We Love Daddy

Even though both us girls got sick, we were able to drive the two hours to the airport, get Logan, make it to Portland, and go to the zoo. Elise loves her Daddy, and even though it is an ajustment for all of us, we love being together as a family. We had lots of fun times in March, last time Logan came down, which Elise remembered, and would pretend or act them out repeatedly. This time we went to the zoo again, but got some more videos, as she gets really excited when she can see the fun times she's had with Daddy.

Mother's Day Gift Project

We somehow got involved in helping with the gift the women in our ward at church were getting for Mother's Day. This project started out being a small gift bought at a store, but evolved into being a bit more home made after several modifications. We started trying with some brownie pops, dipped in chocolate and drizzled with red chocolate....

Those didn't end up looking so good, as the chocolate was not smooth enough for dipping. So, we tried cutting out brownie hearts, frosting them, doing dots of colored frosting, and running a toothpick through the dots....

These didn't end up looking so good either, as the hearts were not symmetrical, once the frosting was dragged with a toothpick, it was harder to tell what the original brownie shape was. But we liked the hearts for portion size, so we got the dipping chocolate and the chocolate melter, dipped the hearts and drizzled them with white and pink cookie frosting with a number 2 tip.....

This version recieved the final approval, so we made 75 of them on Friday and Saturday morning.....

and got them packaged that afternoon....

We were glad we could help, but it definitely made for a longer than normal week, and lots of trial/error brownies. Luckily my mother in law teaches seminary, so we sent the practice batches to class, and didn't have loads sitting around waiting to be eaten. So, if anybody is looking for a fun, fast, edible gift project, these hearts are great!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day for all of you! We love our mothers and are grateful for all they do for our little family! We had a pretty good day today, although we desperately miss Logan, and are super excited we're going to be seeing him on Saturday. My special little girl had a hard time understanding today was a special day. We made flower pictures for her grandmas where her hand print is the flower, which she colored and put stickers all over. She was very excited about those but thought it was just fun to color for her grandmas. She even, with my help, made one for me in nursery today (which is going much better since we split it up and have the bigger kids separate from the littler ones. Elise is doing loads better, Sunday runs smoother, and I'm a bit more sane after church is over.)

Anyways, we ended up doing the large project Friday and Saturday (we'll post pictures soon) of brownie hearts dipped in chocolate and drizzled with chocolate to give all the mothers at church. This was a bit stressful, and made me want a day off. Elise felt like we should play a lot today, which we did, but I was feeling a bit tired, and sore throat-ish. My girl stepped up to the plate. She did a couple really cute things that made me even more glad she is my little girl. She was hugging me this evening, and I asked her if I was her friend. She put her little hands on the sides of my face, gave me a kiss, and said, "Best friend!" with a big smile. Talk about making your heart melt! I love that she loves to hang out, read stories, watch a movie and have popcorn, or just giggle and dance together.

The other really, incredibly cute thing she did today really should have a picture, but I didn't get one yet. I'll try to remedy that situation soon, however here is the story. We watched Cinderella Saturday night. She loves this movie. She pretends she is the fairy making the pumpkin into a car, and then she is 'Sillerella' wearing a dress and dancing with the prince (which is usually me, or sometimes Uncle Trevor). She wears her socks on her hands all the time because Cinderella has gloves. It is getting pretty intense. We found a pattern for a Cinderella dress, and I've been toying with the idea of making one for her. Today, we were getting dressed for church. She hasn't wanted to wear anything but her Easter dress for a month, but this morning I thought I'd pull out the dress my older sister made for her to match the ones her cousins had for my little sister's wedding 2 years ago (it was the blue one we took pictures of her wearing on Valentine's Day). It was a bit big when she last tried it on, but I thought we'd try it today. I pulled it out, and Elise got very excited and started saying, "Sillerella dress! Sillerella dress!!!" She put it on, and danced around. In the movie, when Cinderella dances with the prince, she holds his hand with one of hers, but holds her skirt out with the other. Elise walked like that all day today. She had a hard time not dancing through church but she contented herself with holding my hand and holding her skirt out with the other. When we got in the car to come home, she pulled off her shoes and socks, and put her socks on her hands like gloves. She would not let me take her dress off for lunch, and told her grandparents all about her beautiful Cinderella dress. Thank you so much to my little sister for choosing this color as one of her wedding colors, and to me older sister who made this fabulous dress! Little did I know it would save me from making a Cinderella costume, but now I can see how perfect it fits this need, and how much my little princess loves it! We'll probably be wearing it a lot, so I'll try to post pictures of it soon. I love our little girl, and especially feel blessed to be "best friends!"

