sunday dress and hair 9-30-07

Elle had her primary program today and chose to wear this dress for it. I'm so proud of her because she had her part memorized and she said it perfectly!



















I decided to watch the American Girl DVD to find out how to french braid her hair for today. It worked! It looked a lot better BEFORE we went to church. Elle said the little boy next to her was pulling on her braids all through the program. They survived pretty well anyway though!

The philosopher is in

Here are some more words of wisdom from the ever-insightful Elle. (and some from Chris too!)
1. Chris was saying that cars should have two steering wheels and Elle piped up with "Then one person could steer and the other one could honk!"

2. When Chris and I were about to curl Elle's hair, she asked how we could both do it at the same time. I showed her the little barrel iron and told her it was Dad's. "Does he use it to curl HIS hair?" she asked.

3. Elle wasn't very excited to sleep on her curlers, so I told her what my mom always told me when I slept in sponge curlers--that SHE had to sleep in knotted rags to have her hair curly and it hurt, so I was lucky to have soft curlers.
The next day, Elle and I were playing her favorite game of role-reversal. She was the mom and she took me to the doctor to get a shot. I "cried" when I didn't get a lollipop, so Elle told me, "When I was a kid, they didn't even HAVE lollipops, so how lucky are YOU?!"

4. I asked Elle what she wanted for her birthday and she said, "A laptop"

5. I don't know about you, but when I was almost six, I did not ask like Elle did the other day, "Ooh! Is that brie? Can I have some?"

6. We were playing another time and Elle said, "We're teenagers. I'm ten and you're 8."

7. Chris and Elle were having fun taking apart my broken hair dryer, and they left it in the bathroom to look at later. Elle saw that one tooth from my claw clip was missing and she said, "Dad will probably want to take it apart now--he likes to take apart EVERYTHING that's broken!"

TA DA!!

I'm so proud! I just finished sewing (by myself with no help and no patterns) these two apron for Elle's birthday. whew! She's been asking me to make her a "cute" apron as opposed to the plain white apron she has now. We picked out the fabric for it the same time we picked out fabric for our pioneer dresses! Ya. Looooooong time ago. I finally had sufficient motivation and time (Elle's birthday and the fact that Elle's in school all day.)

Here's the front views and. . .











Here's the back!

The duel

Usually, you see Chris and Elle friends like this. A happy duo reading and laughing together.
Then. . .

Put swords in their hands and they turn into dueling fiends! Notice the red flare in Elle's eyes as she defends herself, thinks of her next move, and keeps her skirt from falling down to reveal her pink panties all at the same time!

Chris takes the lead as he grabs the end of Elle's sword just as she ducks to avoid a blow to the head. Will this be the end of her? Will Chris prevail?!

NO! Elle uses her super powers to levitate up to the perfect height to deliver a death thrust to the sternum! Yea! The princess wins! And then she just has to go to bed for her reward, dangit!

The curly hair saga

I was determined to curl Elle's hair last night, so I brought out the new bag of teeny tiny sponge curlers (yellow and blue) and mixed them with our pink and green sponge curlers. I divided her hair into three layers and wrapped every bit of hair up. In the morning, her straight hair was full of bouncy ringlets! They even stayed in all during school! (The after school shots are the two on the far left of the third row down.) Yea! I've finally conquered the straight hair! Elle was thrilled. She said she wished her hair was really this curly. "What would happen if we did this to my hair every day, Mom?" she asked. I told her she would be very tired. (Because she didn't sleep very well last night!)

Sunday hair

Elle has curly hair this Sunday. Do you know why? Chris and I spent 15 minutes curling it at the same time. I taught Chris the art of using the mini curling iron and I used the regular iron. We had to take a picture right away because the curls fell out of her super-straight hair on the way to the car! I just can't seem to keep curls in no matter what I do.

























































I did my hair up today for the first time in a long time! I had to get a picture. :)

Family beach time

Chris, Elle and I went to the beach for a couple hours on Saturday. Elle tried to boogie board again, but the waves were pretty pitiful.



















