Four is Fun!

Somehow Juliana went from this:

(Little Miss looking more like a Little Mister at like three months old)

And this:

(On her first birthday)

To this:

All grown up, no bottles, no pacifier, no diapers, dresses herself, brushes her own teeth, rides a bike (with training wheels), AND takes care of all bathroom "stuff" by herself.  Seriously, when did all this happen?  It seems like it was only a few months ago that I was staring into that cute little face, wondering what kind of little girl/teenager/adult she was going to be. Ok, enough sappiness, onto the festivities!

Juliana started talking about her birthday and turning four around Christmastime (if only I were joking).  Apparently, turning four is a VERY big deal.  She had all sorts of requests for what toys, cake, and decorations she wanted.  Four is a great age for being excited about everything!  She likes My Little Pony, princesses, fairies, bikes, books, movies, crayons, markers, coloring books, etc.  I could've closed my eyes and picked pretty much anything from two whole aisles at Target and she would've been thrilled.

Juliana's birthday breakfast request was cinnamon rolls and grits.  It's always been a secret dream of mine to be a phenomenal cinnamon roll maker.  In the past, my attempts have been...well, less than stellar.  Fortunately, some friends turned me onto a fantastic recipe site: melskitchencafe.com.  I love Mel!  I don't know her from Job, but I've tried close to 30 of her recipes and they have almost all been hits.  Her cinnamon roll recipe is no exception.  They are a ton of work, but oh my heavens, they are out-of-this-world spectacular!  So much so that Cinnabon better be glad I don't decide to take this gig on the road and put them out of business.  Hands down the best cinnamon roll I've ever eaten and the secret ingredient?  Vanilla pudding.  I'm not kidding.  Vanilla pudding.  Go.  Try it.  And then come back here and we can bask in the yumminess that is the perfect cinnamon roll.  My only regret is I didn't get a picture of the finished product.

Fortunately, I have this beauty - Everett eating an aforementioned cinnamon roll and Juliana next to a big bowl of grits.

After breakfast we got on Skype with my parents so they could see the birthday girl open their present.  Bless you, Skype.

Lunchtime brought lunch, cake and more presents.  The cake was entirely homemade (thank you Mel!), but the decorating wasn't exactly exceptional.  Oh well.  I knocked it out of the park with those cinnamon rolls.

When asked, Juliana claimed she had "the best birthday ever!"  It was a small affair with just our little family, but I think she had a great day and felt very special.  However, I do think we need a refresher course on exactly how often birthdays occur since the next morning when she woke up she exclaimed, "On my next birthday I'm going to turn 5!  And I want a My Little Pony cake!"

(PS - Here's what our four year old does with the sparkly lip gloss my mom sent.  All. day. long.)

A Toss Up

I'm not sure if the thrilling part about this post and these pictures is

A) Juliana is riding a bike!  With training wheels!

Or, Natalie scored a Disney Princess bike for EIGHT dollars and managed to put on the training wheels ALL BY HERSELF!

It really is a toss up.  We're both super duper, you-wouldn't-believe-me-if-I-told-you excited!

What Is This Feeling?

Giselle had a doctor's appt. a couple of weeks ago, and just as I'd suspected, the girl is a big 'un.  Cute and darling, but not small or petite.  She's off the charts for both height and weight and just the cutest little last child we ever could've asked for.  When she was born I thought "Cool!  I'll hopefully be able to use most of Juliana's old clothes for her."  Even though they aren't quite on the same timeline, season-wise, that sentiment has mostly held true.  What I failed to realize at the time is that Giselle is wearing Juliana's stuff about six months prior to the age when Juliana wore them. 

Case in point: Juliana wore this green dress (thank you Kim!) when she was like 22-23 months.  G is sporting it at barely 15 months.  

Case in point #2: Juliana wore this around 19 months, as evidenced here:

(Oh my goodness gracious! I just want to eat her up!  Love that girl.)

And on Miss Giselle:

Way less hair, and not so blond, but still so cute!

In other outfit news (is this seriously where this post has digressed to?) I scored this purple beauty at Goodwill for $3.  It's from Old Navy and still had the tags.  Woot, woot!  Juliana is in love with it, seeing as how her favorite color is "purple and pink" (as though they are one entity).

Now for something non-outfit related, I came outside yesterday afternoon to find Everett helping Giselle ride Juliana's tricycle and it was about the sweetest thing ever, so I took a billion pictures.

While Everett helped Giselle, Juliana sat on the side and played with Ariel and Cinderella.  This entire scenario exemplifies all three of my kids' personalities to a "T".

