Spring with my sissies

We visited my grandparents graves for my grandma's birthday. Ellia is, by now, familiar with Forest Lawn. She says "I know this place...the flower garden." She's also wrapping her 4 year old mind around the concept of "dead". Right now she says that people go to the center of the earth when they die. I really love this photo of the 2 of us. It pretty much sums up how we look together most of the time.

Me & my sissies joined forces with my family, dad/mom/brother/sister in law for pony rides at Griffith Park. We had been there before for train rides but believe it or not, now they're old enough for the pony rides. Without a doubt, it was hot and stinky. Grandpa and Ellia did so good waiting in the hellish long line. I decided to not throw Ellia in the line for the "Fast" ponies. I took one look at the kids bouncing up & down with a look on their face that said "Am I having fun? I don't know! Am I gonna die? I don't know!" & the teenage 'handler' jogging to keep up behind.

So no, Ellia rode this nice, slooooooow pretty pony. I think it was just her groove, she looked completely relaxed & proud of herself as you can see on her face.

This was Claira's first time on a pony except for the little jaunt she took at Ellia's 4th birthday party. I have the wrong photo of her on this post because here she looks perfectly content to be going .0000001 miles an hour lassoed to a merrygoround. By her second rotation she was 'revving up' her horse trying to get it to go faster as if it were a ride at Chuck E Cheese! I guess I could've put her in the "fast" lane...I think my baby was born in the fast lane.

Ellia & Claira are lucky to have Grandpa and Uncle Adam as men in their lives. When I stop to think about it, they are pretty much surrounded by women 24/7. There's me, of course, then there's their wonderfully loving women teachers at school, there's Auntie Kristine (who they see at least once every week), there's Mommy's Mommy friends making memories & going on fun trips together, there's Auntie Carissa who squishes them the most & understands them effortlessly, and of course there's loving Grandma (Gamma) who cared for Claira for 6 months as an infant, always supplies Ellia with new learning or artistic things to do & who has helped me for countless backup babysitting!

Their Grandpa is a man who they know can't wait to see them because he is in the driveway when we pull up to his house to visit. Because he listens to Ellia when she talks about the Nick Jr. shows she's interested in and he fills his DVR up with them for her. Because he's always planning new places to go with them...wanting to create memory after memory, tradition after tradition. That's what family is all about at the end of the day. And that is a good man.

"I do"

This chick has to do EVERYTHING on her own. She will fling her body to the ground and flail her arms in an all-out tantrum at even the lightest touch of my hand to help (or speed things along and get out the door!!) There are 2 levels to her insistence on doing it herself. Level 1 will simply be a "I do. I do!" Level 2 is (hitting mommy) "No, Mommy! No! I dooooo!" Followed by wailing. I walk away and let her bawl it out. It soon ends and she'll come over to me if she ends up needing my help after all. She's definitely independent and I hope that helps her in life.

I wonder if completely knowing full well that she is cute will help her in life?

"New" Year

Yeah, that's what I think about 2010 too.

Our little chic chubby gal pal Ella turned 2 one month after Claira turned 2. Her mommy and I hope they will be close friends. And now that we live in the same city it'll be easier to help that happen!

I had a horrible flu in January right before it was time to head to the mountains for the annual snow trip. I was really bummed because I was with them for the 2009 and the 2010 snow trip. The whole concept of snow was still so new to them last year. And just one year later, they look like they've been around it their whole lives...Ellia's chill confident head tilt smile & Claira didn't look like she would topple over at any minute.

Well, it finally happened. After having that big, teal, round pacifier rule my life... (Crap, where's the paci?! I have 10 of them-whyyy can't I find a single one?" , "Claira! Don't throw your paci! No! It just rolled under the car-whyyyy did they make them round?!") ... Claira now has a new pacifing method. And it looks like it'll be here to stay for quite some time (dentist be damned)


Just a typical evening spent with my girls after dinner.

Ellia Update (old)

OK, so I've abandoned this blog for 6 months! I can't even believe it's been that long...so now I'm going back & updating...or postdating to be truthful.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this image of Ellia. This is Ellia's 2nd school photo. You might remember her 1st one. She's wearing a vintage outfit from my childhood days. And her assured smile is something a worrisome mother loves to see.

Here is Ellia's signature at the end of 2010. Surprisingly it's evolved a lot in 6 months and I'll post a current one when I get 'back to the future' posts!

At the end of 2010 Ellia's was drawing much much more. She discovered Dino Dan and suddenly had to have everything dinosaur. We scouted for dinosaur books at the library, we put together a dinosaur Field Guide, and she started filling her little notebooks with page after page of the image above. Like in a trance, she'd draw that strange smiley dinosaur with his scientific name written above & then she'd flip the page and do it over...and over...and over.

Here is one of my favorite of Ellia's first drawings. This is from when she was at her 1st school-so it's early 2010. I think it's a kiss. I love it.

December Memories

My tiny, chubby Claira turned 2...
24 months I've grown to know this fast growing girl. Oh, she wants to grow up so much faster than Ellia did. I guess that's the sliding scale of siblings. She was so sweet & quite calm on her birthday party day. Her face seemed to look like she was trying to figure out what was going on. Leading up to her birthday, the Happy Birthday Song was one of her favorites (as well as one of the few things we could decifer in her 'Claira language') Also leading up to her birthday there was a distict interest in all things girly. She began to cradle dollies in the crook of her arm, awkwardly trying to balance the doll and tenderly giving her a bottle or blanket. She even started making the dollie cry with a whimpy "OOO-ooo-ooo..."

Claira still idolizes and obeys 99.9% of what her big sister tells her to do, shows her to do, asks her to, tells her not to do, etc. Many times Claira will, without being able to talk, show favor for Ellia over me. If I need to dress Claira & Ellia is heading out the room, Claira will push me aside and do her flat-foot/arms out run to catch up with Ellia.

Christmas 2010

Bless Santa's heart. Claira's eyes are piercing over to her vicious mother who did this to her. Meanwhile Ellia did a gorgeous job at giving the photo that contrasting & classic "Santa's lap" phhoto for the ages.