She still has style!

I was really proud of her for getting a shirt that matched her skirt. Then she went overboard when I asked her to change into pants because it was cold outside. She got leggings and a jacket and figured that was good. She made her own headband by clipping her bows on the headband. And "remember, Mom, spots go with spots!"

Will she ever learn?

"But I ran out of paper Mom." Just the other day, I noticed a black circle on Nathan's head. I worried about it for a minute wondering what in the world would make such a perfect circle on a baby's head. Then I remembered that Allie was coloring near where Nathan was laying. I asked her about it and sure enough, we had to have another conversation about what kinds of things we can color on. Honestly...coloring on your baby brother?!? Come on girl!

I told you the girl likes snowmen...

This was first thing in the morning when I told her the snow conditions might be good for a snowman. She wouldn't get dressed, or wait for me to come out with her...

"Look mom!"

"I made them clothes!"

Never has a roll of toilet paper bought a better hour!

Allie's new look

We thought the movie Tangled was a cute show, but I think it is doing some of us mothers a dis-service. Long hair like Rapunzel is easier said than done. "Tangles" don't just easily come out, and even if you wanted it to, it doesn't grow to be so pretty and healthy looking.
Mike has been asking me to cut Allie's hair for months now. She cries when we brush it and cries when we wash it, and cries when she gets gum stuck in it (it happens more than you would think). Her hair breaks easily and it has been looking straggly for a while now. We have been trying to talk her into a cut, but it hasn't been easy. Then when her friend Lily got a cute new bob, it opened the door to the possibility.
Mike didn't waste any time. He made her an appointment with our friend Syndee, and now she has a new look!

She loves it. I love it, but most importantly Mike loves it. I think it's funny that he has always had such an opinion on her hair.

We haven't tried styling it yet, but I think it's going to be a cute look even without it.

So...there she is!

***I have several posts that are scheduled to come out over the next few weeks (if you haven't noticed, I just do huge batches and set them to post every few days). Anyway, Allie's hair will be long in the pictures because they are old pictures. Just thought I'd let you know... :) ***

Allie: "Mom, are you laughing at me?"

Me: "No, I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you."

Allie: "...but I'm not laughing..."

So ready for a baby brother...

This girl can hardly wait for March. She has been asking daily if my belly is big enough for the baby to come out yet. Yes, the belly is big enough, no the baby isn't big enough:)

Anyway, my friend Natalie came by to visit last week and brought her new little baby Callie. Allie was excited to hold her. She pushed her in the swing, wiped the spit bubbles off her mouth frequently, let us know if she was crying or upset, and even gave her all her favorite toys to play with.

She is going to be such a great big sister. What am I saying, she is already a great big sister. Allie remembers Sam in her prayers every day. She prays that he will have a good day up in heaven. She always notices when Sam's song is on the radio or tells me if they sing it in church. She is always saying that she is glad this baby has a healthy heart so he can stay here with us.

I'm sure there will come times when she won't find her new little brother so exciting, but I really do think she will be the best big sister in all the world.

Conversation at the bathroom scale...

Allie: "Mom, can I see how much numbers I have?"
Me: "Sure"
Allie: "Wow! I'm at the 40!"
Me: "Yep! That means you are 40 pounds."
Allie: "Can we see your numbers?"
Me: "Sure"
Allie: "Mom! That's a lot of numbers!"

Yes. Yes it is...

More baby misconceptions

Allie was checking out her belly button and said "that's where the baby's cord comes out". I told her she was right. Then she said "it's a good thing our baby has one of those". Thinking she meant that it gives him all his food, blood, etc. I agreed.
After a minute she said "he has that cord so he won't need a life jacket when he is swimming around in all that water in your belly".
Yep...that's exactly why he needs it. Oh, that girl makes me laugh.

Oh, the things you can blame on your younger self...

