfully, she doesn't get up unless we tell her it's ok!), plays quietly with her stuffed "friends", reads books, but sometimes gets a little rowdy. The GREATEST part of having a video monitor is just keeping an eye on her when she's not sleeping...it can be so hilarious to listen to her talking, singing, etc...so knew she was pretty active up there yesterday. I went up once to calm her down and get her lie (lay?!) quietly for a few minutes. The second time I went up, I was prepared with the camera and I was laughing almost as hard as she was.... she told me she was in her "cocoon" first, and then she was "in a cave"....whatever. It was a riot.

lunch...I mean Nap-Time?

In order to get both girls to nap at the same time in the afternoon (thus giving Mommy a break!), Ainsley has dropped down to one nap/day. That's a good thing b/c her nap is now 3 hours long, but sometimes, by lunch, she's just too tired to last until 1pm. Poor thing. This was her 'resting her eyes' yesterday while I was giving Elise lunch...about 12:30pm...She woke up about 5 minutes later and then napped great at 1. So cute. Maybe we're stretching her a little too long!

So close...

It WAS SNOWING IN SOUTH CAROLINA!!!!!!! Although neighbors explain that it only happens about every 10 years, I was bracing for a white Tuesday....but didn't get it. We did see about 10 flakes at 10am when we were leaving for Storytime at the library and then again about 20 minutes ago, there was a whole sloo of flurries! Adam is out of town, so I quickly put socks and shoes on elise, found her heavier coat in the closet, dug around for her hat and gloves, couldn't find matching gloves, so had to switch to backup pair, and she was set. I pulled Ainsley out of the highchair, wiped off her face and hands, realized her diaper was wet and leaked through her jeans...augh! I changed her diaper, ran upstairs and got her clean pants, put a sweater on her, fought with her to stick a hat on her head, threw on my own hat, almost done....then Elise had to go Tinkle...so I took her to pee quickly, grabbed a flashlight to see the snow better, ran out the front door...and, yes, you guessed it, it stopped snowing. Seriously?! yep. We hovered on the front porch for about 45 seconds, then came back in. It's 33 degrees after all...maybe better luck tomorrow. I'm exhausted.

My little Stinker!

Ainsley turns 1 in a few weeks...which is crazy for me to grasp! She's taking a few steps here and there, but definitely NOT WALKING yet, and she makes all kinds of noises and little sounds, but not a "mama" or "dada" in sight...Elise at this point was walking like crazy and had a vocabulary of like 4 words. It HONESTLY doesn't matter to me, it's just funny to know that I've done nothing differently in raising them so far, but, man, they are VASTLY different little girls! In her quest to practice walking, Ainsley loves to push around a chair, a box, a laundry basket, etc...to help her balance. Since our whole living room/dining room/kitchen area is all hard flooring, it all slides easily and she gets good 'practice'. She's also been trying to scale anything possible, from Elise's toddler-sized rocking chair to the couch. I was putting away dishes yesterday when all of a sudden I looked over and saw THIS:



As you can imagine, I freaked out and ran over there quickly...she was all smiles and so proud of her latest conquest! Great. Another little monkey in the house.

Birthday stuff...

Over the weekend we did the little party for Elise's birthday and it was so cute. It's fun that she actually "gets it" on things like Birthdays, Christmas, etc... now. She was sooooo excited for her party (I do say "party" loosely b/c it was her and 3 other kids. that's it. For those of you who don't know my whole background, I hate planning/throwing parties. I enjoy attending other people's events, but I get MAJOR anxiety when it comes to doing stuff on my own...so this was small and quaint and the kiddos LOVED it!).
We just went to this great park up the street, the kids sang Happy Bday to elise, they ate Caterpillar cupcakes, ran and played for an hour or so, and that was it. just how I like it. Elise was ecstatic that she had balloons on the table and she got to help assemble the goody bags! The weather was a GORGEOUS 7o degrees and sunny, so we were so thankful for the whole thing. Adam was photographer and 'kid chaser'...all was great! I still can't believe that she's already 3...it seems like she was 1 just yesterday.


Elise and Ben on top of the train...Ainsley in my arms
Elise enjoying her cupcake
Abby destroying one, too
How cute is that Caterpillar?
All four adorable Partygoers
This may be the cutest picture of the day....Kristina had fun, too!

Imagination...

Elise turned 3 on Tuesday and on Wednesday we had her 3 yr checkup at the Pediatrician...along with about 100 other questions, the Dr. asked if she had an Active Imagination or not. I almost laughed out loud. Just yesterday and today, we've had these conversations:

"Mommy, I a baby bird."
"Oh, you are? I thought you were a big girl named Elise"
"No, I a baby bird now. I go Tweet-Tweet-Tweet. See? Here's my wittle baby bird nest" and showed me a little "nest" cupped in her hands. Sure
(She then flapped her arms around the house and "tweeted" off and on for 3 hours. She was going out to dinner with our neighbors, so we had this conversation...)
"Elise, you can't be a baby bird at the restaurant, ok?"
"I know. mommy. I be Elise now and when I get back home, I be a baby bird again, ok?"

I just went to check on her during her rest-time (naps are over for her!), she was patting the pillow next ot her,
"Mommy, here's a baby named Elise"
"Well, aren't YOU Elise?"
"Yes, but I BIG GIRL Elise. This is my baby Elise. She wears diapers, not panties"
"Oh. Can I kiss her, too?"
"No, she sleeping now. Don't wake her up"
"Ok, you can move over and sit in your rocking chair if you want now, Elise"
"I take my baby Elise wif me. She sleep in a nest, too, just like my baby bird"

Ok. So, yes she has a strong imagination. I love it.

Here's a quick picture from her Birthday Morning! Adam stayed home for a little bit so she could have a special breakfast and open presents from the extended family...She loved it and it was a nice treat to have Adam home for a breakfast, too! We're having a little party at the park tomorrow with some of her little friends. So, we'll post pictures after that!

I can't get enough...

Apparently, I have somewhat of an Addictive Personality. Whatever. I do. Lately, our iPhoto has been running really slowly. Turns out we had 10, 500 PICTURES ON iPHOTO!!!!! I've been erasing pictures over and over again, but they never FULLY go away. I could always find them in the "Originals" folder even after I threw them away. So I asked my brother over Christmas what I was doing incorrectly. It was something really complicated, actually, like hitting "Empty Trash" every so often within iPhoto. Seriously? I've been annoyed at this for about a year and that's all it was? I'm an idiot.
Back to the addictive personality thing... once I realized how to correctly delete pictures, it's SOOO FUN! I've gone back to pictures since 2004 and started throwing away pictures (and then, ahem, EMPTYING THE TRASH) by the dozens...it's so freeing! Whenever I have 20 minutes (let's be honest, it's not too often), I open up the Mac and start reliving memories and cleaning up iPhoto. I really am like an addict. In just 10 days or so, I've erased over FIVE THOUSAND pictures. There are still tons of great pics of our kids, our time in Japan, etc....but instead of 150 pictures of The Great Buddha, there are now about 11. And, really, that's plenty. Instead of 100's of pictures of the "attempts" to get Ainsley to smile on Elise's lap for our Christmas card, there are 4. I love it. I've worked my way through about 60% of all photos and I salivate just thinking about getting a few minutes to work on it again.
Unfortunately, both girls are now waking up from naps, I need to pee, and the mailman just came, so I won't get to it until after 8pm tonight...but I'll be excited then!