Ever in March

Ever started gymnastics at Oceanside Gymnastics in June 2018. They had a big showcase in March. Wrenzy was taking a class at that point, too, but was too little to participate. Ever had a lot of fun (both in class and at the showcase), and I had fun seeing her out there in her shiny pink leotard. I learned at the showcase, however, that if any of my girls want to continue with gym, Oceanside Gymnastics may not be the place to do it. Even their star pupils didn't have very impressive skills, and Amy Thompson said the place Lelei used to go to is way better.  Anyway, I got terrible videos of Ever on all the events.

Floor (she has the long ponytail and is behind the group of girls in the foreground):

Super exciting jump on the springboard:

Bars:

Beam:

Classic Ever faces:

Lelei and Ever:

I took Ever and Leela to Legoland once. (The arrangement when I bought Ever's season pass was that Anna would take her when she took Leela and Rafi, but I promised Ever as a reward that I would take her once. It turned out to be cheaper for me to get a season pass via a special deal than it was to buy a regular one-day pass, so I ended up getting a season pass. May have to go again a time or two before the year is out.) 

Ever tried the Raptor Climb, which Leela has a freakish ability to complete successfully 100% of the time.  Ever was not so successful, which upset her, but I had to cut her off after two tries because it costs extra.

I found this among some worksheets Ever brought home from school:

Does that mean she has some inkling of how much work it takes to feed children?

Ever collects things on her bed. I find so many clothes, books, stuffed animals, and random objects up there. One night I went to check on her and found playing cards spread out and her little light still on.

She did a PREP class (after school, at school) by Cadence Dance Project, and they did a performance at the end. She's in the back.

They did it twice, and Ever was not involved in a collision the second time. The second video was blurry, though, and I liked the above video better.

I had to get emo and cry a little bit at the performance, I think mainly because of the song choice. How sweet a little dancer is she?

Rafi, Naomie (friend from last year), Ever, Wren, Lelei, Leela, and Grace

Ever's Daisy troop camped at Camp Winacka.

Then they visited The Ecology Center in Encinitas.

Anna took the kids to Legoland again, where Leela won a gigantic banana for Ever at the Raptor Climb (so not a thing that I want to store at home).

The Littles in March

I took a lot of pictures of Tiny in undies in March because it's exciting and cute when they start wearing undies, and the wedgies are amazing.

At first I thought Tiny was going to be miraculously easy to potty train. She only had two accidents the first week. At the end of that week, I thought, "Are we done? Was that it?" But no, since then she's had plenty of accidents. It hasn't been super terrible, but it hasn't been as trouble-free as it originally seemed.

Tiny went to the dentist. 

Wrenzy and Tiny have no problem going to Jim and my dentist, so we never got a referral to a pediatric dentist.

Tiny read The Gunniwolf. I'm too lazy to try to edit this video. Note in the beginning how she refers to Little Girl as "Little Tiny" because that's how Jim reads it, to make it about Tiny.

I started reading lessons with Wrenzy, and she was excited about them. In the beginning of that Gunniwolf video, she said, "Maked one!" as she finished writing a letter. We got through some lessons but petered out as time went on. It's hard to find time. I'm hoping this summer we can do them regularly.

We have a ton of headbands the girls never wear. One day, though, Tiny and Wrenzy got into them, and we went on a walk with the littles looking quite fancy. 

There were a few other walks, too, when they were less fancy. The green was nice, and I like the yellow flowers (weeds?) down at the end of the cul de sac.

We went out with Matix when he was over for our semi-regular playdate. That's Matix in the lead and Wrenzy behind him.

When Kristi dropped Matix off that day, she gave us a size-6 dress that Ella doesn't wear anymore. Tiny was convinced it was for her. It almost worked as a full-length number.

Jim was very anxious to move Tiny into the triple bunk. I had concerns, but one night we did it. It was fun to see the girls together and felt like a momentous occasion. 

That began a horrible nightly ritual of nobody going to sleep and me threatening to move people and then me finally moving Tiny into the crib in the other room. Wrenzy was at least as much of a problem as Tiny was, I think because in the middle bunk she had access to both Ever above and Tiny below. There was lots of movement, lots of leaning over and talking to Tiny, lots of kicking Ever's bunk, etc. Tiny, of course, would also move around a bunch and talk. They just were not capable of settling down when Tiny was in there. After dealing with this for a while, we finally told them Tiny had to be booted back to her crib and could try again on her third birthday. The sad news is I don't think they'll be any better then, but we'll see. 

During Tiny's stint in the bunk bed, I took this pic after they finally fell asleep one night. It depicts a partially nude Wren and a Tiny who's halfway off her bed.

Sometimes we put Wren to bed fully clothed but later find her like this: 

The Monarch butterfly migration went through Oceanside this spring. I don't really know much about it other than that there were apparently two waves, and I've never seen so many butterflies in all my life. One day I looked out back and just saw hundreds of them flying through our yard. It was really neat. I took the littles out to watch them, but they didn't care that much. They were more interested in playing on the playset and jumping on the tramp.

