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