How Fast Are You Growing?

We enrolled Elise in a toddler movement/dance class at her cousin's preschool. She loves it. It is a two story building, which has stairs and a ramp to get to the second floor. As we climb the stairs, and go up the ramp, Elise tells me, "I'm getting taller, and growing, and growing, and growing..." Apparently she has confused the concept of getting higher with growing taller. It is pretty funny.

We also had another wonderful moment together this morning. Usually I try to tell her, "Thank you for going with me to do ____" whatever the activity was, from helping me at the store, or going to the library for story time. I just like to let her know I enjoy being with her. She usually says, "Your welcome Mama." Today, after her last dance class, we got in the car to go over to the library for story time. My sweet little girl called out from the back seat for my attention. She said, "Mama!"

I said, "Yes Elise?"

She said, "Thank you Mama, for going dance class with me, and for go swimming with me, and for all those things. Thank you for story time."

It was so cute, and so sweet, and so unprompted. I love her! She really is a great girl to hang out with, and has gotten really good at being out and about having fun. It is nice to hear that she enjoys our fun times together too. Hopefully that lasts for a long time!

Interesting Spelling

I wore a shirt yesterday that had letters on the front. Elise saw them and said, "Mama, your shirt has ABCs." I agreed, and asked her to tell me what the letters were. We looked at them, and found that the letters were A-L-A-S-K-A. I told her those letters together spell Alaska. She said, "Oh, Alaska. Daddy in Alaska. Shirt says DADDY." It was pretty funny!

Smaller Recent Sewing Projects

We are on the home stretch of our countdown. Logan comes down for the last visit (hopefully!!!!) Friday after next. We get to visit Southern California for almost a week, and then we'll be back here in Oregon to finish packing. Then the fun really starts. We, Elise and I, get to go back to Alaska WITH LOGAN!!! We're getting very excited, and have been organizing boxes and luggage, and getting all packed. In the meantime, since we still have several days, we've come up with a couple fun, quick, little projects for Elise for the California vacation. We've been having some great weather here, enjoying sunshine and temperatures in the low to mid 60s. Its warm enough to not need a sweater, and still comfortable enough not to be hot. We have been looking at the weather for our Southern California trip, however, and things are looking incredibly warm down there, and I'm getting a bit worried that we'll have a really hard time dealing with the heat. My mom sent a way cute pink dress with little white flowers, and it has been light weight and wonderful for Elise to stay cool in nursery with all those other hot little kids. So, I found some fabric and made a floppy hat to go with the dress. Elise loves it, and loves wearing her cute pink dress. I told her she was cute when I put it on, and the next time I put it on her, she looked in the mirror, and said, "Cute girl!"

And, then I was looking at the clothes in Elise's drawers, trying to sort things into clothes to wear in the warm weather, and things we'll need to have out for the trip to Alaska. I found that she has some red shirts, and one has a watermelon. I thought if we made a little skirt that had red and green fabrics, it would be light weight for the hot weather, and go well with those other clothes as well. We found some way cute fabrics, and Elise picked one with pink watermelons on it. We found a cute pattern, and made this shirt, skirt, and hat to mix and match with other things, but not necessarily to wear together.

When we put it on to try it out, Elise started spinning so the skirt would flair out. She loves it, and looks so grown up. It is funny, but last year I thought the purple dress I made for her made her look like a grown up girl instead of a baby. The other day when she put on this outfit, I thought the same thing, that she is getting so grown up and isn't the little baby girl I brought down to Oregon last October.

And this last picture is of Elise and her cute cousin A who is four months older. They are good friends, and have enjoyed spending time together the last several months. We're really going to miss all our family here when the time comes to leave, but we are still getting excited to see Logan again so soon!!!

