Our church recently started a new children’s program that both kids absolutely love. They are so excited to go to church each Sunday and talk about their lesson throughout the week. I’m helping out with the much-older kids (I get enough of preschoolers at home, thank you very much!) so I miss out on the cute “isms” that preschoolers are prone to blurting out in class. Recently, they did a small series on the disciples and how they were friends of Jesus. As part of the lesson, they talked about who their friends are and why they are important, etc… etc… During one Q&A Benjamin told the teacher, “I have a LOT of friends, but one is a very special friend. She’s my sister!” He then gave her a huge hug. I love that he thinks of her as his special friend – it makes my heart melt.

I am bound and determined to write more here! As I think of things, I’m just going to POST POST POST! I’ll try not to get too hung up on grammar and spelling… and that’s HARD for me! So, I’m starting a new thing. I want to write just cute little tidbits about the kiddos as I think of them. I’ll even try to delve “way back when” and get some cute and fun post-worthy stories!

****Elisabeth has always called buttons “uppons”. It’s sooo dang cute. She once even told me to “uppon your uppon, Mommy!”
****Benjamin loves his little white blanket. A few weeks ago, we left it at Grandma’s and he was so sad. Every day, he wanted to go to grandma’s to get his blanket. We finally made it back this weekend and he’s over-joyed! He played with it for the first hour we were there.
****According to Elisabeth, every thing is “so cute!” I’m so cute, the froggy and turtles we see are “so cute”, heck daddy’s dirty leg is “so cute”. Her cute little voice saying such cute little things cracks me up!

This weekend we had Elisabeth’s 1st Birthday Party. Aunt Sarah, Uncle Jeff and Cousin Jessica made the long drive to join in on the fun. The kids had a ball playing together. Benjamin & Jessie got along so well and were sooo cute together! After the initial 5 minutes that it took for them to get over being shy with each other, they played together as if they had always been playmates. It was fun to watch them running around like crazy and playing games together. They managed to smash heads together only once – Benjamin was much more broken over this than Jessica, but Jessica had the biggest knot on her head! We went for frozen custard at Sandy’s (yummmm) Friday night, had the party on Saturday and Sunday was spent visiting Scott’s work, sight-seeing at Ha Ha Tonka, and playing at the park. By the end of the day on Sunday, both kids were exhausted. Benjamin was so tired that he cried for at least a half an hour before going to sleep. He kept saying, “I can’t sleep” and even implied that since Jessie was awake (he heard her getting ready for bed) that he should be up too. He was so sad that she wasn’t going to be here when he woke up in the morning, which made me & Sarah sad too! The good news is that they’ll both have something to look forward to as we get closer to our trip to Michigan in the upcoming weeks.

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Our little peanut is taking steps! She’s been trying one at a time for about a week, but last night and today she’s managed to accomplish more than one at a time. The most that I’ve been able to count is 6 steps in a row. Boy, are we in T R O U B L E !!! The first few times she tried walking sideways – most likely because that’s how she walks with Benjamin’s Nemo car. It’s too funny watching her side-stepping along. One toddler walking (and running) around is quite enough. Two ought to be fun!!!

Elisabeth is becoming quite adventuresome these days. She’s constantly standing in the middle of the floor – who needs help from the couch or a chair? When she stands up she laughs and gets really excited. Of course we clap and tell her what a big girl she is, which makes her even more excited. A couple of times she has tried taking steps, but she puts so much of her upper body into it that she falls over. She can hold onto the popcorn popper with one hand, and my hand with her other and walk anywhere. If I try to get her to walk with holding only one of my hands she sits on her bottom! She wants to walk around holding someone’s hand all day. She gets really mad at us when we won’t. I’m pretty certain that we’ll have a walking girl very soon! YIKES!!!

Her other new (and scary) thing to do is stand on Benjamin’s Little Tykes Garage. It’s so funny and cute, but it scares the bajeezus out of me. I try to keep her off, but she yells and climbs right back on! Little turkey girl! The other day I had her in my room while I was making the bed and Benjamin was playing in the loft, so I put the folded up pack-n-play in the doorway to keep her in. Who was I kidding? She got over it in about two seconds, laughing the entire time, then was off towards the office as fast as she could go.

It’s so funny to see such a tiny little girl getting into so much trouble. When she can walk, she’s going to be a handful. I can already tell!!!

Elisabeth is officially crawling! She’s been working so hard on it these past several days and today she actually coordinated her limbs to move together and she’s on the move! She’s so excited that she can get get to where she wants to go, but big brother Benjamin liked it better when she couldn’t get into his things so easily.

It’s amazing to watch her grow so big. I have a feeling that we’re going to have a tall girl on our hands. Her limbs are so long! Yestereday, we had to move her up to 6-9 month clothes. She had tons of 0-3 month little dresses, but her 3-6 month clothes were all hand-me downs and borrowed, so we had fun buying her some nice pink and girlie outfits! Unfortunately, a lot of the 6-9 month things were sold out, but she won’t be nekkid – that’s what’s important!

She’s also growing out of her swing. When we put her in it, she grabs the support pole as she swings by. Little stinker!

Yesterday, Elisabeth and Benjamin were playing in her crib and she grabbed the railing and stood up! She managed to stay up for a few minutes before she crashed, but she loved every minute of it! I helped her to get back up with better footing and she stood for much longer the second time until she eventually let go and took another crash landing. Today, she has her war-wounds on the side of her head, but she’s no worse for the wear. It’s so cute to see her standing there – she’s so dang tiny! Before I know it, she’ll be crawling around. Yikse!!!