Up the Stairs

A few weeks ago, Annie turned around to look at me while she was on the stairs and was surprised to see me as close as I was. Annie laughed and laughed because she was surprised. Ever since, then, she always turns around every few steps to see if I am close (or if I'm going to make a funny face). Who would have thought that going up the stairs would incite such laughter!?! [And these would be SUCH cute pictures if I had cleaned her face better after a shells-and-cheese dinner. *sigh*]

Annie gets ready for bed on our bed every night (yes, we still have to use Baby Einstein for teeth brushing), and Annie always laughs like this when Daddy chubs her "butter fat." ; )

Meeting Greta Anderson

Today we got to meet Heidi's newest little sister: Greta May Anderson!!!! Before they came over, we drew a chalk drawing to welcome them. Leia Rose was upset that she drew a frown on the baby (which she did by mistake), so I told her to just make it a crying baby. ; )
And then they arrived!!! (And in the background you can see Leia's "WELCOM GRETU" written in chalk. ; )
Look at that adoring big sister!
the girls picked some beautiful dandelion flowers for Greta, who was very sleepy.
But it wasn't long before she woke up, and we saw those beautiful eyes! Not only did we get to meet the newest member of the family today, but Emily and I got to talk for quite a while which was such a blessing! Emily shared her entire birth story with me today and, wow, did it sound like a carbon copy of Leia Rose's birth story! The difference was this: where Maureen, the head midwife, actually recommended an epidural as necessary after 24 hours of hard, natural labor, . . . Emily's doctor did not. The result was that, after 28 hours, Emily got the natural birth that she wanted, but her body basically shut down during transition and pushing, making the whole process longer and more drawn-out. Emily was so exhausted by the time Greta was born that, . . . well, let just say it took Emily three days to even be able to talk about the birth. I feel like I got an extra blessing in life: to see what Leia's birth would have been like if I had made a different decision! And I suppose now, benefiting from the wisdom of Emily's experience, that I'm glad the epidural gave me a fairly decent night's rest. (The whole thing also proves that a vaginal birth after a cesarean section is just like having your first baby because your body has never done it before.) But no matter what, . . . just look at the newest miracle of God's creation!!!

And as we talked, the girls first played on the playground and then drew their own "house" in chalk including their beds and what Leia deemed a "drawing table" in the center of the picture. : )

Flowers, Flowers Everywhere

Featuring Leia's fake smile. ; ) [Note to self: kids will smile for real if you use poopie words. Ha! That's what I did in the previous two pictures.]

I'll tell you right now that this picture doesn't do our pink dogwood any justice. I had decided ever since our dogwood bloomed that I wanted to go out and lay under it, . . . and I want to do that at least once every year. It's the best I can do to recreate the beautiful flowering tree at Furman University, on the east side of the bell tower near the girls dorms, that was so big it had branches that touched the ground, and when it flowered and you looked up from beneath it, . . . well, it was like heaven under that dome of flowers. Um, this wasn't quite like that, but it was pretty good. ; )
As I lay there, Leia decided to start climbing. . . . ; )

There is a new development in Annie's verbal ability these days, . . . in that Annie's very favorite word is "no." And I'm just SO glad I was able to capture this face because this is EXACTLY how Annie looks when she says it. It sounds so funny, but the whole thing is absolutely endearing. She's not malicious. She's not loud. She's not even disrespectful. She's just matter-of-fact. Any question you ask her, . . . "no" is the answer before she can think about it. ; ) The only time the answer is most certainly NOT "no" is if you ask her, "Annie, do you like outside?" Ha!
Yet another "no"-looking face. : ) And while she's wearing Daddy's shoes, no less. ; )

Stop and Smell the Roses

Leia Rose said this one smelled like bread. Ha!

Playground Firsts

Today was the first time Leia and Annie rode on the circle swing together!
Here's a familiar shot (and one that I took on almost the exact same day last year).

