ellory turns 2!

the tea set that gran and pawpaw sent ellory for her birthday.

i'm collecting pictures of messy marin for a future blog. after a certain point in the meal, her hands start spreading food all over her face and on top of her head. it's funny. but a pain to clean up. :)
"i'm two!!"



today, 3-28-2009, you turned 2 years old! we have been asking you for the past few weeks how old you are and how old you will be on your birthday. i think you have it down. you definitely say, "2" although you hold up 5 fingers. :) it's hard to make that peace sign at first.
your day-you opened up a few presents from grandparents and aunt susu. gran and pawpaw sent you an old children's tea set. unfortunately, it's not one to play with. we put it straight in the china cabinet. aunt susu sent you a cabbage patch doll with a bottle. you have been feeding that baby all day. we went to duffey roll cafe for breakfast and then to rei. daddy got some clothes and we bought you a cool pair of black keen shoes. you'll look a bit like a tomboy. hope that's ok. after dinner tonight we had cupcakes and sang happy birthday. i didn't have any candles so i put 2 matches in your cupcake and lit them. daddy and i were so surprised when you immediately put your entire hand on top of the burning matches! we both screamed and you snatched your hand back. no damage done but i realized we need to have a talk about fire.
i was looking at pictures of your first birthday and am so amazed at how you have changed! not only in looks-your chubby face has thinned out a bit and your hair has grown a ton. but there weren't any pictures of you smiling last year. and now you can be quite a ham in front of the camera. you couldn't walk last year and now you can. you use lots of words now and it's so fun to watch you and townsend having conversations. i can't always tell what either of you are saying but you both seem to be able to understand each other. you can be very motherly with your dolls-putting diapers on them, feeding them. you love putting on shoes by yourself. both yours and other people's. you eat and sleep like a champ. we can't believe how you sleep through marin's crying in the middle of the night. and you love to take off your shirt and dance in the living room. you can be a bit of a drama queen-bursting into tears when you don't get your way. we're working on that. :) and you are a bit clingy to mommy which makes daddy a little sad.
we are so grateful that you are our daughter. you have truly blossomed this past year and we can't wait to continue watching you learn and grow. we love you ell bell.

imagination

townsend is really developing a fun imagination. this morning i was drying my hair in the bathroom. of course all 3 kids had to join me. the shower curtain was pulled across the bathtub and townsend started looking at it saying, "hi susu!" "there's susu!" ellory kept looking all over for susu. she pulled the curtain aside and looked in the tub and was just so confused. then he started saying, "hi pawpaw!" again, ellory started looking all over but couldn't find him either. :)

an answered prayer

i spent alot of my early teen years babysitting. i loved kids and it was fun to make money-although at $1/hour i wasn't rolling in the dough. :) i never thought much about how the parents felt, leaving their kids with me. didn't seem like that big of a deal. now that i am a parent i realize how much you want someone to take care of your kids who will think they are the greatest. and love them. a couple of months ago we were new to denver and i realized that we needed some babysitters to take care of the kids when we had gatherings or small groups. it's one thing to ask someone to take care of one child-a little harder to ask them to take care of 3! and for a fee that we can manage! :) i started praying and asking some people from our old church here if they knew of any great people for this job. noone seemed to have any good recommendations. then i remembered that norton had met with a guy who was a denver seminary student along with his wife. they are also on young life staff. i thought, "surely they know someone at seminary or in young life who would like to babysit." so i emailed them. later that day i received an email with a list of 9 names and numbers! they recommended i first call olivia, who did some nannying during the day. i called her up. right away i liked her. you usually can't go wrong with a young life leader-spoken from a former young life leader. :) anyway-she came over to take care of the kids and was as delightful in person as she was over the phone. the big thing for me, though, was when we walked back in later that night. the first words out of her mouth were, "i love your kids!" if i had had a million dollars to give her, i would have at that moment. (i'm sure she would have liked that too!) truly an answer to prayer. thank you ms. livia for thinking our kids are the greatest and loving them! we think you are pretty awesome too!

oh,ellory

ellory has been really good at telling us when she has to go poopy. we rush to the bathroom and i sit her on the little potty and off she goes. (unfortunately, it hasn't inspired townsend to do the same!) today, after she did her business i was putting her diaper back on and saying that pretty soon she would be able to wear her big girl elmo panties. well, she latched on to the words "elmo panties" and started begging to wear them. since she is our drama queen, i decided it wasn't worth the loud tears so i put elmo on over her diaper. when i tried to put her pants back on she kept pulling them down and saying "no!" again, not worth the tears. so she is walking around with her shirt, diaper and elmo panties. :)

whew!

tonight i was changing townsend on his changing table. he had his feet in the air and was hitting them together. he started saying, "crap, crap, crap." i'm thinking "what?" where did he hear that? neither norton nor i are cussers. (if you even consider that a cuss word) as i watched him it finally dawned on me that he meant, "clap, clap, clap" because that was what he was doing with his feet. sigh of relief. :)

daily life

i guess we haven't been doing much pictureworthy lately. or maybe i have just been lazy and keep forgetting to bring the camera up from the basement. :) a few tidbits about each kiddo.
townsend-everyday he just uses more and more words. we are amazed. tonight we had beans and hotdogs. norton put townsend's bowl down and told him to blow on the food before eating it. a minute later i sat down with my bowl and townsend said, "mommy, be careful. it's hot. blow."

ellory-poor ellory had a high fever this weekend. she was just so lethargic and glassy eyed. and didn't eat for 2 days-you know something is wrong when she doesn't eat! she kept falling asleep on our laps. the dr. is treating her with antibiotics and she's back to her old self. she and townsend have been doing this routine where townsend goes, "my mommy!" and she says, "no, my mommy!"-back and forth they go. at some point one of them changes the line to "my daddy!" and it continues on. they are a crack up.

marin-this girl has some lungs and some stomach. at this point much of her communication is screeching-very loudly. usually it has something to do with wanting food. i am not kidding when i say she eats about as much as i do. she can eat a whole chicken breast. piece of pizza. hot dog. and along with the meat she'll eat some kind of fruit, veggie and grain. of course this means that every couple of hours she has a poopy diaper too-its maddening. :) and her latest funny is that she walks around with her blanket over her head, bumping into furniture or siblings and laughing the whole time. she's so sweet.

butterfly pavilion

townsend, ellory and i went to the butterfly pavilion last week along with kate, andrew, and ethan redden and renee and corban gross. it was fun. first, we went in a room with various types of spiders, roaches and such. in cages of course. i still don't know why the people who run this place would think anyone would want to see hundreds of roaches. yucho! there was a tarantula that the kids could touch and ethan was very brave to let it walk across his hand. my kids had no interest. whew! next, we went to a room with some sea creatures. fish, starfish, hermit crabs. the kids touched the starfish-see picture. but i think they more enjoyed putting their hands in the cold water. last, we went into a sanctuary with hundreds of beautiful butterflies. they were so colorful and very friendly. the picture of townsend ducking his head is when a butterfly tried to land on him. they were both pretty scared of the things. ellory found all the water puddles. the area is kept at a constant 70 degree or so temperature and 80% humidity. i felt like i was back in austin again. glad we went.

our future engineer?

i've tried to take pictures throughout the past year or so of townsends designs. it's funny to us how much like norton he is in this sense. we love to see how he orders and organizes things. but watch out lest you or marin or ellory try to touch any of the objects! sends him into a frenzy. :)