The flowers on the other side of our fence were laden with butterflies, but they didn't show up in pictures.

The next day, Matix was over, and we walked up the street to see all the butterflies in the big tree and all over that slope of flowers just down from the tennis courts. On the way, Matix taught us about eating sour grass. Wrenzy was really into it.

The tree with all the butterflies:

We finished reading Charlotte's Web with Wrenzy and moved onto Roald Dahl.

The girl who checked us out at Target gave the girls stickers. In the parking lot, I looked down and saw that Tiny had chosen to wear one of hers right between the eyes.

This video isn't of much. I am keeping it as a snapshot of Wrenzy at this age.

Tiny gets attached to jammies and won't let them go, even when they're totally not acceptable anymore. Her "purple bird jammies" were size 18 months, so small and so holey, but she refused to retire them. Eventually I did it without her knowledge, and she only asked for them tearfully a few times afterward. 

Somehow these super-old hand-me-down jammies came into circulation:

They could not have been comfortable with her toes pushing through, but Tiny didn't want me to get rid of them, either. Again, I did it secretly anyway.

Last, Wrenzy wore Jim's sunglasses on the way home from church. 

Wrenzy Turned Four

For her fourth birthday in March, Wren wanted to have the Sorensons over because she's obsessed with Jacob and Brandon. Originally she and Tiny were all about Brandon, who is 14, but then Jacob, who is 10, got the top spot in their hearts. Her other requests were monkey bread, pesto noodles, unicorn cake, nail painting, show watching, piñata, and craft making (wands, I believe). As her birthday got closer, she seemed to forget about the craft part, and I didn't remind her. I wondered if I should have asked her about inviting peers for a party, but instead I encouraged the Sorenson family thing.

We had the Sorenson party on the Saturday before her birthday, March 16. I made the cake Friday, and then Ever helped me frost and decorate it Saturday. It was a bit ghetto but good enough for government work.

I kept dinner very simple - plain noodles, pesto noodles, or noodles with red sauce, plus salad and fruit, I think. I made the mistake of mixing the red sauce in before dinner and making the noodles mushy, so that was sad. 

For the first time in the history of our children, there were no tears during the piñata portion.

Jacob volunteered to do a magic show for us. He prepared in advance (Amber came upon his list of planned tricks some time before) and took it very seriously. He tried to start and then got super nervous and freaked out. He had to take a few minutes and practice and then start again. I felt bad because he really seemed to be cracking under this immense self-inflicted pressure. Once he got going, he did great. One of his tricks was actually really cool.

Cake time:

On Tuesday, March 19, JoAnn gave Wrenzy birthday brownies. 

Pod had meetings in Palm Springs that week and flew into San Diego on Wednesday morning (March 20). He hung out with us that day before driving to Palm Springs Thursday morning. He humored the littles with a matching game. 

I had to deliver monkey bread for Wren's birthday breakfast on Thursday. I got started on it way too late on Wednesday night. It turned out well, just before midnight.

On her birthday morning, Wrenzy opened her presents and enjoyed the monkey bread.

I didn't think I gave the girls really excessive servings of monkey bread, but Jim disapproved (and in every other circumstance ever, he gives them about ten times the sugar that I would). They ate it up and raved about it. When we got into the van for school drop-off, Tiny said she felt sick. I asked for clarification, and she said she needed to throw up. I didn't really believe her but took her inside to the bathroom. She didn't barf immediately, so I went into the kitchen to grab a bowl to take on the road. When I returned to the bathroom with the bowl to fetch her, she promptly threw up twice into the bowl. She was totally fine the rest of the day, so it had to have something to do with the volume of monkey bread or pace at which she ate it. Whoops. 

The girls watched a show that day (I think an episode of Pinkalicious), and at some point we squeezed in nail painting to finish off Wren's birthday wish list. They got ice cream after dinner, too.

Wrenzy remains a tiny wisp of a thing. At her four-year checkup, she weighed in at 28 lbs, 14 oz, which was the 5th percentile.  (Noah next door, who just turned two, weighs several pounds more than she does.) She was about 13th percentile for height. 

We call her a fruitarian because she eats so much fruit. Often she'll say she doesn't want it, but if you put a bowl of it next to her, she'll eat it all and ask for more. She is the slowest eater who ever lived and is not infrequently at the table for an hour after Jim and I are done. (It actually reminds me of her great-grandma Norma, except Wrenzy's not even talking while everyone else is eating; she's just that slow.) She eats peanut butter and honey sandwiches nearly every day for lunch. Quesadillas and pesto noodles are her other favorites. She is an aggressive and constant lover of Tiny, much to Tiny's dismay. She also loves her big sister and would sleep with Ever every night if I would let her. Our library of chapter books is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to her, and we're quickly making our way through it. She's sweet and wonderful, and we sure love her.

