Oh Those Girls

I love being a mom. I really do. It is so fun to watch my girls interact. One of the favorite routines is waking each other up from naps or for the day. They both just squeal when they see each other. Eliza loves dumping toys in Miriam's crib for her to play with, and Miriam nearly jumps out of my arms to climb in bed with Ellie. I don't know what it is about my little three year old, but she wakes up with the worst tangles in her hair. She is normally pretty good about getting it combed out though. 

One of the fun activities we did this summer is go to the nearby splash pad. Ellie's favorite was to get a baggie full of water and dump it out on anything convenient, including her sister's head. They really are good friends though.

Miriam is now officially a walker. It is so cute. Her legs look about two inches long when she is walking. She also loves the stairs even though she does not have any idea how to get down them. She just kind of dives for the bottom and hopes that works out...it doesn't. She likes feeding herself, but she likes throwing food off her highchair much more.

As indicated in the last post, Miriam has had a bad run with sleep recently. She had some molars coming in and got sick. This led to an ear infection, which led to a discovery the hard way of an allergy to penicillin. We are in a much happier place these past few days. She has only been getting up at night once or at most twice a night. (knock on wood)

Miriam loves stories, making noises with her tongue, stories, and licking things (notice a pattern?). She brings us books and just whines until we read it to her. Her tricks include pointing at lights, playing peek-a-boo, clapping, waving, shaking her head, and ripping books. She loves baths and shoes. Miriam really is such a sweetheart. She understands so much even though she doesn't really talk yet.

Ellie is so fun. She is definitely at the age of telling stories. Almost all of her stories are about her 'kids.' Her baby dolls have very eventful lives, even ask Ellie. Tonight at dinner she told us all about how her kids had to go to the hospital and have blood drawn and have so many surgeries. One thing that is kind of funny is that her baby and my baby are in a sort of competition, which isn't fair because her baby isn't real and mine has the nickname 'stinker' for a reason. For example, when Miriam was starting to walk but still couldn't push herself to standing in the middle of the floor, Ellie told us that her baby could push to standing in the middle of the floor and at the walls.

The stories she tells really are hilarious though, mostly because of the facial expressions that she uses while telling them. She has really expressive eyebrows. I wish I could describe it better. She usually ends the story with "So...pretty good..." with a little purse to her lips. It is so funny.

She is also old enough to know time and quantity words, but not really understand them. She told me to today that I was going to count and she was going to hide for three hours. Also, she told me once that she has at least a thousand stuffed animals. Not quite.

She still loves stories, but she has a new love too. Cinderella. We took her to see a community production of the play (the Armstrongs were in it), and she fell in love. Since then whenever she has been a little grumpy I just mention Cinderella dancing (her favorite part) and she cheers right up. So fun! She met Cinderella afterwards and can't get enough of princesses and fairies since. She thinks she is a princess, which is cute, but less so when she talks about her mean step-sisters.

The other day she said, “Mom, I brought this doll with me, in case I need a toy that is princess-y.” We have a daughter that plans for every contingency. J She also said to us last night, “Why don’t you cut your bed in two so that you guys can have your own beds.” So funny. We also had a conversation about Uncle Matt where is seemed pretty obvious that Ellie thought Matt was the best thing ever. One of the best things was when John said, “Ellie, did you know that Matt is my little brother?” “No, he isn’t, he’s big.” “Well, I am older than him.” “When was he little, I don’t remember?” She is so funny.

            She really is into princesses. So. Much. Everything colored blue is Cinderella’s. Everything pink is Sleeping Beauty’s. Everything yellow is Belle’s. She is so funny. 

We have started doing a preschool with a friend. It is really fun. I like having a more organized time to teach her. She is starting to make more progress towards sounding out words, assuming they are really short and only use short vowel sounds. Teaching your child to read is pretty intimidating. We also love doing playtime with friends.

The Baby Waketh

This is what we see at our house when baby Miriam wakes up (after we hear the crying/screaming):

Unfortunately, I have been seeing this in the middle of the night a lot lately.  :(

Bryce Canyon

In July, we went with my parents and grandparents to Bryce Canyon for a couple of days. It was gorgeous and the weather was actually pretty nice. I love Bryce Canyon and seeing the beautiful views, but what really stood out about this trip was spending time with my family. Ellie and Grandpa became best friends on this trip. She held his hand everywhere. While we cooked meals, she played in the car with Grandpa. It was so fun.

We went on lots of walks and hikes. Here is a shot of John and Eliza smelling the vanilla scented Ponderosa Pines. I am not sure it really sank in for Ellie because she said that every tree we passed smelled like vanilla. 

Gorgeous view at Inspiration Point!

The next day we went on a three mile hike down into the valley. We traded off who carried Eliza and who carried Miriam and the backpack. Carrying Ellie was definitely easier. Miriam has a fixation of trying to pull things off my like my hair, eyes, lips, nose, etc. It made for a somewhat uncomfortable walk.

I think this is the last year we are going to have Ellie ride in the back pack. Her legs looked about a mile long coming out of the bottom.

One fun aspect of this hike was going around in the formations. This trail actually goes through a couple of tunnels. According to Eliza, tunnels are ranked somewhere after stories but before gummy bears. So pretty high up there. Let's be honest, even adults think a good tunnel is pretty exciting.

My awesome grandma hiked the three miles with us. She turned 86 a week after this trip. I hope I am still able to hike three miles with that kind of change in elevation when I am nearly 86.

So many switch backs on the way up.

We drove to the south end of the canyon and stopped at all of the view points. Such beautiful views! It was so nice that everyone wanted to help out with the kids. They loved all of the attention.

Ellie loved to point out any arches that we saw. I loved her delight at the simplest things.

The last day we hiked up to a cool cave and waterfall.

The mist from the waterfall was deliciously cool! This was the only day that it seemed particularly warm.

This was such a fun trip and was only a few hours from home.  My entire life I have regularly visited red sand stone formations, and they just seem to get more amazing!

From my journal: 

A week or two later we went down to Bryce Canyon for 3 days and stayed 2 night in a hotel that my parents and grandparents paid for. It was nice to have some time with just them. Ellie was so, so sweet with my grandpa, which was nice because he doesn’t seem to think that his great-granddaughters like him. Grandma was a trooper and went on a 3 mile hike up and down the canyon at age 86. Wow! Both Miriam and Ellie did great on the trip and we had a nice time.