Pumpkin Patch 2009

Alternate Title: Almost Wordless, Barely Still Wednesday

Whoa... it's almost Christmas and I still haven't posted our favorite Pumpkin Patch pictures!! Enjoy the slide show for what's left of Wordless Wednesday... this little trip was so long ago I don't remember much to write about it anyway.

Swimming and Jumping

Ella can swim everywhere now. She jumps, slides, swims... you name it. She is completely capable but still very cautious, and I like it that way!

Neither Maggie nor Kate can swim a lick without their swimmies on, and yet they are jumping off the diving board and swimming all around the pool. It is great fun to watch, so I thought I'd share a short video.

Sarah is much more cautious than the other 3 in the water. It could be because of her scare earlier in the summer, but I think more than likely it is just her personality. She may rule the roost in general, but she is much more timid physically than Maggie and Kate. They are climbers, movers, and shakers.... she's content to think about something with her feet solidly on the ground level and much less eager to exercise and play out of control.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I'll probably manage to get caught up on all my backlogged blogging tales next week. My vacation will be over, but I think I'm looking forward to the routine as much as Scott is looking forward to flying again.

Campmeeting 2009

I was a little lax this year and didn't carry my camera around with me all the time, but I still got some cute photos of the kiddos at Campmeeting last week.

We only attempted to spend the night once, and after coming home at 11:15 pm I determined we would wait until next year to try that again.

Not staying the night didn't mean any less fun for the four silly sisters though. They made it to children's time every morning at 10am, and we ate dinner and went to the evening service most every night once we were all finally well.

What's not to love about sandy playgrounds, wonderful fellowship with family and friends, and home made ice cream every night!?! We're already looking forward to next year!!

Heaven Is a Wonderful Place

Our Kay-Kay who comes over every morning to help me start the day with the girls (breakfast, dressing, etc), used to be the children's choir director at our church when I was a wee little thing. She taught us all kinds of fabulous songs... tons of which are still in my repertoire. I sing to the girls a lot. Ella definitely has her favorites. This morning she requested one that has not been on her favorites list ever...until today. I sang it through once, and since that time I suppose I've heard it sung 1,000 times. Fortunately, that made it easy for me to capture on video so Ella's "best-est friend" Campbell will be able to watch it that many times or more tomorrow! My apologies to Campbell's mom Heather in advance~

Without further ado, here is Ella singing Heaven Is a Wonderful Place. Enjoy!



Sorry the clip is so short. Even though the singing went on all day long, it was tough to get it on video without the babies yelling in the background or something. The words to the song go like this: "Heaven is a wonderful place, filled with glory and grace. I want to see my Savior's face, 'cause Heaven is a wonderful place." It has a very catchy tune that you may not be able to pick up on from this particular rendition. You may notice that she says "filled with Gloria and grace" instead of glory and grace... I presume this is because of her favorite book, Officer Buckle and Gloria. At the tender age of three she is already acquainted with Gloria, and is as yet unaware of what glory may be. I love her sweet little voice... but, who knew it sounded so very Southern?!?

One of the prayers I have for the girls is that they will all learn to "make a joyful noise unto the Lord", in their own unique way. Ella is blessing us daily with her efforts, and what an example she is setting for Maggie, Kate, and Sarah. After I finished videoing her this afternoon, each of the little ones took a turn "singing" their favorites. I got a short bit of Jesus Loves Me, some of the Bible, and I'm still not sure what the third one was, but it was all wonderful music to this Mommy's heart.

The B-I-B-L-E

Ella's new favorite song is the B-I-B-L-E. She sings it lots! There is nothing sweeter than hearing her sing every word in her nice voice, but unfortunately I've only been able to video her singing the hyped up, yelling version. Enjoy!

Miss Independence

I've heard about the phenomenon where after a child turns two some switch is flipped and they suddenly begin talking and understanding on a much different level than before. I personally didn't expect to experience this because E is already so much of a talker... her nickname is "Chatty Cathy" after all. However, over the last three days she has been in an almost stream of consciousness like state... if it crosses her mind, it comes out of her mouth, and I'm frankly amazed at the things that are crossing that little mind of hers! She has been incredibly independent, interactive, willful (what 2 year old isn't), and even lots of the time helpful. Yesterday morning, as I was feeding all the babies, I had M's bottle propped and E informed me that she was going to hup me. She looked down at M, grabbed her bottle from her, and said, "You're not huppin' M. It's not your job. You're not da big sista." Later, she was eager to call her Gamma but she wasn't home. When Scott asked if she wanted to try again she said, "No- too bad, so sad!" There have been 1,000 other little things over the last few days, but of course I can't recall them at the moment. So I've included a short video of little miss independence who, after picking out her own jammies and brushing her own teeth, wanted to blow dry her own hair tonight before bed... the look on her face was too funny!

New Tricks

This afternoon Ms. Faye and I took all the girls for a walk. It was pretty hot out there, so when we got home I filled E's water table and put the babies in the new plastic pool that Mimi got them without any water in it... thanks Mimi. E stripped down and thoroughly enjoyed playing with her water and boats while the babies played with a pool full of toys. I decided to test out the video capabilities of both the camera and the blog this afternoon... we've got lots going on these days, and I want to be able to post the occasional video. The one we made today is of E telling her ho nam (or whole name) . About a month ago an older couple with grandchildren at a playground was talking with her and asked what her name was. She replied, "E S Chatty Cathy B". She has certainly got the Chatty Cathy part right! I believe she even added Elizabeth Ann to her name as well the second time that she said it on video today... who knows why? Anyway just wanted to test it out... look for more videos in the near future.

I believe E becomes more of a girly girl with every day... I'm not saying she doesn't occasionally play hard or get dirty, but she truly notices and appreciates all things feminine. For instance, she loves to put on make-up and nail polish, have fashion shows, pretend she is Miss Amanda and Miss Amegan (her name is actually Megan)- the two gals who have cut her hair at the salon, she loves Ms. Debbie's lipstick and never fails to notice what color she is wearing on her weekly visit, she has quite a thing for shoes...i.e. her comment regarding a new pair of crocs at Christmas, "Oh, Mimi. Did you shind these at Belks?". Anyway, yesterday morning she told me that my legs were grouchy. I'm pretty sure she meant scratchy. Next thing I know she'll be telling me when my hair needs color and my eyebrows need attention! I must say that raising a girly little girl is proving to be quite fun, even for a tomboy like me.

In other news.... M has been pulling up to her knees all day long, and tonight (while I wasn't looking, of course) she pulled up to standing all by herself on the side of her crib! Fortunately Miss Kelli and Ms. Nancy were there to witness the feat. It is really going to be nuts around here in a couple of months with babies crawling, pulling up, and toddling all around. Yikes!!!!!!!!