Happy 5th Birthday Princess

On Dec. 29, 2004, God gave Nick and I an incredible gift....a daughter. In the blink of an eye, she is turning five.  The Princess told me she doesn't want to get older because she doesn't want to leave me. She does, however, want to have a birthday party so she can have cake, ice cream and presents! LOL ♫ Happy Birthday to... you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday dear Princess. Happy Birthday to you! ♫

.....more later.....

Beach Time

We've had some unseasonably warm weather the last few days, so we took advantage of it and rode our bikes over to the beach.  Although sunny at our house, just a mile away at the beach it was foggy but that didn't stop E from having fun!

Daddy forgot the bike locks so we had to
bring our bikes onto the beach

E stretching, getting ready to play

"I'm going to dig to China and say hi to Kai Lan"

I need some water for my delicious Sand Soup

"Daddy, those are MY sand toys!"

Time to add the sand

Soups ready!

Time to play "Tag You're It" with daddy

I LOVE the beach!

I barely made it home.  As you can see in first picture, E's bike is attached to mine so when we ride, I'm pulling her.  Thankfully, she really pedals hard....good thing because my legs had NO strength in them.  I think it's time to look into getting E a new big-girl bike so she can ride all by herself (at least that's what my legs say..lol).

He Loves Me...He Loves Me Not!

E has such an imagination.  She is in love with Prince Eric from Little Mermaid.  A while back, she told me she and Prince Eric were getting married and they had a baby.  Whenever you ask where he is, she says "He's in the bathroom" or "He's taking a walk."  Sounds like the guy was trying to escape if you ask me.

This went on for a while.  So imagine my surprise when the other day she came to me, sat down by me and very solemly said "Mom, I am so sad." *her head bent down, clasping her hands, talking softly*   I asked her why and she said Prince Eric didn't want to marry her.  I told her I thought they were already married and she said "No, that was just a dream."

Now, being the quick thinker that I am, I responded. "Huh?"  She said that in fact they were not married nor did they have a baby.  But "Mom, I'm really sad right now. I wanted to marry Prince Eric. I want to have a real baby. I want to fall in love."

Again, my quick thinking provided this gem "Marriage isn't all it's cracked up to be."

Not to be detered by my sage wisdom, she said "I'm going to go call Eric and tell him how I feel."  Off to her room she skipped, put on her Princess Dress and made "The Call."  I could hear her in her bedroom, "but Eric, I LOVE YOU.  I want to marry you."

A few minutes later, she comes skipping out of her room, her demeanor completely changed  from five minutes before.  I asked her why she was so happy and she said "I talked to Prince Eric and he said wanted to marry me....tonight! He'll be here in two minutes."  Then a short minute or so later, she says "The hospital called to tell me I'm going to have a baby in a few minutes."  Huh??  This is all happening to fast.  My head is spinning.  Before I can come up with another good piece of advice, out she comes with her baby, wrapped in a blanket.  "Look mom. I have a daughter."

Why oh why can't she just be happy playing with some Lego and reading books like her brother was at this age? :o)
 

Happy Sixth Birthday Brother!

Today is E's big brother B's sixth birthday.  Even though he is not here to celebrate with us, we still celebrate with cake and ice cream and have a balloon release.  E made Ben a birthday card this year.  She really loves her brother, even though she has never met him.

E wishes B were here to go to the beach!

I asked E if she could say anything to B, what would she say.  She said "I love you Ben and I wish I could give you lots of hugs and kisses and noses (rubbing noses). I want to watch tv with you. Happy Birthday!"

"Mom, can I blow out Ben's candle and make a wish?"

"Sure honey."  "Mom, I wished Ben was here to play with me."

Six balloons for our boy!

On their way to Heaven

Okay, Mom, now what?

Can't wait until we are all together Benjamin!  We love you and miss you lots.

The Many Silly Faces Of.....

E.  She made every possible silly face before she would let me take one of her really smiling. 

 

 

 

 

She doesn't usually fall for the reverse psychology stuff anymore.  But, I told her "Do not to smile...no, DO NOT smile.  I told you NOT to smile, you're going to break my camera." Bingo......

Here's the money shot!

OK, so I'm biased but I just LOVE that face!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas.....

Last night we had a little Christmas Decorating pizza party, complete with Thin Crust Pizza Hut pizza, bread and their Hershey Dunkers.   Delicious!

After searching high and low for the legs for the stand of our Charlie Brown christmas tree, we got the tree setup and decorated.  One long strand of our tinsel was all tangled up and after spending eons 15 minutes trying to unravel it, I gave up, so the tree is tinsel lopsided.  Oh well.  Adds to the Charlie Brown-esqueness of the tree.

