You Capture: Fun

 Moments with Elle, You Capture  No Responses »
Jun 112010
 

This week Elle was out riding bikes with a neighbor.  This is the first summer the kids have had neighborhood friends. It is so nice to hear them running back and forth from each others houses.  We lived in the country with no close neighbors, save the grandparents, for the first four years of Elle’s life.  Now she is a big five and a half year old running with the gang!

Still she has her sense of style as noted in this picture.  Notice how the camo pants set off the purple and pink just so, with her summer dress blowing in the wind.  At least she is wearing shoes now, even if they are rain boots!

Check out more You Capture at I Should Be Folding Laundry.  Next weeks theme is Water.   I should get some good shots at King’s  Island this weekend.

Photo Credit:  Mandy W.  2010

 Posted by Amanda at 5:32 am  Tagged with: , ,

Our Week In Pictures

 Family Pictures, girl scouts, Moments with Elle, Moments with Enu, Moments With Meg, Moments with Mita  2 Responses »
May 202010
 

This has been a bit of a busy week.  Most of our weeks entail me running around, mind you, but we had some major events this week.  Major for us, anyway, the world didn’t stop spinning and CNN didn’t call.  We did however, have two girls Fly Up from Brownies to Junior Girl Scouts and it was Elle’s last day of pre-school today.  Definitely a time for pictures!

Meg later helped Enu get into her new Junior (green sash).

Mita wouldn't put on her sash, but liked the flowers!

The Flying Upceremony in Girl Scouts can be a simple affair or a major ceremony. The leaders for Mita and Enu planned this ceremony perfectly. There was food, goodie bags, some official ceremony of the pledge, the promise and a song and of course the girls walking across the stage (pretend bridge) receiving their badges and pins they earned over the last year.

Elle attended her last day of pre-school. Last day EVER!  She starts Kindergarten in August and will be a full-time student for about two decades.  She is excited of course, but I will miss our days at home with just the two of us.  Don’t tell the other girls, but sometimes Elle and I would just watch TV or eat popcorn after the kids went to school. It was like having our own little Neverland, where she didn’t have to share with her sisters and I didn’t have to make her share! Here Elle is after I picked her up today.  They did clown face-painting as a last day of school activity.

Not to leave Meg out…she had to decorate a potato as a book character this week.  She choose to make a Hermione Grainger  potato (big surprise there!).  Hermione Potato Head was dressed in purple netting for the Yule Ball.  I failed as a mother and didn’t get a picture taking of said potato before Meg took it to school. No big deal you say?  Just take one when she brings it home from school?  I would if some potato mashing bully hadn’t wrecked poor Potato Hermione at school!  Ruffians.  Anyway, Meg is confident she can repair her creation, so I may have a photo in the next few days!

How was your week?

Photo Credits Mandy W. 2010

 Posted by Amanda at 8:49 pm  Tagged with: , ,

May The Fourth Be With You

 Moments with Elle  1 Response »
May 042010
 

Here she is with her pretend "Life Savor".

In honor of my youngest child, Elle, I am posting this picture of her as a Jedi Knight.  She has become so obsessed with Star Wars that she has transformed her dress up basket in trying to find suitable clothes.  Her cape in this picture was once used by Meg in her Cinderella costume.  I didn’t realize how versatile princess clothing was!

Here she is showing off those arms of hers..Not twigs, arms!

So hear my plea…if any of you have hand-me-down Star Wars clothes pass them on over here!  We are seriously lacking with action hero stuff at my house of girls!

So May-The-Fourth-Be-With-You on this Star Wars day :)

 Posted by Amanda at 8:54 am  Tagged with:

The Fourth Time Around Is Still Fun

 A Mom's Job, Moments with Elle  1 Response »
Apr 272010
 

Elle hiding her loose teeth!

My baby has two loose teeth!  Her bottom front two teeth are loose and are set to come out at any time.  Before you get worried, I will remind you that my baby is actually five years old.  She will always be my baby and I know that the multitude of mommies out there will agree, understand and support that I will never let my youngest loose her baby status along with her teeth!

Elle is so excited that her teeth are loose. She sees this as proof that she is growing up and I have to admit she is holding her head up a bit higher these days.  She is also carrying around a little case that says “Baby’s first tooth on it”.  I don’t quite understand the case’s label as this is not the first tooth she grew, but the first tooth she is loosing.  At least it got the Baby part right.

As a mom of four you would think I would be old hat at this loose tooth thing, but I am not really.  Meg’s first loose tooth I can remember (I actually knocked it out; as I zipped up her winter coat and my hand hit her mouth – all on accident of course!).  Mita and Enu lost their first teeth in Ethiopia and so when loose teeth came after the adoption, the actual losing of a tooth didn’t matter. Once they learned of a being called the tooth fairy though, they quickly liked having loose teeth and at the hint of a tooth that was ready to come out there would be a bloody, mangled mess until it came out.  That $1 from the fairy must have been worth it!

So I find myself wondering how to celebrate this loose tooth.  I’m thinking of starting a loose tooth log that I saw long after Meg starting loosing her teeth.  I may even get really fancy and invest in a keepsake box.  I know the other three don’t have these, but as the baby I feel like maybe Elle needs a little something extra.  Meg has five years of scrap-booked memories (really badly scrap-booking I admit), Mita and Enu have lifebooks.  Maybe to go along with all of these Elle can have a tooth log at the very least!

If I have learned anything of being a mom to four, is that nothing will ever be equal except for the love.  Everything else depends on time, resources, sanity and sleep!

