Santa pic

Eliza has been going to Vacation Bible School the past couple of days. The theme is Christmas Around the World. Yesterday she came home with a lumenario she had made and a Christmas CD with lots of songs in other languages. She is convinced that O Tannenbaum is actually "oh cottonball." Don't try to convince her otherwise. The picture with Santa is from school. The shot of Eliza and Daddy was as she "helped" him put up the Christmas lights outside. And the other shot is at the mall when she spotted Santa and his reindeer.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I think this year is the most fun Christmas we've had with Eliza so far. She really gets it this year and she cannot wait for the big day to arrive! For the first time she sat on Santa's lap without any concern at all. The last few years I've had to sit on his lap with her to get a picture that didn't involve crying. This year she just waltzed right up to him and said she wanted a yellow yoyo. She did the same thing at school, although most of her classmates were pretty terrified. She has an advent calendar this year and almost every morning she wants to open her chocolate immediately. She also sings several different Christmas songs: Angels We Have Heard on High, Jingle Bells, Feliz Navidad (she can sing the whole thing!) and Santa Claus is Coming to Town are faves.

What We Know About You

So far we know....

• You do not like Mexican food and you really don't like sweets.
• You love french fries and Thai food. Tofu tom kha is a fave.
• You seem to be a morning person.
• Apparently you want Santa to bring you a pink yo yo for Christmas. At least according to your sister.

Kicking off the holiday season

This weekend we went to Elgin Christmas Tree Farm to pick out our tree. Eliza was a big help to Daddy. ;) We also went to a parade, and Eliza's mouth is wide open because she saw Santa Claus.

Birthday

I'm thankful for...

So our little clan has been a little down trodden the last week or so...nothing serious, just tired, sick, overwhelmed by housework, etc. I need a little reminder of what's going well:

• After today, 5 days off from work! And S gets a couple of days off too!
• Grammy came to the rescue yesterday and today so I wouldn't have to miss so much work since Eliza has to stay home. Thanks, Grammy!
• Illness = incentive to clean the house this weekend. I've been needing to do that anyway, right?
• I'm picking up some awesome Thanksgiving side dishes from Central Market tomorrow.
• No need to fly during all the airport drama- hooray for having 5 grandparents only an hour away!
• Got an appointment for tomorrow morning to figure out why our "check engine" light is on in the car.
• Finally got some stuff checked off of my "to do" list today.
• Several of my students were very understanding about my need to reschedule their appointments while I was home with E.
• None of the little illnesses we've had have been serious. We're very fortunate to be healthy for the most part.
• Best of all, Eliza has been riding her birthday scooter around like crazy and she looks super cute on it!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Anticipation

Eliza has been asking for months if she's 3 years old yet. Saturday, we had family in town and had a little family party for her. Her actual birthday isn't until Wednesday, and she's having a party at school that day. So she wakes up Saturday morning all excited about her party and asks me if she's 3 yet. I decided the whole "we're celebrating on the weekend" thing would be too confusing for her, so I just said, yes, you're three now because your party is today. She immediately ran to the full length mirror in the hall and then started crying. I couldn't figure out why she was crying when she was so excited about her party and her cupcakes. She said, "Mom, I'm really 3? Then why am I still little?!" I told her she was a big girl now and she cried that she wasn't as big as me yet. We tried to convince her she was at least medium-sized now, but she was still disappointed. Luckily she was soon distracted by cupcakes and party prep. She also is already saying, "when I'm 5, I'll go to kindergarten," so I guess enjoying the moment and being three isn't exactly her forte. :)

Highlights of the weekend

• "Reading" Green Eggs & Ham to us. She still refused to actually eat the green eggs I made though. Although she loved the ham.
• She sings all the time. This weekend she was singing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." Very cute.
• We've been rationing out her Halloween candy all week. She gets one piece in the morning and one after nap. We had dinner at the Griffin's last night and little Caleb handed Eliza a package of his trick or treat M&Ms. She handed them back and said, "no thanks, I've already had my candy for the day." I was shocked.
• We got some cupcake supplies for Eliza's birthday party at school this weekend. She was so proud to show them to her grandparents on Saturday night. Last night she woke up screaming at 3am. She was yelling, "No, Miss Claudette, don't unwrap my cupcakes yet! Only one!" Apparently she's worried that her teacher is going to eat them all. Ha!

