Halloween!!

The girls were superheroes this year!  I found a bat girl costume on craigslist for $5 and Ruby liked it so much, I decided to make Elsie supergirl to match.  They loved wearing these outfits, and would zoom around the house it them like they could fly.  Halloween was busy, we had to pick up Mike's deer meat and store it a friends because of our electrical issues.  While there, they asked if they could take Ruby to a preschool Halloween party with their daughter.  Elsie and I went home and then an hour later went to pick Ruby up.  After she was back with us, we headed over to EWU to walk through their campus and go to the carnival.  That is always fun!  Mike then joined us at home, we walked next door and visited with our neighbors and headed to a church for their festivities.  We ended the night in the Golden Hills neighborhood, which is always packed with kiddos and fun surprises as you walk door to door.  The girls loved it, but we all were pooped at the end of the day!  A great way to end a busy month, so thankful that November is here and much calmer!

Trip to Green Bluff with Grandma and Cousins

 Pony rides are always popular.  Elsie loved riding with Kylar by her side.

Elsie with cousin Kylar waiting for our yummy meal.

 Kylar enjoyed pushing the girls on the swings!

 Time for lunch!

 Going through the straw maze at Knapps Farm on Green Bluff.

 Cute one of Gramma with Elsie, waiting for the pumpkin cannon to go off!

 Love this one, wish Ciara would have joined in.

 Neat wagon to sit in, the girls loved it!

 Kylar helping Elsie pick the perfect pumpkin.

 Ruby said she had found the perfect pumpkin for Elsie.

 Gramma and all her grandkidlets.  Love how this turned out!

 Pushing our massive amount of pumpkins back to the car, the girls loved riding with the pumpkins.

 Kylar taking Elsie down the big slide at another farm.

Elsie running through the fun straw maze, with Gramma close behind.

What a fun day!

Where does a baby come from?

Yesterday, as we were travelling to go for a hike up at Mt. Spokane, Ruby was pondering in the back seat.  She piped up and asked me, "Mom, does a baby just appear in your tummy?"  I said, "No, a husband and wife have to make a baby!"  She then said, "How?"  I was a little stunned, but decided to tell her, "A mommy and daddy make a baby with love!"  I was thinking she would keep asking more specific questions, but this answer seemed to satisify her curiosity.  You could see the wheels spinning in her head, but she accepted it and moved on to other things.  Whew.....she is so inquisitive, I am sure we will be discussing the birds and bees in no time!

Art and New Discoveries

Elsie was looking out the window today and saw the Spokane Courthouse in the distance, she calls out "A castle!" I was so surprised, didn't even know that she had any idea what a castle was. Looking over at it, I could see why she thought it was a castle. Neat building, definitely has features like a castle!


I highly recommend Tinman Too in the Garland District for art classes...Ruby had a great time and she learned so much while there. I loved that it just wasn't creating art, but learning about a famous artist and their artistic style. Today it was surrealism, a very abstract form of art! Fun!

So proud of Ruby, found out today that she was the only winner in her age group of ages 4-7 years old in the coloring contest!

Veggies

Elsie ate cucumber yesterday and today, and then ate lettuce tonight for dinner! I am so happy to see that she is finally openning up to veggies! She also ate quite a bit of corn on the cob about a week ago.

The wierdest thing too, we just bought a food processor so I could sneak veggies into meals and then this happens...go figure!

Pooped

I took the girls out to Fish Lake today, and we met up with our good friends Tanya and Jacquelyn. Ruby and Jacquelyn rode their bikes in front of us as we walked. Mike threw a tiny bike for Elsie in the back of the Durango, so for the first half mile I pushed her along on it. She was able to pedal a bit on her own, so exciting! That proved to be pretty difficult though, so Tanya and I took turns carrying Elsie on our shoulders as we walked. It was beautiful out and I always love it there. We walked about 1.5 miles down the trail (stopping at one mile so the girls could throw rocks together). Ruby and Jacquelyn rode along and then out ride back to us, so I am guessing they actually rode their bikes closer to 4 miles total. Both girls have been going to bed late every night this summer, and I think it finally caught up to them. They were both very irritable here and there throughout the walk. After the walk, we went to the little play area nearby at Fish Lake. The kiddos played for a long time as Tanya and I chatted. The weather was perfect today.

We returned home around 4 pm, and played a few games with the girls before dinner. I quickly realized that we were going to have to get them down very early tonight because they were sooooo tired. About 30 minutes before we headed to brush teeth, Elsie calls out that she has to go to the bathroom and then heads there all by herself. When I get in there, she has climbed up on the big seat and is sitting there going all on her own. She then does the whole process by herself, gets off the toilet, stretches her foot up to the handle to push it down (she wants to do it like I do), and closes the toilet seat all by herself! So proud of her!

