Our girls are just dang adorable.
I usually do updates every birthday and/or half birthday about how they're growing, things they're doing, what they're saying, etc, but they've just been growing up so much lately that I've gotta write some of this stuff down.
Let's start with Miriam. She is adorable. Lately, she's all about lee-ow. Don't know what lee-ow is? Let me enlighten you. In the movie Frozen, there's a little song called "Let it Go". If you completely slur the words together, it sounds like "lee-ow". Miriam uses lee-ow to mean any princess thing. If she screams lee-ow it means that she wants to wear a princess dress (any dress is a princess dress) or a princess crown or princess shoes, or she wants princess hair. Nearly every day she only wants to wear a dress (she's learned to say the word dress, but she still calls them lee-ows) and she wants to change into a different dress 3-5 times a day. Got to get in as many princess things in one day as possible. It also isn't unusual for Miriam to throw a fit when you try to take off her clothes and get her into pajamas - because it's not as beautiful. She's also uses lee-ow to describe things that are beautiful. Whenever I get dressed up nice she says, "Mama!! Lee-ow!!" while stroking my skirt or something. The other day she starting crying after she saw me get dressed in a dress because I wouldn't take it off and let her wear the beautiful lee-ow. Silly baby.
The funny thing is is that I have no idea where she got this fascination with princesses! We don't have a ton of dress ups, we don't watch a ton of princess movies..... it's bizarre. The girls hardly ever watch a full length movie, and our favorites are The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Mulan, etc. It's bizarre.
Miriam is learning a crazy amount of words. Every day she says a couple new words that I've never heard her say before. It's super fun. A fun thing that Evette likes to do is to teach Miriam new words. "Miriam, can you say 'railroad tracks'?" "ray-rood tacks!" It's my favorite thing to hear them go back and forth like that. Sometimes though, it's a bit difficult to understand what Miriam is saying, even with all her new words. Evette sometimes says "Miriam! I don't even know what you are saying......"
She LOVES babies. Loves loves loves babies. We have a few friends who just had babies and she is obsessed. She loves to hold them and pet their little heads and give them kisses. Loves babies. She also loves baby flowers. With it being spring time and all, our garden is right on the brink of exploding in flowers. All of our rose bushes are covered in buds and every time we get into the car and walk past the roses and other flowers she yells, "MOM!!! More baby flowers! Three-three-three-three!!!" That's how she counts. She goes and touches all of them and talks to them. It's adorable.
She's looking and acting like such a big kid lately. She's running around and playing with Evette. They've grown into the sweetest friends. We do have cat fight every now and again, but for the most part, they're great play mates. Evette calls to Miriam, "Memes! Do you want to play legos with me?" "YEAH!" "Ok! Let's go!" and they run off to the playroom together. Miriam is a champ with legos and duplos. She's also learned how to use scissors and is working on those fine motor skills. She's working hard to keep up with the big kids! She's also recently mastered jumping with both feet leaving the air, so that's fun for her on the trampoline - she can hold her own with the big kids!
Miriam has a hard time waking up from naps and sometimes in the morning. Usually after a nap it takes Miriam a half hour to an hour to be pleasant. She usually just koala clings on to me for a good long time after she wakes up. Evette is a morning person and wakes up early and happy and energetic as can be. Sometimes she tries to wake Miriam up in the morning and she gets super grumpy. It's not unusual for Miriam to come into our room crying and Evette come in bounding with energy. Miriam climbs into bed with me and Sean and Evette go make some breakfast.
Miriam is a doll.
Evette adores Miriam. Evette frequently says things like "Mom, Miriam is just too cute right now. Take a picture of her." "Miriam, you are just so adorable". She super loves her baby sister. She helps her learn new words, sings her songs, and reads her books. They are sweet friends. During nap time we have issues sometimes with actual sleeping. Most the time they just love to play together and read books. I frequently walk in on them during nap time sitting on the same bed reading together. Evette has so many books nearly memorized she does a great job reading them to Miriam.
Evette is all of a sudden a big kid. She's so smart and responsible and inquisitive. She asks so many smart questions that just astound me. She's very curious about why people do what they do. She tries to understand other people's perspective, which is really mature of her. She also is all about rules lately. For example, when Miriam is fussy about what we're eating for dinner Evette will say, "Miriam, at our house, we try new food. Right, mom?" or if friends don't want to clean up toys when they're done playing she'll say "At our house, we have to clean up our toys. Those are the rules, right Mom?" Right, baby girl.
Evette is a fabulous eater. She makes me feel like a million bucks. After every dinner (no exaggeration) she'll say, "Mom!! This food is so delicious - thank you! We should have this more often!" She hardly ever, almost never, complains about food at all. And even if she doesn't like a particular element, which is rare, she'll just pick it out. It's really amazing.
Evette loves to do "food math". Sometimes when we're driving we'll do some food math. If you have six cupcakes and eat two, how many do you have left? She's a smart kid and we've even incorporated a little bit of fractions and multiplication as well. Smart kid.
She loves to color. Lots of crayons, color pencils, scissors, glue... all sorts of projects. So many pictures. She had a little breakdown the other day when she realized that I don't keep every single piece of art work. We keep some for a while, mail others, send them to friends, etc. I love seeing the things that she draws and how she interprets her world.
She learned how to ride her bike about a month ago and she is killing it. She is so fearless and wants to go on family bike rides all the time. She's gotten really good at listening to us while we're riding so she can slow down at intersections and such. It's fun to go on big adventures like that. She rides her bike and Miriam is strapped to my bike and off we go. She's not quite independent enough yet for me to venture on a "big" bike ride alone with the girls. Since I have Miriam on my bike I can't really set down my bike to go help her, but we're getting there.
Evette and Miriam both love to help cook and prepare meals. Evette is pretty great with a knife and they like stirring and measuring things. Evette recently has wanted to make dinners and lunches on her own. It's pretty fun. She makes me go to a different room and she pulls out things for lunch. She'll grab some hard boiled eggs, some snap peas, ranch dressing, and string cheese and be so proud of herself. And it's nice for me, as well.
This fall, Evette starts TK. Don't know what TK is? Neither does 99% of people. In California, a few years back they changed the starting date for Kindergarteners. They moved it from needing to be 5 years old on Oct 1 to being 5 years old on September 1. So to placate the parents, they started TK, or Transitional Kindergarten. It's for kids who turn 5 between Sept 1 - Dec 1 and barely miss the Kindergarten cut off. It's the same hours as Kindergarten, at an elementary school (luckily for us, our TK elementary school is the same school that Evette will be going to for the rest of her elementary years), with a certified teacher. It's going to be great for her! It's basically an extra year of Kindergarten. She's stoked about it and I'm excited for her to start school, she's such a smart kid she'd be so bored staying home with me for another year.
Evette loves chapter books. It's her new favorite thing. She will 9 times out of 10, pick a chapter book for us to read. We've gone through Charlottes Web, Witches, Way side school house, Judy Moody, and we've recently started the Laura Ingolls books. Her attention span and memory for this big kids books is incredible. I love love love her love of reading. She's my little book worm.
chapter books
The girls are wonderful and growing so fast. I love them. They are my sunshine.