Halloween

So Eliza decided to be a princess for school on Friday and a cat for trick or treating on Sunday (Her daddy put her cat make up on). She had a blast with her little friends at a Halloween party last night (she proudly decorated the cookies) and she really got the hang of trick or treating this year. All of her friends looked adorable too, but I don't want to post pics of their faces without their parents' permission... Crazy to think last year all she would say is "happy 'ween!" and this year she talks non stop and asks all these deep questions!

Pumpkins

So S did 99% of the work, but Eliza really enjoyed "carving" our pumpkins this year. Every night the two of them would go outside and light them together. Very cute. p.s. Something about the picture in the middle reminds me of my mom. :)

The Cowgirl

Almost forgot the horse!

The Cousins

Eliza's aunt and cousins were in town last weekend. G and Eliza are at the perfect age to play together. And Eliza loved baby T! She kept trying to pick her up. G and Eliza rode ponies at the pumpkin patch too. And I'm including one shot of E's favorite swing. She and her daddy think this is hilarious. She loves it!

No fear

Last night at dinner...

S: "Eliza, are you afraid of alligators?" (She is constantly talking about alligators)
E: "No, I'm not."
S: "What are you afraid of?"
E: "I'm not afraid of nothing, Daddy."

Double negative aside, she's pretty bad ass!

Back to school...

We're getting into the swing of a new routine over here. Eliza is loving her new teacher, Ms. Claudete. Claudete has already taught Eliza 2 Spanish songs and she's really loving circle time and art. One of Eliza's teachers is African American. During dinner the other night Eliza said out of the blue, "Ms. S's skin is brown. My skin is white. It's not brown like hers. Yet." We found the "yet" part to be pretty funny. Like if she just spent enough time in the sun, she'd get there eventually. :) She also said randomly, "When dinosaurs go away, it stinks!" It took us a minute to figure out they'd been learning about dinosaurs at school and she meant extinct. Heh.

Milestone

Eliza wore panties to school today and had zero accidents! I think this is her first full day with no pull ups, so I wanted to make a note of it. ;)

Chicago

We spent last week in Chicago. We went to the aquarium, the Sears Tower, Hancock Tower, navy pier, "the bean", of course some famous buildings and 4 different museums! And I managed to visit 6 law schools at the same time. Eliza loved the subway, the fountains, almost everything really. Oh, and she and I rode a huge ferris wheel together (she wanted me to ride it with her). I hate that sort of thing and thought I was doing a pretty good job of playing it cool when she said, "Don't be scared, Mom!" Again, I think she inherited the dare devil gene from her father.

Grammy's Birthday Weekend

A couple of weeks ago we headed to the beach for my mom's birthday. We had a great time! E is a dare devil like her father, and she and Papa had a great time riding the little roller coasters. She begged to go on the big roller coaster with the guys but we told her she had to wait until she was 5.

Dress up

So it's been a while since our last post... we haven't been doing much, other than swimming, going out for icecream and playing dress up. Also the ever popular "I your mom" game. (She loves to pretend to be the mom and make us pretend to be her babies.) She's getting pretty into dressing up and gets girlier by the day. For the past three days I've been asked to paint her face to look like a cat. She also tried on my grad school hood and my wedding dress at one point. On another note, I think the days of me picking her birthday party themes are over. Her birthday is still 3 months away and she's already told me she wants to be a princess and have a pink cake. Not exactly what I had in mind, but I guess it's her day. Or it will be. In three months. Not that that prevents her from saying "my birthday's coming up" every day. :)

Question of the Day

E: "Mama, I have two beds!"
Me: "Yes, you are lucky girl."
E" "Mama, where does lucky come from?"

Try explaining that to a 2 year old! :)

Is it Christmas time already?

Eliza has become obsessed with Special K Red Berries. She used to call it her "strawberry cereal" but lately she's started referring to it as "Christmas trees." I really don't understand how the brown flakes look like Christmas trees to her, but apparently they do. She also eats this all natural sliced turkey almost every day, but she thinks she doesn't like turkey. She calls it ham instead. So yesterday I found myself at the store saying, "So we need more ham and Christmas trees?" It's like we've got our own bizarre little language around here.

On another note, out of the blue this morning during our commute, Eliza says, "Mom, where did I come from? When I was born?" She definitely keeps things interesting, to say the least.