(Disclosure:  I didn’t receive any compensation for the above links.)

Photo Credit:  Elle’s self portrait 2010

 Posted by Amanda at 9:30 am  Tagged with:

Wordless Wednesday: Elle’s Play Date and The Scones They Made

 Moments with Elle, Wordless Wednesday  1 Response »
Mar 242010
 
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For more Wordless Wednesdays…

 

 

Photo by Mandy W.

 Posted by Amanda at 3:41 am  Tagged with:

A Kid’s Take On the Three “R”s

 Earth Friendly Ideas, Moments with Elle  1 Response »
Mar 182010
 

1011257_dumpstersReduce, reuse, recycle.  These are familiar concepts to almost everyone now. What was once a mantra for “tree huggers” (a term my father still uses!) is now a way of life for many families, if not for environmental reasons, then for economical ones.

The other day I was feeling quite proud of myself.  Needing curtains for Mita and Enu’s rooms I shopped at Gabriel Brothers and dug for the matching curtains I needed.  I saved a lot of money with that little bit of digging.

Then Elle and I were off to the Good-Will to see what treasures we could stumble upon.  As we walked into the store Elle was confused as this was not the Good-Will she was familiar with.  I explained that I often dropped off things we didn’t need anymore at the Good-Will drop of near our house, and that the store we were going into was the place were every-ones donations were sold.  I then proceeded to over-explain  for my five year old’s age level and discussed how this was a form of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and it helped people find jobs.  Not thinking anymore about it, I went shopping and I scored some Timberland shoes for Elle at $1.99 and some brand new Girl Scout shirts for adults for $1.99 each.

The next day I was wearing my “new” Girl scout shirt when someone commented on it and said, “Where did you get that?”.  Before I could answer Elle jumped in and said,”My mom got it in the trash.”

So much for my lesson. All that fuzzy-good-for-me-feeling was gone as my attempts at being earth/people friendly were reduced to an episode of dumpster diving!

Photo Credit

 Posted by Amanda at 3:19 am  Tagged with: , , ,

My Baby Is Five Today

 Moments with Elle  3 Responses »
Dec 152009
 

Elle turns five years old in about an hour.  I don’t know how it happened so quickly (I know everyone says that, but it is so true!).  I am so proud of my little goose, my little bean, my pudding pop…the list goes on and on.

We celebrated her birthday last Saturday, Spa Style, and had a great time. Tonight we will celebrate with ice cream cake and pizza sticks.  She will get her much-longed for DS so she can be like her big sissys!

Happy Birthday Bean.  I  have enjoyed the first five years more than you will ever know.  Thank you for being uniquely you.

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We had a Pinkalicious party!

 Posted by Amanda at 10:27 am

A First For Elle

 Moments with Elle  1 Response »
Oct 052009
 

Last Saturday Elle went to her first “friend” birthday party.  She was invited by a girl at school for a Pizza Hut  party.  How proud she was when she climbed in the car and said,”Mom, I got a birthday invitation!”  We quickly RSVP’d and she knew she wanted me to buy some “Pet Shops” as a gift.

In the spirit of the three R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle) I bought a Tinker Belle Halloween Candy bag to put the Littlest Pet Shops in so that she could reuse the bag.   Elle made three cards in the spirit of using as much paper as possible!

As we got into the car on party day, she asks me, “When are you picking me up mom?”.  I told her that I was staying for the party, that she just wasn’t old enough yet to go by herself.  This made her grumble a bit and I think she may have rolled her eyes, but I cannot confirm that (denial:).  On the way out of the driveway her three older sisters were yelling at Elle to “Have Fun”  and “Bring us back candy” as they were very happy for her.  Elle screams back at them to let the dog and the cat in and out while she’s gone!  Letting the pets in and out is Elle’s chore and she takes it very serious obviously.

She is growing up way to fast.  Here is a picture of her right before we left for the party.  Note that she is looking a bit goth/grunge/tinkerbellish in her new over-sized dress, white capris and Enu’s old boots that are three sizes to big!  I have a feeling this is not a phase she is going to grow out of, and she will always be my “creative dresser”!

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Photo by Mandy W.  2009

 Posted by Amanda at 6:09 am  Tagged with: ,

A Sweet Gift From Elle

 Moments with Elle  2 Responses »
Jun 162009
 

imgp1548I was taking a bit of a nap today (I bribed Meg to watch Elle while I layed down) when Elle wandered up to my room (Where was my paid help?) and asked me if I was hungry.  I told her no, I was fine and she said,”If you were hungry I would make you food.”  I of course told her that I was hungry and she could make me food.  She ran off and I went back to resting.

I had assumed that she meant her fake food she often shares with us.  She will walk around with a pad of paper and a pen and make us write down what we want to eat and then give  us a plate full of what ever she finds in her plastic kitchen.

After the  phone brought me out of my not-so-slumber slumber I ran into Elle in the  Kitchen.  She had a cookie sheet with  a napkin on it, a small pile of ketchup, two burnt french fries (left over from lunch), a buttered bagel, pepperoni, applesause, four teddy grahms and a banana (she had a big sissy help her peel it).  This was the sweetest gift from her.  She had worked hard and was so proud of herself!

Elle tries so hard to be big like her sisters and I want her to stay little.  I cannot stop the clock and deep down I don’t want to. Elle shows such a compassion towards people, animals and insects.  Watching her grow and become who she is meant to become will be an amazing thing to experience.  I will miss my little baby though, when she is all grown up and starts rolling her eyes at me!

 Posted by Amanda at 8:09 am  Tagged with: , , ,
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