Dr. Seuss Moment

The other day, Elise and I were laying down for nap time. We usually snuggle up together on my bed and hold hands to fall asleep. She has her glowworm and blanket, as well as her 'pafier'. I sometimes will sleep there for 20 minutes or so, then go get something else done while she finishes the nap on her own. More often than not, I have to close my eyes to pretend I'm asleep, or she'll just stare at me, although I must admit that my favorite part is watching her little eyelids finally close, and have her relax peacefully into sleep. Anyways, we got all snuggled down, as usual, and had some relaxing music playing. I looked over at her, and she was so cute, (which isn't unusual). But instead of closing my eyes so she would close hers, I told her, "Thank you for playing with me today and helping with the errands." She smiled really big and watched me with her big brown eyes for a couple seconds, then sat up and held her hands in front of her. I asked her what she was doing and she replied, "flying a kite in bed." I laughed so hard! That wasn't what I'd expected. She loves Dr. Seuss books, and I guess it had suddenly occured to her that this would be a perfect time to pretend one of those things we'd only read about. What a fun girl! Of course I let her enjoy it for a few moments, before we had to lay back down and get some sleep. She is so much fun and is always surprising me with her curiousity, memory, and creativity.

Like just now, we're eating lunch, watching some Cinderella. She hasn't watched it in over a week! However, today, she wanted to watch a bit, so we are. She asks where each character is right before they come on screen, she is pretending to be her favorite characters, and is even reciting lines with them. I guess I didn't think we'd watched this movie THAT many times, but it definitely is one of her absolute favorites....especially as we're getting to the best part...the part where Cinderella dances with the prince....we're probably going to be pretending that later today. Anyone want to come have a chance to be the prince? Although she is now doing a pretty good impersonation herself. holding out her hand and yelling, "Come back Cinderella, come back! Wait come back Cinderella!" I've noticed lately that anytime she wants me to come anywhere with her that is what she says to me, "Come back Cinderella!" Fun times!

Learning About the Wind

My girl has learned a new lesson this week, about the wind. Yesterday we made a visit to the dollar store. She got to pick a balloon. She traded balloons several times as we wandered through the store. At the checkstand she wavered, deciding between a big floating type balloon, or a small one on a stick. She decided, changed her mind and traded again, then went back choose just once more. Finally settling on a small stick version, she put it on the converyer belt with the other items and got it scanned. As she played with it while I payed, it came off the stick. I stuck it back on, and we left the store with a cart. The parking lot outside the store was busy since it was around noon. There was a bit of a breeze as well. I realized as we crossed the parking lot that Elise was pulling me back to the store. I kept going, keeping her with me so she wouldn't get hit by any of the many cars driving around. When we made it to a safe spot I looked down at her, and she was holding a stick, with no balloon. It had blown off in the breeze. She was sad, but there was really no safe way to get it back. It blew back over by the store, but was still in the line of moving vehicles. So we went to the car, put our purchased items in the trunk, and went back to return the cart. Elise said she was a little sad, but didn't cry. I told her the wind had blown it away and we couldn't get it. This was her first experience with this problem. So, the good ending to our story is, as we returned the cart to the store, we found her balloon still sitting there in the line of oncoming traffic. We were able to grab it and put it back on her stick, although she clutched the whole balloon to her chest until we were safely inside the car. She loves her ballooon.

The other funny story happened today. Elise asked for ponytails in her hair this morning. We then went in the car to get some thread for a project and run a few errands. As we got out of the car at the post office, the wind was blowing a bit, and Elise reached up and grabbed her ponytails. I wondered why at first, since she's never done that before. She was really gripped on them, and didn't want to let go for anything. I told her I needed to put her backpack on (it has the leash attached, which we use when we are out and about). She agreed to let go briefly with one hand to slip it through the strap, then quickly clutched her ponytail again. Then she repeated the process on the other side. I asked for her hand so we could walk through the parking lot. She said, "No Mama, you pick up." This was a bit odd, since she's firmly entrenched in the 2 1/2 year old stage of wanting to do everything all by herself. Nevertheless I picked her up and started walking into the building. She kept her hands over her ponytails the whole time. I asked if the wind was blowing her hair, and she told me it was, and that it was blowing my hair too. I agreed, and we made it inside. It took her a minute to let go of the ponytails, but the minute we stepped outside again, her hands were gripping her hair firmly. We had to repeat the one arm at a time procedure for getting out of the backpack straps, and into the carseat straps. Similar scenes greeted us each time we had to stop and get out of the car to run our errands today. I thought it was amusing, but didn't really figure out why today was different than any other day.

