What a busy month this has been. It was a month of birthday celebrations for Ellen, Phoebe, and all of their friends. So much has happened, in fact, that it's been 5 days since March began, and I've already forgotten just about everything. Fortunately for all of us, we took notes...unfortunately, we lost our hard drive this month too, so many of the notes had to be re-created from memory. So, on with the summary.
This being Ellen's birthday month, we'll start off the talk with Ellen. Ellen's friend Hayden had a birthday party at the beginning of the month. Ellen created a crown at the party, enjoyed dancing the Hokey-Pokey, playing "Pin the bow tie on the bear," and eating yummy birthday cake. Next we'll jump ahead to the second week of the month. Ellen's school had a Valentine's day party. Ellen had a bunch of fun. They exchanged Valentine cards with classmates and teachers. I don't remember anything else of note other than Ellen summing up the day when I got home by saying "I had SO much sugar!" emphasizing the "so" with a stomp of her foot. Apparently, she still had some of it in her system at the time. Then Valentine's day arrived. The girls enjoyed the gifts and cards that they received on this day.
This week also brought Ellen's 4th birthday...and if you have as difficult time believing that she's already 4, just ask her. She'll tell you...or even if you don't ask her, she'll happily tell you, "I'm 4". At Ellen's school, the day before her birthday, Ellen got to bring the snacks and sharing. The teachers gave her a scrunchy (or as she calls it, a smooshy) and a couple pink butterfly hair clips. We started the day with Ellen's favorite breakfast - breakfast burritos. Afterwards, we opened her presents. The big gift from our view was the unveiling of Ellen's brand new Trek Mystic bicycle. (We had actually bought it last month and kept it hidden at the bike shop where I picked it up the night before). Ellen didn't seem to care all that much about it at the time since she wanted to get on with the rest of the gifts. Grandma and Papa came over for dinner. We had HoneyBaked Ham, mashed yams, and green bean casserole. This is actually what Ellen requested...especially the green bean casserole. She wanted to be sure that we had the green bean casserole. Then, of course, it was topped off with cupcakes and ice cream. Mmmmm. Cupcakes.
Ellen had been taking ballet for the last 4 weeks when it was finally time to show off what she had learned in the 1 minute recital at the end of class. It was a showcase of the positions and moves they had learned so far. Ellen didn't do much of the beginning. She was too distracted by all of us in there to really pay attention to the teacher, but she got caught up towards the end. We video taped it and took pictures so the grandparents will see the whole thing. It was very nice. Now the class has moved on to tap dance for the next 4 weeks which I also assume will include a short recital at the end. It's fun to watch the kids walk around in their little tap shoes, but it is wickedly loud in there if one has the misfortune of being in the room whilst the tapping is occurring. From outside in the hallway it sounds like an office full of an infinite number of monkeys banging out the collected works of Shakespeare on typewriters...even though in this case, there are only about 15 actual girls in the room. On that night, we had all the Godparents all over for a joint Ellen/Phoebe dinner. Ellen and I made pizza, and once again we had cupcakes and ice cream for dinner. Mmmmm. Cupcakes.
The week after Ellen's birthday week, Ellen was getting ready to go to school. She scribbled something quickly on 2 separate small pieces of paper. She put them in her backpack and then went to school. When she got there, she took the notes and gave them to each of her teachers and said that they were thank you notes for the scrunchy and butterfly clips. We didn't sit down with her to make those thank you notes, though we had worked with her on her other birthday ones. We were very proud. Even though it seems that we aren't getting through most of the time, it's nice to know that occasionally make an impact.
Then we finally made it through the week to the weekend. The big party was on the 26th of February. The party started at 10am, and featured the musical stylings of the one and only Mr. Bob. He arrived on time and got setup as the kids and parents arrived. After some light chit-chat, the party got started. Mr. Bob had the house a rockin'. All the kids had a good time dancing around. It was a big success. After our pizza came the cupcakes. We didn't have the kids bring gifts for the girls this time. Ellen thought it would be a good idea to ask for new books that they could donate to the SMART (Start Making a Reader Today) program in memory of their friend Dylan. Ellen and Phoebe were able to donate 27 new books in all to SMART. Ellen placed the stickers in the books herself and presented them to Dylan's mother for donation. She was so proud of herself, and we were proud of them too. The next day, Ellen had 2 parties to attend. Fortunately for me, Ellen followed the party rule which is since daddy couldn't attend the parties on Sunday (I stayed home with Phoebe so she could nap), she has to bring me a slice of cake.
Phoebe has become quite a little parrot. She can and will repeat just about everything that she hears any of us say. Everything she says sounds so much cuter out of her mouth than ours. For example, "careful ellen" sounds much cuter as "carefo lellie". She is sitting through longer books now, and she can tell us books she wants to hear by mentioning part of it or something that happened in the story and pointing. Her favorite book is called "I like diggers" so far this month. Phoebe has been trying to pee in the potty before bath time after she let fly in the bath early in the month. Much to our pleasure, she has actually peed in the big potty as well as the training potty this month. I think she has done it 3 or 4 times this month. Man, if only we can get her to do it more often. She has been able to tell us that she needs to poop too, but most of the time she has already pooped by the time she heads for the bath room. We need to pay more attention to her to try to get her into the bathroom sooner. She loves heading in the bathroom to do things like her big sister. That's also the reason we've had an easier time with brushing her teeth. This month, Phoebe has been letting me brush her teeth finally. She steps up on the stool and says "Ahh" and "eeee" so I can brush her teeth. In the mornings when Ellen and I brush before I leave for work, Phoebe walks to the hall bathroom, picks up that step stool, and carries it to our bathroom to stand next to us and brush her own teeth which mostly consists of chewing on the tooth brush. They both like to imitate me as I brush, rinsing their brushes when I do, spitting in the sink, wiping my mouth on the towel, and drying my brush.
Finally, the weather has been incredible here lately. Sunny and warm. We've been taking the girls with their bikes down to the cul de sac to ride around. Ellen hopped right on and started riding. We had a little discussion on braking, but then all was fine. Ellen slows and stops when she starts going too fast, but she's learned how to get on the coaster brake pretty fast. She's learning quickly though. Phoebe rides around on the trike. She doesn't quite reach the pedals yet, so she runs her little legs. They both have a great time out there, and they both wear their helmets correctly.
Journal entry: March 6, 2005