The Rest of March

Tiny likes to hold all the groceries when we go shopping. It's not too much of a problem in Target, except that Wren is usually in the other section of the cart fighting to hold everything, too. In Sprouts or Frazier Farms when we're shopping for produce, it's not my favorite because then she drops fruit through the holes in the cart and ruins it.

Ever went to a birthday brunch for Lelei Thompson. A pancake birthday party is a dream come from for Missy Leigh. Talila (Lelei's teenage sister) texted me this picture:

(Aside: Ever's front left tooth got super wonky as it got looser, and it started sticking out. That's why her front teeth look crazy in some of these pictures.) Tyson (Lelei's dad) had made a gigantic pancake with the last of the batter. He said it filled up the whole plate, and he didn't think anyone would eat it. He offered Ever $1 if she finished it, and she took the thing down. Tyson couldn't believe it. I told her she can out-eat any man when it comes to chocolate chip pancakes.

The biggers got on a dance kick. They got dressed together, and Ever did Wren's hair.

The girls wanted to paint. I strongly suggested reading because it's easier and cleaner, but I let them prevail.

Wrenzy's crack is my fave.

As I was saying about cleanliness...

I don't know how this happened:

Lovely notes from Ever:

Wrenzy became, very briefly, one of those little girls who wears princess dresses everywhere. She didn't let the attire slow her down on the climbing wall.

This was the next day at the doctor's office:

Later in the month,Tiny got in on the action. The sight of the two Elsas in the yard was just too much for me. The cuteness.

Wrenzy also wore an Elsa dress to the Rondos' annual Easter party/egg hunt, but it was covered by a flannel so no one could really tell.

Sometimes when we go late to BASE (the before-school program), Tiny holds hands with Leela across campus. Then Ever gets jealous, and this happens:

Bear held the door on our way back through the office:

I took this picture only to remind me of the time I offered to watch Lindsay Hughes's son, Koben, who is a tiny toddler, and let him flip over our back fence and roll halfway down the hill:

The pic does not capture how steep that hill is. I was only a couple feet away, cleaning the mat around the tramp, when he toppled. I kept thinking, "Surely he'll stop rolling," but he was like a little rag doll. Thank heavens he stopped eventually. If he'd crashed in the concrete ditch, I don't even know what would have happened. My biggest regret is telling Lindsay what happened in graphic detail, especially since, as Melanie Karner pointed out when I told her about it, that Lindsay has been plagued by severe postpartum depression and anxiety since Koben was born. I really wish I'd just said that he fell off our fence but was fine. Honest to a fault, I am.

More notes from Ever. It really doesn't get any better than being your daughter's "fafrite prsin in the hl wrld."

Ever lost another tooth. She put it in an envelope, on which she also wrote a note:

I can't remember if I've explained on the blog how Ever got really into the Tooth Fairy and wanted to go out with her on her nightly rounds. There were multiple notes. When she first started losing teeth, she was completely convinced she saw the Tooth Fairy a couple of times. She even described her appearance. I thought since she was imagining so much, she could easily imagine that she'd gone out with her one night. For some reason, though, she wouldn't go that far. She got disappointed and a little bitter that the Tooth Fairy wasn't taking her. Anyway, the night she wrote the note pictured above, the Tooth Fairy didn't just not take her out; she didn't even show up to take her tooth and leave money. Big whoops. Ever came into our room the next morning to tell us that the Tooth Fairy hadn't come, and I said maybe she had just been really busy that night. Then the following night, I left this note, which I thought was quite good:

Jim said not to address the whole may-I-go-out-with-you thing, but I thought the subtle invitation for her to imagine that she'd gone out with the Tooth Fairy was pretty clever. Unfortunately, Ever did not bite. She even figured out that the Tooth Fairy had just said that to get out of taking her. Perhaps this whole debacle contributed to her concluding in May that the Tooth Fairy is not real. Is she super smart, or is it all my fault? Hmm...

This Easter involved a lot of egg hunts. We had to take a bunch of candy-filled eggs to the Rondos' party. Ever had to take eggs for an Easter egg hunt at school. We'd been invited to a hunt organized by a friend in the ward. Lastly, I'd invited our neighbor friends, the Cikaneks, over for Easter dinner, and Rebecca and I planned to do a little Easter egg hunt with Nathan and our girls. Ever and Wren made a little egg-filling factory, which pleased me. They made short work of it. 

The girls really like "Llama, Llama" by Anna Dewdney. One day the littles were really excited to watch an episode of the T.V. show. Tiny, of course, stopped excitedly saying "Llama, Llama" when I started filming.

Since then, she has started pronouncing the "l" sound at the beginning of "llama" with a Spanish accent, like "Zhama, Zhama" (I don't know how to spell that). It's really cute.

I love the schoolwork Ever brings home. The way she sounds things out tickles me.

The kindergartners do an Easter parade every year. They donned these amazing hats they made and walked around the school while the teachers played the song "Easter Parade."