Things the Kids (and Jim) Have Said (and Done), Part 2

Arden, 12/16/18

While watching The Polar Express:

A:  What is the policeman?
Me:  That's not a policeman. That's the train conductor. He works on the train.
A:  Oh. When is his birthday gonna be? Maybe he's going to be 19 or 15 or 2 for his birthday.

While decorating the Christmas tree, she sat down with a little glittery shoe ornament and said, while trying to jam her foot in it, "Look, it fits!"

I always tell her she's so sweet, I have to eat her up. She offers me a cheek and says, "You can have this cheek."  While we were decorating the tree, we started having that conversation, but she said, "This one is for you, and this one is for Daddy. Then I'll be all gone." Sometimes she tells me both cheeks are for Daddy, but I can have her hair. There's some variation.

Arden, regularly

Tiny says that when she puts on her jammies, she becomes a little baby. She says babies don't have names; they're just called little babies. If she's in her jammies and I call her "Tiny Angel" or "my little, tiny baby," she corrects me and says she's not "Tiny," she's a little baby. Every single time she puts on pajamas, we have these conversations. "I'm about to become a little, tiny baby!" (For some reason, she can refer to herself as a "little, tiny baby," but if I say that, she hears "little Tiny baby," and that's wrong because it's a name.) When we finish getting her jammies on, she exclaims triumphantly, "I'm a little baby!" It is so incredibly cute. Jim just ordered a two-pack of footie jammies to try to replace the falling-apart, too-small, size-18-month "purple bird jammies" that Tiny's been living in for months. Now Wren wears one of the new footie jammies, and Tiny wears the other, and they both become little babies.

If Tiny is playing with a doll and you ask her what her dolly's name is, she'll say babies don't have names. (Wren, in contrast, names all her things "Sweet Rose.")

Wren, regularly

Wren is a little confused about blowing kisses. She gives us the sweetest, lightest kisses on our cheeks and then does a little blow. So cute.

Wren, January 2019

At dinner, Wren asked Heavenly Father to bless that the food would "healthy us."

Another day, in the car: "Mommy, I finished pretending to read Jack and Annie already! I did it so quickly!" (Ever's recently read a bunch of The Magic Treehouse books, starring characters named Jack and Annie. As in, Ever read five of them in a few days. Anyway, Wren found one in the car and fake read it as we drove.)

Arden, January 2019

When the girls were in our bed one morning, Jim asked Tiny what she wanted for breakfast. She said, "It's gonna be Hunchy Bunchies with watermilk and watermilk in a cup."

She had a virus that was gunking up her eyes. Sometimes they were stuck shut in the morning, so I'd clean out the "junk," as we called it. One morning she asked, "How did the junk get in the door, up the stairs, and into my eyes?"

Arden, 2/4/19

Wren was at the table. Tiny moved chairs, and as she climbed up onto the one next to Wren, she said, "Wrenzy, I have to sit by you because I like you."

She was holding the Friend magazine while I was changing her diaper and found Wren's favorite story, which involves a shark. She started reciting the story: "When I was little, we were in Mexico with another family..." Then she said, "I'm very good at telling the shark story. I'm learning how to be a mommy, a really big mommy. I'm learning how to read the shark story."

Wren, 2/4/19

To Tiny, during dinner:  "Jesus is special, and you cannot forget it. He is our big brother."

Wren, 2/6/19

"Heavenly Father, bless that we'll do good things today and that all the food will strengthen and healthy us. Bless that we won't do anything bad. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

Arden, 2/6/19

Wren went outside while Arden and I were finishing lunch. Arden asked if there coyotes. I said, "Yes, but I'm watching her so I can keep her safe." Tiny said, "When I am outside, I will keep her safe from the coyotes that take little people. I will keep her safe so they don't take her away or put her in jail."

Wren, 2/13/19

"Dear Heavenly Father, please bless that there will be no bad things, only good things, and if there's bad things, please forgive us. Please bless that this food with strengthen and healthy us. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

Arden, 2/21/19

As I was putting her footy jammies on, "I'm going to be a little baby! I won't be Tiny anymore. Bye-bye, Tiny."

Arden, 2/28/19

Saying our morning prayer, "Thank thee that we can have a nice day. Can Jesus save us." It was more of a statement than a question.

Jim, probably sometime in 2018

Today, March 2, Ever found a really old post-it note on which I'd written various things, one of which was this quote: "I love you, too, honey. We're parasites, though. We live in a trash dumpster." That is sleep-talk by Jim.

Wren and Tiny, regularly

Wren and Tiny think Vaseline is called "gasolina," pronounced Spanish-style, like "gas-oh-lee-nuh." (Apparently they were talking to JoAnn about it, and she told them gasoline is for cars.) Wren has been saying "I need gasolina" all the time because her lips have been so dry.