I have also notice in the past few days that Elsie's lower eye teeth has started pushing through the gums and that she may have a molar or two coming in.

They are out like a light right now, hope they sleep soundly so they can feel rested in the morning. I am thinking of bringing Ruby to Riverfront Park to use our day passes tomorrow, can't wait!

Fun happenings

Yesterday, Ruby was looking at a picture taken of her at Vacation Bible School this week. She tells Elsie, "That was me at 4!" Mike looks at her and says, "Yep you are definitely 4 since it was taken yesterday!" Silly girl.

Today, I am in the shower and Elsie comes running in holding her bum. She is standing by the toilet saying that she has to go potty. I try to tell her to put the kiddy lid down, but she hasn't done that yet (it usually is already down for her) and has to go really bad. She climbs up there all on her own and proceeds to go potty all by herself! She even held herself up, I was afraid she would fall in on the regular seat. So proud of her. She is getting closer and closer to being fully potty trained. This is the first time she has gone #2 in the big potty too, she did go in her little potty about a month ago but that is all. She goes pee pee at least once a day and sometimes will tell me she has to go. YAY!

Night routine

Elsie loves to read, "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Row, Row, Row your goat" with me before she goes to bed. I have noticed that she loves to sing and anything that involves singing makes her happy. Even reading a book that is based on a song. Mike told me today that he thinks she is going to be the most musical of our two girls. When she sings, she understands pitches. She actually sings the song exactly like it sounds. So neat! Super sweet to listen to!

At night, she asks me to rock her now (since she isn't nursing anymore). She then will ask me to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Once I start singing it, she happily joins in and we sing it together. She will sing all the songs with me. As you can guess, she has a hard time going to sleep with all the singing.

We start out rocking but I will move her over to her bed after a few minutes and lay next to her. She loves having her head rubbed. Now she will rub my head as she goes to sleep and sing songs to me. So funny!

Ruby started vacation bible school today and will continue through this week. She was hesitant to go this morning, but once she saw all of her friends she happily ran off with them and joined right in. She is excited to go tomorrow!

Silly Stuff

Elsie noticed a baby at church today and told Mike, "That's a babe babe!" Mike said, "Yep! That's a babe babe" and then said "You're a babe babe too!" Elsie quickly replied, "No, I a big girl!"

I am so surprised by her comments lately and her understanding of the world around her! So much fun!

Potty Training

Elsie came over to me and told me she had to go to the bathroom today and took me to the bathroom so she could use the big toilet. She was so proud of herself! I was proud that she recognized that she had to go, found me, and held it until we made it to the big potty. So excited for her!

New things...

We had a branch fall off of our tree, and the girls took a small part of it and replanted it in our yard.

Today Ruby asked me, "Why do they have to wear white dresses?" I asked her what she meant, she kept repeating the same question. I decided to be more specific and ask, "Where?" She said to a concert. I told her that you can wear anything you want to a concert, and then she said, "Why do they have to wear white dresses to get married?" I was so surprised that she picked up on this detail, I have not discussed it with her before. I told her that this is just the way that most people do it, but you can actually wear any color you want. She told me that she was going to wear pink to get married in because she likes the color. Then she added some more detail and said she also wanted it to have stripes. That's my girl!

We drove in with Mike to Hoopfest earlier, Ruby started singing some Twisted Sister. One of her favorites. Elsie started piping up and singing right alongside Ruby. It was so cute to hear them singing at the top of their lungs together, "We're not gonna take it! No!!! We ain't gonna take it!"

Mike was singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and putting Ruby and Elsie's name in the song. We were both surprised to hear Elsie try it out with Mike's name. She did pretty good too and was proud of herself.

Elsie went potty on the big toilet twice today, she is so funny! The last time she read her book on the toilet, super cute! Proud of her, I think we are getting close to being potty trained, cross my fingers!

The last two nights, Elsie has been okay without me laying in bed beside her to go to sleep. She just asks me to sit in the rocking chair at the end of her bed and rub her hair until she falls asleep. She did ask to nurse tonight, but I told her she was such a big girl she didn't need to and she said she was a big girl and that was it. So proud!

Elsie has been doing so good, the last two days she hasn't even asked to nurse. It is so wierd that she is actually weaned now.

We had their cousins over today, and they always have a blast with them. Kylar was surprised to hear Elsie say "I love you!" She loves to say it, and I noticed that she told Kylar, Daddy, and Ruby this today. I think this is the first time she has said it to anyone other than me.

I forgot to mention that Elsie has gone potty in our toilet three times now. Usually she will tell me she needs a diaper, and then I will ask her if she wants to try in the potty. Sometimes she just can't sit still long enough to go, but three times now she has actually gone. So proud of her! I will cheer her on and she will keep going and going and going. She loves the attention. She has had a few accidents without her diaper, and I always ask her "where should you have gone?" At first, she didn't know. But once I kept repeating it, she actually told me "in the toilet". She is on her way to being diaper free in no time.