Story Time, Coos Bay Library

We have been able to make it to Story Time at the Coos Bay Library for the last few weeks. Elise loves going. She mostly likes to watch the other kids while the stories are being read. Yesterday they glued seeds on a sun flower. She told me where to put the glue, and she attached the sunflower seeds. She wanted one on each petal. This morning she told me she wanted to give her flower to Daddy. When we talked to him on the phone, she tried to show him the flower through the phone. Then she requested that we go back to story time and make some more flowers so we can give them to Daddy. What a sweet girl!

She also loves the fire engine booth where you can read books...

and the big bird chair by the train set.

She loves to look at things and listen to stories. What a fun girl!!!

One of the Toughest Parts

There are some tough parts about our family's current situation. We are all making it through each day, and are counting down until we're back together again. I've found, however, that Sunday is one of the hardest, longest, toughest days we have every week. It is a bit tricky to help Elise stay calm through sacrament meeting without some help. It is hard to see so many happy families enjoying church together, while we are missing Logan. Nursery is also a tough, stressful, crazy situation. How do you handle bullies? There are going to be 18 kids in our incredibly small room within the next month or so. Some of our kids are a higher energy, attention need level, and can become agressive towards the younger kids. How do you handle the aggressive kids? Does it change if your kid is one of the ones being bullied? Or is picking up some terrible behaviors from watching everything that is happening? This has been a difficult situation, and as one of the people asked to help out in the nursery class, I'm struggling to know how to best handle the situation, while balancing the "mommy bear"instinct that kicks in when my daughter is one of the kids on the receiving end of some aggression. So, we'll just keep trying, week by week. We're down to 3 and 1/2 weeks until Logan's next visit!!!

Funny Little Sayings

My girl is growing up fast, and her vocabulary is getting larger everyday. Lately she's added some fun new sayings to her repertoire. As all two year olds do, she likes to ask questions....all the time. Her two favorites are:

"Whatcha doing hearing?", which means whatcha doing here, but she hasn't figured out that last word yet....

and the popular

"What's this for?"

These two questions are asked millions of times everyday. We are getting lots of practice labeling things, talking about how things work, or why things are where they are. She's a lot of fun, and is a challenge to keep up with. She's learning letters, numbers, and shapes. She's great at singing songs, playing pretend, and helping with projects. So, if anybody finds themselves with spare time on their hands, and feels like they would relish the challenge of explaining everything around them, you are welcome to join us. We'll be building a tent, having a tea party adventure, taking a bus ride with a two year old driver, and pretending the couch is a tide pool. Come on over to play!

There was a Farmer had a DOG and ....WHAT was his name?

My girl loves to sing. The other day she was singing a song, which is not unusual, while I prepared her food. As I listened, the tune and words sounded something like this song, "There was a farmer, had a dog, and BINGO was his name O, BINGO," and so on. The funny part was, the name of the dog in her version was definitely not Bingo. It was NEMO! I had to laugh as I realized what she was saying and why she was saying Nemo over and over. What a cutie!!!

Oh, and Happy Easter! We're waiting to get some pictures taken in the Easter dress until the next time she wears it and looks adorable. So, until then, we hope you are feeling closer to family this Easter, since that is why Easter is so important. It means we can all be clean, free, and together with loved ones forever!