ella's 4th birthday

ella asked for a "REpunzel" doll for her birthday...

love you

yesterday i was rolling out dough to make cookies for ella's birthday party. she came into the kitchen and we were talking about something. and then we had this conversation:

me: i love you, ella.

ella: i love you, too, mommy.

me: i love you as far as i can reach.

ella: i love you as far as the earth.

me: i love you as far as mars.

ella: i love you as far as mars, too!

me: i love you all the way to pluto!

ella: i love you to minnie and daisy!!

where do you go from there?!

you know you have an overachiever when...

last night was cubbies for ella. she absolutely LOVES cubbies club! she started the year late (right before thanksgiving) and is 2 verses away from catching up. she's a bubble of sunshine before and after. ted and i are so thankful that she has so much fun there and is learning of Jesus' love for her. well, last night she woke up around midnight crying. at first we thought she had to go to the bathroom, but was fighting it (being half asleep). she kept crying and arching her back. ted tried asking her what was wrong, but she just kept crying. finally i knelt beside her and asked if she wanted my help. i thought, "for sure this is going to be a long ordeal." but after a few minutes she mournfully declared, "i lost my cubby book." "you didn't lose your cubby book, ella, it's downstairs", i reassured her. she wouldn't believe it until ted went to retrieve it for her as proof that she was just having a bad dream. once she saw the book she quieted down, smiled and lay back down in bed. not a peep after that.

kids!

so the past few days the kids have been really whiny. ella was making a fuss over something a few days ago and i said, "oh my goodness, ella, i'm gonna lose my mind!" to which she replied, "you're gonna lose your mind? you'll have to get another one."

sewing projects

so in my attempt to learn how to sew i decided to start with something simple...aprons. i found a pattern for the girls and one for myself (which i haven't started yet). i cut ella's wrong, but corinne's turned out just right. ella's has little cupcakes and cherries and corinne's has kitty cats that say "your purrrrfect". they wore them for a little bit and then they shed them on the floor. it's a good thing i didn't stay up late hours working on them-ahem! but i did learn a lot and they'll come in handy when we bake together.

make believe

so corinne is way more into pretending than ella ever was and still is. she does little voices for her toys and carries on conversations between them. lately, she has been pretending even more. today we had a picnic in the backyard. i laid out a sheet on a little mound and we ate mac and cheese and apples. our backyard has a large redwood in it and i'm sure to corinne it is massive! she kept asking "where are we?" and at first i responded, "we're in our backyard". then i realized she wanted to make believe. so, i said, "we're in pixie hollow!" "yeah!", she said enthusiastically. i guess from her perspective we were.

little wonders

so, today we must've blown a fuse in the breaker box? all i know is that the lights in the kids' rooms don't work. so tonight when we went into the girls' room ella tried to turn on the light. i tried to explain to her that the light wasn't working, but she said, "oh no, we need some new batteries!"