Our Day

I was asked to fill in for a friend at Bunko last night, so I decided to say yes. Mike got a movie to watch with the kiddos and was going to keep them up until 10 pm when I returned. When I got home, he had brushed both their teeth and they were already fast asleep in their beds. Amazing! This is the first night that Elsie has gone to bed without me. I was nervous, but it all turned out just fine. She did wake in the middle of the night and pushed a chair up to the front door and way yelling for me. She thought I was still gone. Poor girl. I am so proud of both the girls right now, they are growing up so fast and becoming so independent.

Tonight when I put Elsie down to bed, she only asked a few times to nurse and then did well settling in for the night. She wanted me to lay next to her and asked for a cup of water. Other than that, she did really well without nursing.

She has been so interested in reading books, she finds things she recognizes and points them out to us. Today she pointed to a book with bears in it, ficticious, and said "look mom, bear walking!" She loves to flip through any book, especially the ones that have more pages. Lately, my magazines have been her favorites. She sits for nearly an hour and just flips back and forth and looks at the pages. She is mainly quiet, but she did point of a cat one time in the magazine. At night we read together now, and she LOVES it.

Oh, we went to Cabella's today for Mike and it was so fun with the girls! They were really into all of the stuffed animals and displays, they loved crawling through the tents, and checking out all the toys. They are both at such a fun stage. We enjoyed their hot candied nuts together and then headed over to CDA to try out a new diner. So yummy...Jimmy's Down the Street. It was featured on Diners, Drive-throughs, and Dives a few months back. They make almost all of their food from scratch. I had heard about their chicken and dumplings...so I got it! Wonderful! Mike got their chicken fried steak and it was from scratch too, with biscuits and gravy (from scratch). Definitely will be going back there again!

Three days without nursing...

On June 15th, Elsie went to bed and didn't ask to nurse so I went with it. Of course, eventually she did ask but I kept telling her that she was a big girl now and didn't need to nurse. She finally fell asleep without any trouble. Also, she had missed her nursing at naptime too, so this was the first official day of no nursing. Yesterday, she missed her naptime nursing and I told her she was a big girl again at night. She kept say she wanted to nurse and was alittle sad, but finally fell asleep with my next to her. Today at naptime, she was so tired and crying. She kept asking to nurse, but I stuck by my decision to stop nursing. I held her in my arms and moved her back and forth while I sang, which calmed her down. Then I decided to lay her back in bed, and lay beside her. She was sad, but fell asleep pretty quickly.

It is time, but it makes me sad too. Elsie will probably be my last and nursing came so easily with her. She is such a soft and cuddly baby/toddler and settles so easily while nursing. I will just miss it all, but at the same time I am ready to move on into the next stage.

The girls are enjoying eachother so much right now, I am loving it! Ruby tries to take care of Elsie all day long now and looks forward to playing with her. Elsie used to get mad when Ruby would try to hold her hand or pick her up. Now she happily hangs on and enjoys the experience. Ruby even has tried to change Elsie's diaper, and she came pretty close to doing it correctly. So funny. They are just so sweet to watch and I am thankful everyday for the experiences I share with them.

Elsie is talking up a storm right now. Most people are shocked when they hear her. Her expressions and personality are so so cute. She always say, "Mom, I funny!" and she really is! They both are so much fun.

Elsie has both her upper eye teeth coming in now and they are taking awhile. The one on her left side basically has barely poked through the gums, and the one on her right side you can actually feel poking out a bit and even see it. She occasionally says, "Mom, my teeth!" when she feels them pushing. Can't wait to see how they look once they come in!

Rosalia Battle Days Parade

This was our second year of attending the Rosalia Battle Day Parade, the girls have so much fun! Always something neat to see and lots of candy to pick up.

Elsie joined in on the fun of picking up candy. She got the hang of it really quick. She always wants to eat the candy the minute she gets ahold of it. I was surprised that she listened when I told her she needed to wait. Eventually I gave in and openned up a sucker for her.

Elsie and her sucker :) Love going back to Rosalia, my old stomping grounds from 4-6th grade, we even came back nearly every year throughout my high school/middle school years to visit our friends and neighbors in Malden.

After the parade had finished, we walked around to see all the activities going on. I even ran into an old friend. Fun. We then went to the little store there and bought a yummy salad and sandwich and headed to the little park. The girls were happy to go! We sat in the shade and ate, then went to the playground. We only stayed at the playground about 15 minutes because it was super hot and no shade. Still fun for the girls though.