Me: (Using my angry voice). “Allie Susanne!”
Allie: (Coming cautiously) “Why did you say my name like that?”
Me: (showing her the “artwork” I found on the side of the dresser in her room.) “What is that?”
Allie: “Crayon.”
Me: “Who did it?”
Allie: (Showing her 2 little fingers) “I did that when I was 2. Not 4.”
Me: “So you did it before you knew better?” (which could really be last week)
Allie: Nodding
Me: “What do we color on?”
Allie: “Paper. When I was a baby, I guess I forgot.”

Dolfin babies

Since I have c-sections, childbirth is relatively easy to explain to our kids. You just go to the hospital and the Doctor cuts open mom's belly and gives you the baby. Easy peasy.
Today, Allie was playing with her baby dolphin and said "Mom, do baby dolphins hatch from eggs?" I said that they grow in their mommy's tummy.
Then she said "Well then how do they get them out?" I wasn't ready to answer so I just shrugged my shoulders (my common practice evasion technique).
She smiled and said "It's funny, I bet they have doctors that are dolphins and they come and cut the baby out."
...Yep, that's exactly how it happens.

A mid-day snack...

Hatched

Tonight I needed just a few things at the grocery store. The kids both wanted to come, so I thought I'd add to the torture by letting them each push one of the little shopping carts. They didn't do too bad, but they usually like to get into races and it can get pretty crazy.
As I was putting eggs in Allie's cart, I told her she needed to be extra careful because she had the eggs. I went to put milk in Jake's cart and next thing I know, Allie has dropped the carton of eggs on the floor. I guess she wanted to take them out and put them back in the cart herself. One of the eggs came out and rolled on the floor. Luckily none of the eggs broke.
Allie said "Mom! I dropped them and one of the eggs almost hatched! We are so lucky that they didn't!"

Garbage

I always sing this song to Allie...
“You’re my gal, I’m your mom,
I don’t care if we live in a garbage can.
I’m your mom, you’re my gal,
I’m so glad that we are pals”

In case you wanted details, it’s in an Aquabats song called Red Sweater that I used to listen to in high school and instead of “mom” it’s supposed to say “man” so it all rhymes, but I have always sung it to her this way. Then today, Allie asked “what would happen if we lived in a garbage can?” At first I didn’t know what she was talking about because I just sing the song without thinking of the words. Then I laughed and asked her what she thought would happen. She said “That big arm would lift us up and we would get dumped into the big garbage truck. That wouldn’t be very comfy.”
No…I guess I would care if we lived in a garbage can.
Regardless, I am so glad that we are pals.

Tea Party

When your big brother is away at school and there isn't anything to do because mom is cleaning, it's time for a tea party. The best people to invite are the ones who can't say "no"...

I love how she tried to match all the spoons and plates with the colors she thought each toy would like best.

We have had lots of tea party's (or as Dad likes to say "Pea Tardy's" to drive Allie crazy) at our house since Christmas. I am a little tired of finding dishes strewn all over the house, but she enjoys it so much that it makes it okay. I am also glad that we talked her into loving pretend water instead of real water. The pretend water doesn't ruin nice things:)

Home School Pre-school

That's what Allie calls it. A few months ago we got together with two other girls her age and decided to have pre-school at home with them. We had a good thing going on our own, but I didn't mind trading off with the other moms and sending her out the door a few days a week too.
Allie has loved it.
This cute picture is from the day they worked on "H" and did a hair theme.


Last week when it was at our house we had the letter "I" and I made them icee's in our little blender thing. I guess they were pretty good and they were totally excited by the whole process of it. One of the girls, Maryn, could hardly contain her enthusiasm and said "Now you might be our new favorite teacher instead of Hannah's mom!"
I thought that was pretty funny and if I can be the favorite just by making a snow cone...come on over!