Chris sculpted this girl in the sand.
























The back--the girl's ponytail






















Elle was inspired by his sculpture and made herself a couch and ottoman.
She's sitting in it here.

Elleisms

I like to keep track of the funny things Elle says, so here are three of the latest "Elleisms"
1. I taught Elle about "half-past" the hour or "__:30." Later, she had some jell-o in a cup for a snack. She ate exactly half and said, "Look, Mom! It's half-past jell-o or jell-o thirty!" I guess she got the concept!
2. Elle showed me a cut on her toe and I said it looked like athlete's foot. When she asked what an athlete was, I explained that it was a person who plays sports. "Well, I did play handball Monday." she said.
3. I asked Elle if she wanted to do her bonus homework and she replied like Linguine, "Nopety, nopety nope." I couldn't stop laughing. She didn't even remember where she had heard the phrase. It was quite appropriate, though! ha!

Elle's first day of school

I'll tell you what I wrote, just look.
My teacher's name is Mr. Pope. My first day of school goes like this: It started out in the classroom. Mr. Pope said we had to wait on the carpet and then he let us sit down. We spend most of our time at our desk. First we learned a few rules. More rules. And we did a get-to-know- you worksheet. Then we had more rules. Then snack recess. Then we went inside. More rules. Some writing. More rules. A game. A get-to-know-you-game--getting to know each other's names.
We had lunch. Recess. Inside. More rules. P.E.--we played duck-duck-goose. Went inside. got our backpacks and stuff. Went back home and that's all! The end!















This is Clara ( she was in Kindergarten with Elle)

I love the beach!

It's true! I do love the beach! But most of all. . .today, I went to the beach. . .
And got a boogie board! I've been trying to find one. My friends Connor, Fletcher, Mason, and Mary Ruth came to the beach! Tomorrow, I'm starting school. I'm quite nervous. But I still had SO much fun at the beach! I went boogie boarding ALL DAY! Well, not all day--I played in the sand a lot. I got a lot of sand in my swimming suit. We rinsed off and went home to take a shower. And that was MY DAY! Now we're writing about it in our blog and this is what I said. Just read this. [Elle picked blue-green for the color of the ocean]
Elle and her new boogie board!

Goodbye summer!

Today we spent our last day at the beach. Tomorrow, shool starts again.

















We've been going to the beach all summer, but today I brought my camera for proof that Elle's
been having loads of fun in the sun!

Elle's sunday picture

Instead of Elle's dress today, I decided to show off her cute anklet and sandals. Plus show you how tan she is! sheesh!

And this is how she wanted her hair fixed. This is the last you'll see of this dress because it is too small now.

Visit with Grandma and Grandpa Harvey

Chris' mom came to visit us on Tuesday. We had fun that afternoon wandering around the weekly farmer's market just down the street. There were plenty of yummy samples!

On Wednesday, Elle wanted to go the the Getty museum, so we did. Elle and I spent an hour in the children's section while mom took an architecture tour. We had lurch there and Elle rolled down the hill a couple times. We looked at the exhibit and had great fun.

On Thursday, Elle and I went to the beach with Kristen, and mom opted to stay home in the air conditioned apartment. Kristen bought a boogie board and Connor and Elle picked it up amazingly fast! it was so cute watching Elle ride the waves in all the way to the shore. We're going again Tuesday, so I'll have to take pictures then.
Dad came Thursday night.

On Friday, we had lunch at Dreamworks with Chris and then stopped off at the pony rides at Griffith Park. I'd been promising Elle we'd go. We went to the mall and I bought a CUTE pair of crocs--not the smurf style, but the Mary Jane style. Red. That night, we dropped Elle off at Kristen's (thank you again, by the way) and went to Gyu Kaku. Yum!

On Saturday, we went to the farmer's market at the Virgina park, browsed for furniture and sat around and talked. We really need Marianne (Chris' sister) to come down and tell us what sofa and chairs to get and we can finally get it over with!

The end.