Giselle's face is classic!

And finally, a funny anecdote to end this post.  At church on Sunday Will and I actually got to sit next to each other.  We were singing a hymn and about halfway through Will leaned over to me and said, "Is it awkward that I can hit the high notes and you can't?"  hahahaha.  Anyone who's had the misfortune of sitting by or near me while singing can testify that I'm not a very good singer.  My range includes all of about 5 notes.  I think I've improved over the years, mostly due to belting it out when I'm alone with the kids (either at the house or in the car).  Will can tell whenever I've taught the kids a particular song because it tends to be either wrong, or completely off-key.

Which is why earlier today, as I was taking Juliana to a play date, and she requested "the girl song" (What's Is This Feeling? from Wicked), I turned it WAAAAY up and we sang to our hearts' content.  We managed to get two playings in before I dropped her off.  And guess what?  I was terrible.  I screeched, I was off-key and it was awesome!

Happy Tuesday!

What I Learned Today

* In case you're wondering, Lean Cuisine Chicken Fried Rice does NOT satisfy a craving for the real, greasy chicken fried rice from a more than likely sub-par Chinese restaurant.  Trust me, I know.

* Although I'm tired, my most favorite time of day to clean the house (except vacuuming) is at night when all three kids are in bed and asleep.  I like that my efforts aren't completely negated by six little hands, three slobbery mouths and dozens of toys, small nicknacks and random droppings of food.  Based on that description would you say I'm raising children or wild animals?

This is a typical "Me-at-the-end-of-the-day" look.  Tired, messy hair, make-up-less, and trust me, there are stains on the shirt:

* Did you know you can make homemade pudding??  I'm sure you already knew that, but for some reason it never occurred to me that pudding could be made not from a box.  Sad, but true.  I gave chocolate pudding a whirl on Monday and this evening I tried my hand at vanilla.  I can't believe how easy it is!  I may never buy another box of pudding again!

* Tonight, in an effort to get Juliana to stop fussing about going to bed and having to stop playing with Everett, I reminded her that tomorrow we're going to The Magic House, the children's museum here in St. Louis, with some new friends.  The result?  Everett started to cry about missing it because of school and Juliana went to bed excited and happy.  So basically, it was a wash.  Suffice it to say, definitely not my brightest parenting idea.

* The other night I started reading a blog of someone I sort of know.  She's friends with a couple of mutual friends, we were both at BYU at the same time, and I think she moved into my old ward the semester after I moved out.  Anyway, I got caught up in her last few blog posts and came away feeling like a big, untalented waste.  I despise that about blogging!  Like my friend said, " i hate blogs. i hate them so much sometimes. i love personal history, but reading about another happy family spending endless time and money together in jamaica makes me want to throw things."  It amazed me how quickly I got into a funk thinking about all the things I don't do well, or don't have, or opportunities I wasted, etc.  That's always the way, isn't it?  Something small and seemingly innocent like someone talking about their house and that sets me off.  It's a lesson I always seem to be re-learning: Don't compare your weaknesses with someone else's strengths.  Or vice versa.  

* I'm really enjoying St. Louis.  Even more than I thought I would.  We've only been here since April, but it felt like home almost immediately.  That's not to say we don't miss our families or dear friends in Atlanta or wherever they may be, but this is a wonderful place to be.

Ok, the rugrats are asleep, I'm off to clean!

A Day in The Life of a Kindergartner

Everett's Tips For a Successful First Day of Kindergarten:

1) Get up early.  For example, if your school starts at, oh I don't know, 7:40, then an hour and 40 minutes should do the trick.

2) Make your bed.  Even if it is the top bunk.  If you're old enough to go to school, you are old enough to make your bed.

3) Eat a healthy-ish breakfast.  This Kindergartner requested, and was granted, homemade green pancakes.  With homemade buttermilk syrup (thank you Tara!)

4) Dress for success.  Selecting your outfit the night before is a great morning timesaver as you have plenty of time to debate the merits of blue shorts vs. khaki shorts.  Even if Mom is a proponent of khaki, discussing your attire the night before increases your likelihood of being able to go with the blue.

5) Pack your lunch and your backpack the night before.  And remember,  regardless of new clothes or bags, never forget you are more than meets the eye.

6) In an effort to learn about proper displays of affection, don't forget a hug and a chokehold are not one in the same.  Make sure potential receivers know the difference.

7) Show some love to those you're leaving behind, even if they ACT like they don't want to be touched. 

8) Be excited!  Kindergarten is full of fun stuff!

 9) After a long, grueling day in Kindergarten, you deserve a special first day dinner treat.