More Names

Allie and I were driving around in the car the other day and we came to talk about names for the baby. She was suggesting her favorite again (Sherman) and I was turning it down...again.
She reminded me that Jake really likes the name Tanner and then suggested that we name another baby Jake since she likes that name so much and obviously I do too.
Then she was quiet for a minute and said "Why do you think Dr. Strebel's mom and dad named him Dr. Strebel. That's a weird name."
This turned into a 20 minute discussion on what is a first name, a last name, and what is a title. These things are surprisingly hard for a 4 year old mind to master and she was left with many questions. She was worried that Jake was a Schwab and she wasn't. For some reason, she can pronounce "Schwab" when it accompanies Jake's name. But when she tries to say her full name, it comes out as "Schwart". So she thinks she has a different last name.
Then it was a whole new can of worms when she asked me why my name used to be Johnson and now it's Schwab.
Anyway, I was grateful when we reached our destination because sometimes I just get tired of explaining stuff.

Later, we were driving to dance and we had Allie's friend Lily in the car. She has a great grandma that they call Grandma Chicken. They also call one of her grandpas "Bugs". The conversation between the two girls was hillarious...
Allie: "Why do they call him Bugs? Does he like bugs a lot?"
Lily: (laughing) "No, we just call him Bugs"
Allie: "We once had a frog that we called Bugs (not true...we had a Bob the frog) but he died and went to frog heaven"
Lily: (laughing) "Now the frog eats bugs in heaven? Maybe there are bugs in frog heaven"

The conversation about Grandma Chicken was similar. The laughing was the part I loved. I love to hear kids laughing over silly things that don't involve annoying sounds or potty talk.

We are...SV...

One of my Laurels is a cute little Sky View cheerleader. She brought by an invitation to cheer camp for Allie and it was all we heard about for at least two weeks...

"Is it after this dark sleep or 7 more dark sleeps?" She always knew that it wasn't soon, but she hoped. It ended up being on the same day as a Primary party and I let her use her free agency and decide what thing she wanted to attend. Maybe I shouldn't have even given her the choice, but after weeks of cheerleader talk, it was hard to resist. She went to the little day camp and had a great time. They had a little program for the parents after and it was fun to see her out there with all the other girls cheering.

What mom isn't proud when they look out to see their cute little girl and find this...

Mike keeps asking her to try out soccer or t-ball before she commits to cheerleading...we'll see how things go 10 years from now :)

Here she is with my Laurel Mally. She is proof that cheerleaders can be super kind and sweet...and cute.

Go SV!

A knotty girl

I can't believe I forgot to write about this event! I was organizing my pictures and came across the file. This girl went out to play and came back minutes later looking like this...

Luckily, the Internet had suggestions on getting cockle burrs out of hair. If this ever happens to you, get the hair wet and smother conditioner on it. Then they kind of just came out. There were lots of little pieces that we had to get with a fine toothed comb, but they came out. It was an hour project, and nothing I would care to repeat, but I am glad we were able to salvage her hair.

Half way done and still smiling! I was so proud of her. She normally screams when I comb the knots out of her hair in the morning. This was way worse and she just took it like a big girl.

Yuck... she has also been given instructions to stay out of the river bed unless she has her hair in a ponytail. What a mess!

Two Left Feet

We were driving past the DI yesterday and I decided to stop in and see if there were things I had to have. (I am on the hunt to add to our Lincoln Log collection. I know I am never going to find those at DI, but what if I do?)

Anyway, Allie found some shoes that she had to have. Ugh. They were a dollar and I didn't even want to spend the dollar on them. I tried in vain to talk her out of them. So I fished a dollar out of my pocket and we came home with the beloved shoes. The whole ride home, she talked of inside play dates where she would ask friends to bring over their princess shoes. She talked of what dresses would look nice with her new shoes...who can begrudge the shoes now?

When we pulled into the driveway, she showed off her new shoes proudly and that is when I noticed that we had bought a pair of shoes that were the same. We had two left shoes.

She was only slightly deterred. It was funny to watch her take her first stumbling steps in heels.

They were the first things she put on this morning and she is getting better at walking in them. We definitely have a girly girl on our hands...