golden four

Our lovely Abbie turned four on the fourth of this month and we had a wonderful few days of celebrating.  On her actual birthday, we started the day by opening presents.  Then, she had a "daddy date" with Matt for lunch.  After Miriam was done with school, we went down to the children's museum for some play time.  We finished off the night with dinner at Abbie's choice of restaurant...a pizza place...followed by cake and ice cream at home.  Then, the following weekend, we invited family over to celebrate again.  She had a great birthday and loves being four!

Abbie

Since Miriam has been back in school, our house becomes a bit quieter and we start to form a new "school" routine.  One of my favorite parts about Miriam being in school is that I get to spend more time with Abbie and Ella.  We sure miss Miriam while she is away, but there is something sweet about time alone with these two.  And lately, I've been treasuring my moments with Abbie.  I love hearing what questions she has and trying my best to answer them.  I love her quiet spirit and compassionate heart.  I love her prayers.  I love her joy.  And I love her big, blue eyes.  

sparkly princesses

We certainly have our share of pink, purple, sparkles and anything girly in our house.  Here are Miriam and Abbie modeling some new crowns they made a few nights ago.  This kept them busy for almost an hour!  Miriam put hers together completely by herself while Abbie sat with me and we did it together.  They even had to match the colored jewel to the number on the crown.  A fun project for all!

splish splash

A few weeks back, I bought a slip 'n slide for the girls to use this summer.  They all love it!  It's nice because the kiddie pool is usually too cold to swim in....even on the hottest days.  I usually forget to fill it in the morning and have it sit out all day to warm up, so the slip 'n slide is a fun way for the girls to cool off without freezing.  Even Ella likes to splash in the little pools of water from it.  Miriam and Abbie have also been taking swimming lessons this week, so they are getting lots of time in the water!

Weekend road trip

Last weekend, we (minus Ella and plus Matt's sister) traveled to Indiana to attend Matt's brother's college graduation.  It was a lot of driving in a short amount of time...but also a lot of fun!  The girls both did really well in the car.  I had stocked up on a handful of toys from the dollar spot that I pulled out every few hours to entertain them.  We also watched a few movies and had some iPad time.  Plus, having their auntie right in the back with them was quite helpful!  We thought it would be a bit too long of a drive for Ella to join us, so she stayed with my parents.  We look forward to when she can road trip with us someday, too!  Here are some pictures from the weekend...

our latest accomplishments.

...and by "our", I mean the children.

Miriam:
Reading. I love this so much. I feel like she's had the fundamentals for reading for awhile--even before Kindergarten--but her confidence has really helped her get that extra push to actually read on her own. She still struggles with confidence a bit...sometimes I give her a book we own and I know she can read it but she thinks she can't and then won't try. But any of the books she brings home from school that her teacher says she can read, she will. It's been really fun (especially as a former elementary teacher) to watch her learn this. One of my favorite milestones so far!

Abbie:
Puzzles, potty training and painting. That pretty much sums it all up! Abbie is wanting to everything like her big sister, so she is learning much along the way. She always surprises me with how well she can do puzzles, and she loves to do them, too. Potty training...well, that has been in the works for awhile now, but she does almost everything on her own. That helps me a lot, too! And painting...she asks me to do this all the time. So we do it as often as we can!

Ella:
Walking and talking. This little girl has taken her sweet time with walking. She is a master scooter (I will post a video sometime soon of that), so I feel like the normal transition from crawling to walking isn't quite there for her. She definitively could be fully walking if she wanted to, but she often just plops down and scoots along. But everywhere I take her, people repeatedly comment on how they just love watching her scoot! I just want her up and walking so I can take her outside. Scooting on the muddy grass will not do wonders for my massive laundry load! And talking...I think "bye" was her official first word. She is so used to saying it each morning to Matt and Miriam when they leave for the day. It comes out as, "daaa!" and she always waves, too. She's working on "hi" and pretty much signs her other "words."

It's so fun watching them all grow up in their own stages!