Everytime I go back to Rosalia, I reminise about all the memories I have from that time frame in my life. Being at the store brought back all the memories of going there with my Dad to get their soda shop pops. Going to the park reminded me of all the memories I have of swimming the pool located there. We parked right next to the school, so that brought back tons of memories of all the times with friends. We drove around and up to another park that is at the top of the hill, it brought back memories of a rocket I made in class and set off there with classmates. We drove down a street up there and right past a good friends house that I stayed the night at all the time. As we reached the end of that street, Ruby was in heaven. Huge lilac bushes pushed their way into our windows of the Durango. I stopped and we both picked some, so fragrant! Love lilacs.

We drove down 195 to get to the parade, but drove back through Malden. This is where I lived, it is 6 miles out of Rosalia. I flashed back to the time when Katie and I were so bored in Malden and all we could do was think about how fun it would be in Rosalia with all of our friends. So....we decided to ride out bikes all the way into Rosalia. A long long trip in the beating sun, took us a long time but we made it. As I drove that far, it still seems pretty amazing that we were able to do it.

Once in Malden I drove around and told Ruby about all the places in the town. It is tiny, but I still had lots to show her and talk about. She loved hearing about it and looking around. We drove past our old house at the top of the huge hill, I told her about how I would ride my bike all the way down it. She was amazed. Then we drove on some back streets and down past the old caboose tavern and post office. By the way, our old house and the neighbor next to us are in such bad shape. It breaks my heart to see. My family did a lot of work on that house and it looked so neat, and our neighbors had the most beautiful house (they have passed away now) but now it is all overgrown and falling apart. I told Ruby about how my Grandpa Joe came to stay with us and walked Katie and I down to the Caboose Tavern. They used to open the window and sell things out of it. It was also still a tavern, but we stayed outside and my Grandpa bought us all UNO bars. Yummy! Our first time of having one, and a fun memory of my Grandpa. The Caboose is closed down now. The old post office reminded me of all the times I waited for letters to come my way from friends afar, it was always a surprise when one arrived. Loved that! We also drove past the old park that we used to play in, Ruby asked me if all the equipment was there when I used to live there. And.....basically it is all the same. We looked at the old church that Katie and I attended, there weren't any other kiddos so they decided to reopen the Sunday School because of us. Ah....memory lane! What a great experience and to be able to share it with my girls!

The following are pictures from our trip home through Malden:

The old Caboose Tavern


The post office



The church

The park

Trip to CDA

We drove to CDA today so we could walk around the awesome park there! Love this neat play structure, the girls had a blast running around from one thing to another.

Love this pic of Mike and the girls!

Ruby and Elsie enjoyed playing the driver of this boat in the middle of the play structure. A boy asked if he could be a passenger and then the driver. The girls finally allowed him to take over, but once he asked Ruby to be a dolphin she was out of there.

Beautiful day!

Playing in the sand. Ruby decided to build a sand castle, with a little stick coming up from the top.

I was surprised by Elsie, she ran her toes through the sand and touched the water with both her toes and hands.

We also walked on the boardwalks out by the cruise boats. The girls enjoyed that too! They loved playing peek-a-boo in the park behind the trees. Elsie has picked up on the phrase "Boo Yah!" and jumps out at us while saying it. Ruby taught it to her. She laughs so hard when we act like we are scared. I never knew that Elsie loved Peek-a-boo so much.

We ate at Paul Bunyan's, just to see what it was like. It was cheap and okay. We brought it over to the park again and found a nice bench in the shade to eat. Once we were done, we headed over to Roger's Ice Cream and Burgers, yummy! The girls were freezing though, so we sat outside for a bit and then ate the rest in the car. Love that place, Mike and I have been there many times over the years.

Fun day!

Ruby and Rosie

First time of getting a nice photo of our new kitty Rosie. She is very shy most of the time except when it comes to our dogs. She loves them and will jump right into their playtime.

Ruby put a bead necklace around her neck and she is fine with it. It was from one of their dolls. She is a tiny kitty.

Ruby's Last Day of Preschool

Ruby's Preschool class walked to Centennial Park for their last day. Ruby was so excited for this day! I forgot to get her hat, so I decided to go home and pick it up and bring it to her. When we got there, we were able to stay and be a part of it all with Ruby. Elsie was thrilled!

Ruby sitting with Elsie and her classmates Macie and Sarah.

They had a bag race, Ruby was a trooper. She did this twice and had trouble getting to the line but had fun with it anyway.

Ruby loved the egg and spoon race, she wanted to do it again when it was all over.

Walking back to the classroom with her classmates.

One of Ruby's best buds, Ethan. Ruby loves playing with him. He is going to Kindergarten next year and she will miss him.


Giving Miss Rachel a hug goodbye. What a fun year, looking forward to next year!