Questions

Eliza is definitely in a questioning phase. She's been asking "why" about 50 times a day for the past couple of months. And she's starting to stump me. The other day she asked why paint is wet. Yesterday at the gas station she asked where gas comes from. When I tried to explain she said "but I can't see the gas?" She's also starting to get a sense of time and space. She'll talk about "last week" and "tomollow." She'll say "Thursday is Miss Wendy day!" (gymnastics) and "I see Mr. Craig tomollow" (music). The other night at bedtime she said "Mom, what time it is?" And when I ask her to do things, she says "I'm pretty busy" or "in a minute, Mom."

Hoops, anyone?

E: "Mom, look, there's a basketball hooker!"
Me: "Um, I think you mean basketball hoop."
E: "No it's a hooker."

Caves and firetrucks

For Father's Day we headed out to the grandparents' houses and got to catch up with Uncle Jason and Uncle Chris. Then we went to Innerspace Caverns for the first time. We had a great time, but I was pretty happy to see the sky again. Can't complain about 72 degrees in the summer though! Tuesday was firetruck day at school. E and her friends had a blast until one firefighter put on his full gear and mask... and then some kids freaked out a bit. E went up and shook his hand though. And when S came home, she told him to check our smoke detectors. :) E is also really enjoying gymnastics... most of the time. Today when I asked her about it she said "I don't want to talk about it, mom." Is she 2 or 12?!

Chicken

A snippet from the car:

Eliza: "Flap your wings, mom!"
Me: "Okay, I'm flapping."
S: "Eliza, can you do the chicken dance?" (She's learned this previously)
Eliza: "No."
S: "Why not?"
Eliza: "Cause I'm not a chicken!"

The kid has reasoning skills. That floors me.

Fistbump

Next time you see Eliza, ask her to say "fistbump." It comes out "smishfump" no matter how hard she tries. Hilarious.

Summer...

...is off to a good start!

The Graduate

Congrats Eli! And hook 'em horns! :)

Oh really?!

The other night before bed Eliza told us she was Jesus. Hrmmm... I always pictured Jesus' childhood with fewer tantrums. S said at least we don't have to pay for swim lessons! ;)

Stubborn

Me: Eliza, you are so stubborn.
Eliza: I'm NOT stubborn!!

Thanks for proving my point, kid. Getting dressed in the mornings has become quite a battle. Good thing she's cute.

Motivation?

At the dinner table...
Eliza: I want a sister.
T: You can't just have a sister sweetie. We have to make you a sister.
Eliza: DAD! MAKE ME A SISTER! [repeated a dozen times]



After school...
Me: I'm sorry I lost my temper this morning.
Eliza: It's okay, I find it.

O.M.D.!

Lately Eliza has been saying "Oh ming dosh!" and "What the heck?!" Clearly she imitates anything she hears us saying. Frankly I'm just happy this has been the worst of it so far. :) She's also been having a lot of conversations with her babies lately. I heard her tell JackieBaby, "I love you so much! I go to work now and you go to school. You'll have a lot of fun! I always come back." Wonder where she's been hearing that lately? In other news, she keeps telling us her real life friend James lives in the shed behind our house. She likes to knock on his door and say hello.

Our little longhorn

Eliza started a new school last week. She finally got a spot at the school next door to my office. So now every morning we commute together. She loves my parking garage, the glass elevator, loves waiting for the Walk sign at the crosswalk and loves seeing all the UT students with their backpacks. She's quite proud of her Dora backpack (really a lunch box) and likes that she's a "student", like everyone else on campus. The first morning every person we passed she asked, "Who is that, Mama?" and I said "a UT student." Now she says "Hook 'em horns, students!" when we pass everyone on our walk. I'm quite certain they have no idea what she's saying, but it's adorable. My office is next to the UT Tower, so every time she hears the tower clock chiming, she says "I hear your office singing!"

Marna's Wedding

Marna looked amazing, but I don't have any good pictures of her yet. Our little family didn't look too shabby either!

Spring Break

We had a lot of fun last week- Eliza's first camping trip (she loved "sleeping in a tunnel" but it was freakin' cold!), the kite festival (she wanted to hold her kite the whole time rather than set it free), an impromptu skinny dip, a drum circle with Aunt Susan and more!