We had one of Santa's Helpers stop by and help consume massive quantities of pizza decorate the tree.  After about 30 minutes, she started asking for dessert.  Doesn't Santa feed his helpers up there at the North Pole?

Good thing Santa's Helper is so cute!

Daddy lifting Santa's Helper up to put an ornament on the tree

Daddy & Santa's Helper after finishing the tree

 

Our Charlie Brown Tree

My nutcracker collection

And when you can't sleep because the smoke alarm went off at 4:30am after the furnace turned on for the first time this year and burned off a bit of dust, and you tried to fall back asleep, but gave up after an hour or so, then get up and turn on the Christmas Tree lights and admire your Charlie Brown tree!

Today E Santa's Helper and I will put up the rest of the decorations while Nick is at work.  Then it will be time to start making some Christmas cookies. Now that is MY favorite thing to do!  How about you?

♪ Reunited and It Feels So Good ♪

E's daddy got home late last night. She took a long nap yesterday so I let her stay up to say hi to daddy and talk to him for a bit.  She gave him his Welcome Home letter containing a picture she colored for him from her Handy Manny coloring book.  Lots of hugs and kisses were exchanged and then we had some snuggle time on the bed before E drifted off to sleep around 10:30pm.  

I hoped E would sleep in today after staying up so late, but nope, she was up bright and early.  Grandma Marilyn sent home a few things for E to play with so we left them in her bedroom for her to find this morning.

Two things she loves....puzzles and jewelry.

Big thanks to Grandma Marilyn from The Princess!

♫Anticipation. An-ti-ci-pa-a-tion is making her wait♫

Tonight E's daddy comes home from WA.  He has been there to visit with family and attend his dad's memorial service and internment.  Although he has been gone for short periods of time before, this time when he left, E was inconsolable.  She cried and screamed and cried and did I mention scream?  I finally got her to calm down after an hour.  He left Tuesday afternoon and she has not cried since, but has said several times how she misses her daddy.  They have talked a few times a day on the phone which has really helped. 

First thing this morning, E got up and colored a picture for her daddy.  We put it in an envelope and on one side, she decorated it with stamps and flowers.  On the back she wanted me to spell out for her to write "Welcome Home Daddy.  I Missed You Very Much." 

 

He won't be home until she is already in bed but I told her I would wake her up so she could see him.  She asked me "So I can tell him how much I love him and missed him?"  Yes E....and I know he will tell you the same.

Two Thumbs Up . . .

followed by " I love it. I Love It. I LOVE IT!" That's what E said when I showed her the new blog layout.

The background/header is a shot of E in the pool....her favorite place to be next to the beach. We don't have solar heating in the pool so it will be a few more months before we get to use it again.

Wait, what is that sound I hear? Oh, yes, our friends from the North are never jealous moaning and gnashing their teeth while playing their little violins for us because we can't use our pool. LOL

That's ok. When it's 5° and snow is 10" deep, and your car won't start and you feel like you will never thaw out, just stop by here and look at my blog and you should get jealous warmed up rather quickly. I'll make sure to post lots more pictures of us enjoying the beach over the next few months to help with your cabin fever. Yeah, I'm real helpful like that!

Our New Thanksgiving Tradition?

Nick is working today.  He pretty much works all holidays as his company is open 365 days a year.  This generally means we don't celebrate holidays with other people like most do.  Today, we packed a few things in the car and drove to a place we have not been to in quite a while.  It is a place we love very much, so we decided to go today before Nick had to work. We'll have our Thanksgiving dinner tonight when he gets his dinner break around 5pm.  

Can you guess where we went? I'll give you a hint. There's lots of white stuff on the ground.

No.....we were NOT in the snow.  BRRRRRRRRRR.

Here's another hint. You could hear loud crashing noises.

No, we did NOT go to the speedway although it sometimes sounds like it on the main street here.

How about a photo hint.  Here's E and her daddy on a walkway to where we went.

Did you guess the beach?  You'd be right.  We LOVE the beach.  We only live a little over a mile from the ocean yet we have only been here a few times this past year.  We used to live here...well not RIGHT on the beach, but just a block away.  We really, really miss being close enough to just walk here anytime.

Yippee...we're here!

Taking a walk on the beach

E and an old rowboat on the beach

All that walking wore me out

Writing my big brother Ben's name in the sand

E braving the cold water

We had fun.  I think we'll do this again next year!