Children's Museum

I'm so thankful to live in a city with a Children's Museum. This place has provided hours of entertainment for all three of my girls! I took Abbie and Ella this morning again and here are few pictures from our day:

silly slinkies

the resident birthday queen

Last August when Miriam turned 5, Abbie suddenly began to realize what birthdays were all about. So since then, she about daily asked when HER birthday was. It's unfortunate that their birthdays are almost exactly 6 months apart. But all her then 2-year-old mind could comprehend is that it was in March (whatever March meant to her), and that it involved balloons and cake. So by the time her birthday finally did roll around, we tried to make it exactly the way she wanted: with cake, balloons, and a celebration just for her. When her birthday was over, I figured we'd be getting her asking us daily when her next birthday was. But alas, she instead discovered my birthday was coming up and got just as excited for that. She began asking me what kind of cake I wanted and if she could help make it and if she could yell, "surprise!" So if it wasn't for Abbie, I'm not sure that I even would have made a cake as my birthday fell on Easter and I knew we'd end up with other desserts that day anyway. However, so as not to let her down, we made a cake together. And we put one candle on for each decade. She didn't seem too disappointed that I didn't get balloons or that she didn't yell, "surprise!" at any time throughout the day. I think the Easter festivities easily trumped the need for those. So, now that my birthday has wrapped up, I figured we were in the clear on the birthday question for awhile...except that she recently asked when Matt's birthday is. Unfortunately his is still three months away. So we begin again with the daily countdown. But we love our little birthday queen. She makes all of our birthdays more fun by her excitement of them.

Snowman

Miriam is on Spring break this week and we were able to go to my parents' house for a quick visit. Even though Matt and I got the flu and also gave it to my mom, we still had a good time. On a non-sick day, Matt and my dad took Miriam and Abbie outside for a bit. Since the snow is finally melting a little, it also made for good snowman-making weather. We actually never got a chance to make one this year even though we had so much snow! I just love seeing this picture of my dad with the girls because I have several of my sister, brother and I standing in front of a similar snowman growing up. My dad always puts the top hat on top. The girls loved it.

the day we lost our child at the mall

Last Saturday, we thought it would be fun to run the girls to the mall to walk around. We usually let them play in the play area for awhile and then walk down to the ride-on toys (spaceships, trains, cars that we just let them sit in...they don't seem to mind that we don't put quarters in). Anyway, we were at the point when we were ready to move on from the play area and told them we would head down to the spaceship. As Matt gathered up coats and bags, I grabbed Ella and started walking out of the play area. Miriam was back with Matt and Abbie was excited that we were going to the spaceship, so she ran up to me. Just as she did, I turned around to see where Matt was and he asked where Abbie was. In that split second, she had darted past me and was probably thinking she was heading toward the spaceship. We quickly looked around the whole play area and then around the outside of it. Deciding she was still probably close by, we weren't panicking. Yet. Matt told me to stay at the entrance of the play area and walked around to the stores closest. I kept looking for him to return and when I saw him, I saw he didn't have Abbie. At this point, I started to panic a bit. The mall was VERY busy that day and I couldn't even fathom where my three year old would think to go. She wasn't old enough to understand which way to go or even clearly communicate to someone where she was intending on going. Trying to stay calm, I held Miriam's hand, squeezed Ella tighter and prayed. The minutes going by seemed like hours. Finally, Matt decided he would head toward the spaceship area at the other end of the mall. Again, minutes turned into hours (it seemed). Then I saw him bolting it back toward me...but still with no Abbie. He told me he ran into a mall security guy and they had just got a call from Bath & Body Works with a child alone. We flew to the store...just on the OTHER side of the play area. We ran in and there she was, chatting with the store clerks, putting on fragrant hand sanitizer and probably not really even realizing the horror we were thinking. We thanked the clerks and walked out trying to explain how she can't run away from us again. I have never been more thankful in my life to see her face and hear her voice. It was a terrifying 10-15 minutes, but we are so glad it all turned out well. And, after all was said and done, we still went down to the spaceships:

a house full of girls!