Wrenzy put her hand on Tiny's back as they tried to catch up to the kindergartners.

Someone there had a small "bella" (dog), and the girls did some petting. Please help them never to want us to get a dog.

For the egg hunt, each kid was assigned a number and had to look for the eggs with that number on it.

Wren slipped into a photo of Ever with her girlfriends Aviana, Leela, and Emily. Ever's other good friend from their class, Grace, isn't pictured.

Tiny was saying, "That's weird" over and over until I took out my phone. Then I had to prompt her.

Anna picked the kids up from school one day and took them to scooter around the harbor, where they saw seals. I didn't know seals go there because I don't get out much.

They went to The Privateer for dinner because Leela is super picky and their pizza is the only pizza she likes.

Another day Anna had Ella and Ever over to swim. Anna said there was drama over swimsuit selections and she was going to lose it, but it turned out OK in the end. I don't know what it is about having playdates with more than two kids, but they've always been a disaster in my experience. Anna fed the kids, too, which was very nice. They've got a great backyard setup.

Wrenzy Turned Three

On March 21, Wrenzonamous turned three. She opened her presents from us that morning: her very own rolly and a bag of notecards, paper, post-its, and a couple of binders to keep her drawings in. All of these things were purchased by Jim, and I have to say - it's lovely to have a husband who participates in the gift shopping.

That night we had the Wilson/McEwan fam over for pizza and dessert. To this day, Wrenzy answers with her fingers (up one at a time) when she's asked how old she is. It's very cute. In this video, she added a verbal "thee."

Wrenzy opened presents.

We had ice cream, cookies, and, for those who wanted, ice cream cookie sandwiches. I wasn't sure how the cookie recipe I chose to use would work in sandwich format. As I feared, the cookies were very hard until they'd sat out and warmed up for a minute. I was glad I'd only frozen a few sandwiches so I knew to try something else next time. It was really hard to get a candle into the cookie for this terrible blowing-out-candles pic:

Ever's remote-control helicopter made an appearance. It pretty much only comes out when the Wilsons come over for birthdays. Ever began landing it in Brody's hand, which was a fun game.

The following Saturday, March 24, we had a few people over for a friend party. Wren wanted to invite Ella and Lelei, who are Ever's friends. Wren thinks they're her friends, which is cute. At my suggestion, we included Matix - Ella's brother who is actually Wren's age and Wren's friend. So in the end we had them, the Karners, and Nathan and Noah Cikanek. Luc and Amelie Oddou were busy with family in town, so they couldn't make it.

Wren wanted chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream for her birthday. To make it a little more exciting, I made chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream sandwiches, thereby avoiding the hard-cookie issue. This was another experimental birthday treat. I thought they were quite delicious, and they were mostly eaten by the kids, unlike the cupcakes I made for Ever's fifth birthday.

I don't know what happened, but Wren started crying hysterically right around the time we began singing to her. Why does the birthday girl always have to cry at her party? She managed to get it together in time to blow out her candle.

The kids enjoyed playing baseball (aka, taking turns hitting). I think getting out the baseball stuff was Ever's idea, and it started a stint of her wanting to play all the time. She was going out with Jim in the evenings whenever she could, and she got pretty good.

Then we did the traditional pinata and opened presents.

After everyone left, Ever spent some time riding her scooter out back while Jim used Wren's new bubble blower. It was an idyllic scene.

Wrenzy continues to be the most darling little sprite there ever was. At her three-year checkup, she weighed in at 26 lbs, 7 oz (ninth percentile) and was in the sixth percentile for height. She has an angel face and the most adorable expressions, and I love the way she talks with her hands. She sometimes plays so well with Tiny, whom she calls "Tiny Boo," taking care of her and talking sweetly to her as if she's much younger. Other times she takes things away from Tiny and makes her cry. She is all over Tiny, holding her hand, hugging her, pulling her to wherever she wants her to go, trying to get her to play what she wants her to play. Lately she's been trying to get Tiny to go camping with her all the time. Tiny does not usually like it, so there is crying over that, too.

Wrenzypoo-lovey has the cutest speech impediments. She has a tongue thrust on her s's when they're in the middle of words, but when words start with s's, she usually turns them into d's. She makes f's into d's, too. "Sleep" sounds like "deep." "Fork" sounds like "dork." She says the "ar" sound like "ow," so "car" sounds like "cow," and "Arden" sounds like "Owden." She pronounces "toilet" sort of like "talet." I love the way she talks.

She's a good helper. She and Tiny excel at dishwasher unloading. Every time I start cooking, she asks if she can help. She also likes to help Jim in the yard. She loves Curious George. Jim recently bought her a couple of collections of Curious George stories, and they've been a hit. She always wants to be read to and requests stories while she eats. She misses Ever when she's gone. She's flexible and does jumps and spins and forward rolls. I have high hopes for her gymnastics career. She's just a delight, and we eat her up.