Then later today, we were sitting, chatting with Grandma Sue, relating some of the cute things that have happened this last couple days. I had shared the balloon story, and when I told her the ponytail gripping story, she told me she knew why Elise had been so concerned about her hair remaining attached today. She put the two together, just as Elise had, and helped me to see that Elise was now worried that she could lose things because of the wind, which she wasn't aware of before. I now understand where her concern came from, but have no idea how to help her feel safe and confident that her hair is attached, and her ponlytails will not blow away. Maybe I'll be able to get a picture of her in her hair gripping mode. She was adorable!!!....although it probably wouldn't be all that nice to take her out in the wind and make her pose when she's kind of worried about losing her hair, but it would be fun to remember how cute she was holding her ponytails!

Updated Family Picture

We took pictures in our coordinating patriotic shirts while Logan was here for Independence Day celebrations. We thought it was time to update our family photos. We hope you enjoy, and are very greatful to have the freedom to travel and be together as a family!

IT'S FINISHED....well one part anyway....

Well, I wanted to make Logan a quilt to replace 'the blue blanket' for Christmas a couple years ago. We looked at patterns, spent a long time picking fabrics, and even cutting the pieces out. We picked a double wedding ring pattern, a white for the center and melon shapes, with a light blue and a dark blue for the arcs and corner pieces. I decided that to help take my mind off our challenging circumstances, I would piece the top together this summer, mostly during nap time or before Elise woke up in the morning. I don't think when I cut out those pieces that I thought it would be as challenging to put them together as it was, or did I realize how big this sucker would end up. Each step seemed to take an eternity, as there were about 250 pieces for each step, there are no straight seams, and sewing 20 pieces together took on average 1 hour. Well, I tried to finish the top for Logan's last visit, as a surprise, and because I thought we'd be busy this last 5 weeks of our stay getting ready to return to Alaska, and therefore not have time to work on it. Unfortunately I ran out of thread and had to call him to get more, so the top wasn't finished for his visit the first week of July. I can announce today that the top is finally all pieced together!!! And this morning I sewed and ironed the binding, so it is ready to go. I am so excited! As I look at the top, I realize that it doesn't look exactly as I pictured, but I think in some ways it came out better, and in others, it will take some getting used to. It is by no means perfect, but I think it works from a distance! Elise and I went to the cultural hall today to lay it out and get some pictures to share with Logan. Here it is....our new quilt top!!!

A bit closer to see the pattern...

and even more closely still....it is laying on top of the backing fabric

With my little bug on her bike, to give an idea of size...

All that is left is the actual quilting, which will not take place until after we're settled back in Alaska (so maybe it'll be done for this Christmas....maybe...).

In the meantime, I can quote my little bug, as she says, "I feel great inside!" I hope you like it sweetheart! I know its not 'the blue blanket' but it was made with love for you! We're excited for you to get to see it in person soon!

Latest Project---Family Time Clock

Logan came down for a couple days visit for the 4th of July week/weekend. To celebrate that we'll be all back together as a family in August, (it looks like that means we'll be moving back to Alaska with Logan), we decided to do a fun decoration for our new abode. We went to the Pottery Place in Coos Bay and put our hand prints in place of the numbers on a huge plate, then drilled out a center hole that will house a clock mechanism with a chime. We're so excited it came out as nice as it did!

Logan also helped Elise paint a light switch cover for her room. They did a great job and Elise loves it!

We're so excited to be all together in just 4 weeks!!! And we're very excited to decorate our space together, especially to be able to UNPACK in 6 weeks! Its been a bit too long living out of boxes or suitcases, with everything in storage. We're keeping our fingers and toes crossed that everything works out, but as we count down each week, we're having a hard time not getting too excited that this challenging experience is drawing quickly to a close!!!