first violin lesson

happy 4th birthday, elenora mae!

this birthday was pretty awesome.  our little girl had so much fun!  she started out the day by announcing to me when i came into her room in the morning, "Mommy, since I've been 4, i've been doing all kinds of things that i can't usually do... like turn on the light switch without standing on my tiptoes, and jumping higher."

all this after a half hour of being 4.

j. got elenora her first violin as his special present to her.  he plans to start sunday afternoon violin lessons with her tomorrow.  she was pretty excited about it, and i have to say she already holds the instrument pretty good.

our plan for a birthday breakfast party at the park got washed out, though morning broke without the rain they said would be unrelenting.  in the end, i got tired of changing the location back and forth and decided to hold the party here since the house was all set and the park would be soaking wet after a whole night of rain.  

everyone started arriving around 9:30 am and we served up coffee, egg strata (e.'s nan's recipe), coffee cake (c.'s recipe, made by momby), apple strudel (made by h.) and fruit salad (made by h.), along with mimosas (thanks to k.).  21 people were here in all, making for a great party.

in the midst of the present opening, baby gracie decided to stop the show by bonking her balloon up and down into her head.  so funny, and what a cutie!

k. and f. got elenora a fisher price digital camera that really takes photos.  ella took photos all afternoon.  great practice.

here's ella with aurora, rose and penelope.  we also had nathan, eli and grace.  i love that most of these kids have been at elenora's birthday parties since she was 1.  they are all such precious friends.

 at the end of the party, ella wanted to try out her new bicycle basket, so we took the kids outside to ride bikes, scooters, big wheels and tyke trikes while s. drew some amazing sidewalk art.

our craft was t-shirt decorating, thanks to some fabric markers and puff paint from momby.  each child got to create a t-shirt.  after the other kids left, i traced a kanga and roo onto a t-shirt for ella, and j. free-handed a "roo's daddy".

ella's mamaw got her a big girl car seat, which is so comfortable and easier for her to get into than the seat she's had since she was 7 1/2 months old.  amazing the amount of sand and pine cones i found under that old car seat when i went to do the switch.

in the late afternoon we went to bertucci's for dinner with the family.  i realized while i was there that j. and i had lunch at that restaurant the day ella was born.  now it's one of her favorite places to eat (mostly because of the pizza "play" dough they give her to play with).

(notice little bear's new dress... it's his birthday, too.  yes, he's That kind of bear.)

elenora had salmon, green beans and mashed potatoes.  what a good eater!

then the whole family came back to my place for coffee, cupcakes and family presents.  mostly she got clothing from me, and she was so tired by then that she was pretty much tossing the clothes out of the bags without looking at them.  it was pretty funny.

but you'll notice that this present from her mamaw got her attention...

(i love love love that her first instinct is to want to share this moment with little bear.  soooo sweet.)

it was a gorgeous, fun, amazing birthday.

here's the "4" of us (little bear is quite the personality around here):

i'm exhausted.  next year i'm looking forward to going back to her actual birthday and the day of her party being on separate days.

but i wouldn't change a thing about today.  thank you, everyone, who helped us to celebrate.

as i become the mother of a 4-year-old

tonight as i was reading to elenora i thought about her becoming 4 and what a new stage of life this will be.

got all choked up.

i just want to say that elenora is the person who makes me laugh the most.  when she talks i always watch with amazement and think "how sweet" or "how bright" or "how funny" or "how cute".  i could listen to her talk and watch her play forever.  her language skills and her story skills and her sense of humor are all things that make me so proud to be her mother.  i'm really lucky.

i just told j. that i always want to put so much into this "as i become the mother of a..." blog, but the night before her birthday i just have so much on my mind.  i spent my day working, running errands, baking cupcakes, cleaning, making 2 egg strata for tomorrow's birthday party, making dinner, creating a happy birthday sign with ella, and making sure the entire house is in ship shape.  and i still have the present wrapping to do.  my brain is mush.

j. said to write that.

but the long and short of it is this: i love my little girl, who is now a big girl.

vamos a otra aventura!

need i say more?

time for knives

the other day as i made soup for lunch while gracie took a nap downstairs, ella decided to pull up a chair and make soup for little bear.  so she grabbed her little knife and worked very hard to cut up some vegetables to put in her pan with water, salt and pepper.

it's not easy cutting with a butter knife.  i eventually grabbed out a sharp, little knife and helped her to cut up the carrots.  when do you start giving a kid a real knife to practice with?

elenora has really been enjoying her time with gracie, as we all have.  it's funny, but ella gets more independent when grace is around.  she is also very helpful--holding the bottle in grace's mouth while i open something, remembering to bring up one of "gracie's favorite toys" when i go upstairs, and sharing little bear with grace ("no, no gracie, little bear is not for the eating, he's for the playing").  we have relaxing, fun thursdays while gracie either joins us on elenora's bicycle adventures or for reading time on the couch, or while grace takes a nap and ella and i spend some quality time doing quiet things around the home (or running in the rain puddles with the monitor on the front porch, as we did this past thursday).  

elenora often says stuff about "when we have a baby..." for instance "when we have a baby, we can name her 'eelid'".  uh-huh.  sure.

i can't believe elenora turns 4 one week from now.

first full day of preschool

so once again j. got ella to preschool for her first day.  he says she did great and got right into the playdough with rose.

here she is leaving the house:

she told me that this was "Little Bear's first time going to school because last year he was still in my belly."

here she is at school:

rockport trip

i took elenora to rockport to enjoy the cool breeze and the warm sunshine for a sunday afternoon.  we met up with aurora and s. to go to the park and had a lovely time playing hide-and-go-seek.

my artist

here is some of ella's artwork from the past few months.

she went downstairs while i was cooking and drew this gorgeous picture of little bear one day.  i couldn't believe she thought to include even his paws.  i just love it.

this is a watercolor in which the storm clouds are moving in:

this is the rain coming down:

this is after the storm:

trees:

the artist herself:

she started writing out the alphabet and then decided to draw a picture of little bear:

here is the first time elenora wrote out the entire alphabet by herself:

here is the first actual portrait elenora's drawn.  momby was sitting by the window holding a ukulele.  she had a hot pink shirt on.  ella told mamaw "now don't move" and she set herself up in front of momby with a pencil and drew this portrait, being very careful to make the hair just the right length and to add the glasses.  then ella noticed that momby's hot pink shirt was reflecting up onto her face, so ella ran and got this pink highlighter and very meticulously added the shading to the picture.  i was so impressed that ella recognized that the sun was making the reflection primarily on the right side of momby's face, so that is where elenora put all the reflection on the picture.  i didn't tell her to do that.  she just has that artist's eye. (i drew the ukulele).