10) And E's final tip for successful Kindergarten-ing?  Have your parents finally, FINALLY hang up the bulletin board in your room so you have the perfect showcase for your artwork.

Standing at the Edge of Tomorrow

Friday afternoon was my first "Meet The Teacher" as a parent.  It ruled.  And yeah, the about-to-be-a-Kindergartener had fun too.

Notice that nice, big goose egg in the middle of his forehead?  He managed that an hour or two before it was time to go.  He and the pavement had a little talking-to.  Hopefully, he won't be making the same mistake twice.

Ahh, and this little beauty.  She had to get in on the "sitting at the table" action as well.

If we're friends on Facebook, you probably already saw this next picture, but I had to include it.  After months (unfortunately, I'm not exaggerating) of discussing which book bag he should get, we finally settled on this one:

Transformers.  For awhile there I thought Superman or Spiderman or even Batman were going to win out, but one look at Optimus Prime and Bumblebee and Everett was a goner.  He and that backpack have been one since we bought it.  He even took it into the bathroom with him, but ASSURED me he took it off to do his business.  Uh huh, yeah right.

So we've met the teacher, purchased the school supplies, and I've done my duty to hype up how fun and totally awesome Kindergarten is.  Everett is ready.  School starts Tuesday and Will has even taken the day off in celebration.  He's going to be here when Everett leaves and when he returns.  We'll spend a large part of our day celebrating Everett and his first day of elementary school.  Yahooooooo!

Sisterly Love

Everett turned on the water hose yesterday afternoon under the pretense of "watering the flowers".  He must think I'm pretty slow considering, a) we have no flowers and b) we're not exactly in a drought here.  I knew full well what was inevitable when a 5 year old gets ahold of the water hose.  But since it was late in the day and I'm not a complete spoilsport, I went ahead and gave the ok.

I guess "watering the flowers" is exactly what Everett did, if by watering he meant spraying, and by flowers he meant his sisters.  Giselle especially loved to gasp and squeal every time she got wet.  After a few minutes, nature called for Everett and inside to the bathroom he went.  Not one to let a prime opportunity go to waste, Juliana promptly picked up the hose and began spraying Giselle in the face.  

And Giselle LOVED it.  Juliana thought it was pretty funny too.

(I took all these pictures from the safety of inside the house.  I'm no dummy).

Flash Forward

Since Everett is starting Kindergarten in a week, I've been reflecting on this little guy a lot lately.  While I am BEYOND excited for him to take the first step on his schooling path (which I've informed him doesn't end until after four years of college and at least two years of graduate school), I still can't believe it's been almost six years since he was born!  As I wrote in an email to a friend last week, with a few exceptions here and there, he's been my constant companion since the day he was born.

  

Everett is a great kid and a wonderful little person.  I always want to remember how he is at this age.  He is kind and sweet.  Loving and sensitive.  Fun and funny.  Smart and observant.  I'm constantly telling Juliana and Giselle how lucky they are to have such a sweet/kind/nice older brother. 

Everett has never met a stranger.  I love to sit back and watch him in new situations.  He seems to be able to go up to any group, say hi, and then start playing.  And other kids just gravitate to him.  In fact, just yesterday after church was over and we were in the hallway waiting for Will, a 12 or 13 year old boy just starting chatting with Everett.  The young man asked Everett what grade he was going into and Everett proceeded to tell him everything from what school he'll be attending to his favorite color to his baby sister's name and then Juliana's favorite color.  

Everett inherited some of his best qualities from Will.  Everett is thoughtful and observant.  And he is generous with his compliments.  He notices when I make even the slightest change to my appearance and willingly tells me that I look pretty, which I appreciate since I rarely feel so!  He is sensitive to his sisters and (most of the time) doesn't like to see them upset.  He is a great protector of Juliana, especially.  He makes sure she is included since they are usually playing with kids that are more his age than hers.

Like most kids his age, Everett is a sponge for learning.  He's constantly asking questions and once he's discovered an answer, he'll tell/teach everyone he meets about it.  Currently, he's fascinated with numbers, time and days of the week/months of the year.  We go to the library at least once a week and he loves to pick out books.  I hope that he always enjoys reading.

I couldn't have picked a better first-born for our family.  He's a great example to his sisters and seems to take his responsibility as the oldest in stride.  Everett gives great hugs and kisses.  My fingers are crossed that he'll always be somewhat affectionate with his Mommy and Daddy.


Anyway, a long, rambling post about our little man.  We're excited for this new adventure and I wanted to make sure I put down some thoughts before I blink and he's leaving for college!