And yet another playground first today: The first time Leia Rose went across the money bars herself! (Of course, I was so shocked when she actually did it, that I didn't even think to take a picture or a video.) ; ) And the final first of the day: Annie finally realized that if you climb the stairs and then go to the right, you can go on the slide again! (Even just last week she couldn't figure out why I was making her go up these same stairs when what she really wanted to do was slide. Ha!) Lots of advances in thinking this week! : )

After School & BFF

This is such a common occurrence, I just had to record this! : ) After school, most every day, Leia Rose asks, "Can I walk to the end of the stones if I promise to come right back?" And I let her. Here she is doing just that with her entourage of Greta and Daphne. Here they are arguing a bit, though, because Greta had just said, "My Mamma is the smartest lady in the world! She's smarter than your Mamma!" And Daphne and Leia Rose were disagreeing. Anyway, Leia Rose actually ASKED me if Greta was right. Ha! My response was, "Well, how about we say that all of the Mammas are smart in their own way?" And Leia said, "Yeah, Greta, how about that! All the Mammas are smart!" ; ) In the car, though, I really praised Leia Rose for knowing that what Greta said wasn't very nice. It was similar to saying, "My mom is better than your mom. Nanny-nanny-boo-boo!" Congrats, Leia! We're on our way to building conscience, aren't we? ; )

Then when she got in the car she said, "Mamma, Annie's my BFF." And I said, "You mean your Best Friend Forever?" And she replied, "That's right. My Best Friend Forever. Annie will ALWAYS be my BFF." Again, "BFF" plucked right out of a school conversation. The sad thing was that Daphne sat right at the lunch table and proclaimed to Greta and Leia Rose, "Jesse is my BFF!" And probably said more about it as well. Not like that's a big deal, but it's the kind of phrase that leaves everyone else out, you know? Leia wasn't phased, of course, . . . but I was. That would have killed me as a child. Glad Leia has a bit of a thicker skin. ; ) Further, let's put all that aside and just let me praise my child for using what could have been a negative experience as a strengthening of the bond of sisterly love! Yes, Leia, I truly hope that you and your sister, Annie, are always BFF. Forever and ever!!! : )

Holding a Baby Bird

Today Leia's wish came true: She got to hold a baby bird! Brian and I had told her time and time again about the dangers of this (mostly that the mamma bird will thereafter refuse to feed them). Anyway, here is how Leia's wish was granted:
Just yesterday, I had gotten the nest down to show Jenny Rose our five little house finches. And I noticed right away that they were getting very big. So my plan was to take a picture today (the following day) and call it, "Trading Down for Feathers." Well, all was well and good. I took the nest down and, I don't know if you can tell, but the bird on the left isn't even in the nest! It's on the side! Anyway, right after I took this picture THEY ALL FLEW AWAY!!! One of them flew to the highest tree. Two of them flew into the underbrush of the woods. One of them flew under the big rocks in the front yard. And one of them flew, . . . right into a great big puddle. Well, that one obviously wasn't ready yet, poor thing. So, I scooped him up and, . . . there was Leia Rose ready and waiting. ; )
I put the little guy back in the nest, but as you can see, he preferred to perch beside it anyway. If I had to say what this little bird was thinking here, I would say, "Maybe if I hide behind this little rose bud back here, just maybe she won't see me, . . ." Ha! Note to self: As the birds grow USE A STEP LADDER to check on them to prevent this. Perhaps I should have titled this post, "Almost All Gone!" ; )

Annie Counts to Ten!

No one would believe this if I didn't have it on video. ; ) (Sorry about the poor quality, but I had to shorten it to get it online.) Annie counted to ten today all by herself! The first time she did it, we were walking down the stairs just like this. (Of course the time I record it she would skip number 5. Ha!) Anyway, I was shocked! Yes, Annie's counting has morphed the last few weeks. And yesterday it was up to, "One, Two, Five, Six, Nine, Ten, . . . Yay!" But today it was the WHOLE thing!!! I was so proud of her! Even further, later today we were reading/listening to Ten Little Indians again and she pointed to the number 10 and said, "ten." Then she pointed to the number 8 and said, "eight." Then she pointed to the number 2 and said, "two." Then she pointed to the number 1 and said, "one." And when asked, she counted. And there I was selling her short to Oma who I had just told that Annie probably didn't really recognize what the numbers meant. Wrong! We've got another smartie on our hands who I will continue to call "my little mathmetician." ; )

Shenandoah Robot & Song

The email I wrote to Laura today entitled "A Pull At Your Heartstrings" says it all:

Just HAD to tell you this! Leia is still talking about Shenan every single day. ; ) She wants to go up and visit so badly! (How I wish we could swing it in May!) She's so missing Shenan, that now Leia's making a "Shenandoah Robot" complete with "cord so I can plug her in" so that Leia can play with a pretend Shenan, if she can't see the real Shenan. ; ) "And she's got a Darth Vader on her shirt because she likes Star Wars!" (Which she spelled "Sto Wos" this time, . . . is she from Boston?) "MOM, they're not polka-dots on the pants! They're Millennium Falcons!!!" Is this a friend who loves your daughter, or WHAT?!? ; ) Here she is working on her "Shenandoah Robot." The head and shirt are done (they both have two sides taped together, by the way, so that if you were the right size, you could put the shirt on). She's working on the pants in this picture. ; ) Please show Shenan for us. ; )

Love you guys!

Love, Noelle
And then Leia Rose wrote her very first song about Shenandoah! ; ) Whoa, this sucker was REALLY hard to read, and Leia got a bit frustrated with us, but here's the gist of it called the "Shenandoah Song:" "I was sad until I went to . . . . It's going to be a long time before I go to . . . . Shenandoah's house." [repeat] But what it really looked like was this:

The title page: "THE NiNDOWU SONG" or "The Shenendoah Song" (See how Leia sounded out the second part of Shenandoah's name phonetically? Pretty good!)

Whew! No wonder Leia got frustrated! It was like translating a foreign language! (You can even see my notes in the margins!" First I would see, "inti L i WET toot in BEULO!" Oh my! Then my mind would morph it to, "intil i wet too tim be u lo." And finally, "intil i wet to, . . . be u lon tim." Which is where I got "Until I went to, . . . Be a long time" etc. Man! The good thing about Leia's writing, though, is you just take the short sound of a letter (like the short sound of "u" for the word "a" as in "a trip") and that's what she uses. It's all phonetics, really. I felt like Henry Higgins.

Maple "Bee" Farm

Since the music was a bust, we decided to try another fun outing since Jenny Rose was here and we really wanted to show her a good time. (Why didn't I get a picture of her, though. Gee!) We went to Maple View Farm (the necessary John Denver CD playing all the way), which will always be Maple "Bee" Farm to Leia Rose. This time it was just Jenny, Leia, and I. Annie was napping.
Looks like there's no more hay to play on, so it was just a dandelion field. Still fun in itself!
Especially when Jenny taught us how to make flower chains! (I honestly never knew! And now I know! Thanks Jenny! . . . I'll add that to all of the other smart things you've added to my wealth of knowledge, . . . like how an "aglet" is the name for the little plastic things at the end of shoelaces.) ; )
Leia was also very interested in using them as wishing wands.

And what was her wish? "That I will go to visit Shenandoah very soon!"

Carr Mill Music?

Today I was expecting to thoroughly relax at the Carr Mill Music, like we do most every Sunday in the summer, . . . but the cool swing band was cancelled! (And no one knew why.) So, we ended up having a picnic instead. No harm done. And at least Leia Rose got to play on the roots of her favorite tree and got to climb some others. Oh yeah, and Annie ate popcorn. ; )