Family Reunion

I love the Powell family; they are so great and I am glad I am a part of it. Grandma and Grandad now have 105 members of the Powell family and we all still love getting together and staying close knit. This Thanksgiving we had a mini reunion here in Mesa and spent several days playing games and doing things together. 

Faces

Elise and her silly faces!

Thinking up Toddler Fun

We have a toddler. We try to think up fun things for her to do and experience. It is hard sometimes to keep her curios growing mind interested and learning with everything else life brings. But we do our best.

Making popcorn is one of her new favorite things to do. She loves hearing the rumble of the popper and seeing the popcorn fly out of the machine, and eating it too.

Recently I realized Anna was in a “pouring” phase. She wanted to pour everything from one container into another. She continued to ask for water in her cup and the next thing I realized, instead of drinking it like I thought she was doing, there was water up and down the hall, water in the bumbo seat, and a few other random places. So then I came up with a fabulous idea. I thought, hey, I will let her pour macaroni into mixing bowls and keep things dry and clean. Ha ha ha! The next thing I knew she had poured it all over the floor, but she was loving it so I let her continue until she started throwing it in the air. Oh man!

I made Anna help me pick up all the macaroni on the floor and then racked my brain for a better idea. I came up with the macaroni “sand box.” I just filled the bottom of a storage container with macaroni and put spoons and scoops in it. She loves it. Now this invention is still not perfect because it still needs careful monitoring and some macaroni still ends up on the floor, but it is an improvement. I have been getting the macaroni box out about once a day for a little while of playing. Even Elise likes it.

Sidewalk chalk is another fun thing we all like to do. Yesterday. we drew a hop scotch and jump jump jumped across.

Elise even gets into it but half the time the chalk ends up in her mouth.

Anna loves when I draw pictures and tell stories about them. She especially loves when I draw animals; afterwords she will make their sound and color them in.

Sometimes it is hard having a toddler. They want to do and learn, they run and jump and get into everything, and dump everything out, eat their oatmeal with their hands and spread yogurt all over their face and chair, and drop bananas on the floor, and empty mama's wallet, and throw her cell phone in the trash. They don't quite know how to speak but they know exactly what they want and haven't learned how to control their emotions. They are fun and stinking cute, have lots of energy and are always seeking something new to learn and do and sometimes it is quite exhausting!

Halloween Spooks

This year for Halloween we picked the cutest little pumpkin right out of the pumpkin patch. She was a cute smiley pumpkin too.

We also had a little nurse in training modeling her fancy pink scrubs.

We had a Trunk or Treat activity at the church. We turned our car into a monster again and Kent had fun popping out of the depths of the monsters mouth to scare the kids before he handed them their candy. Anna’s favorite part of the night was standing there watching her dad trying to figure out what he was doing in the monster’s mouth.

With pumpkin Elise in Papa’s arms and nurse Anna holding my hand we set off to trick or treat. Anna did not get what was going on when we started, but she soon figured out that if she went up to people and stared at them, they would put something in her bucket. She soon just started going up to random people and staring at them.

Half way through the route, her bucket was getting heavy for her, so I took it back to the car, emptied it and handed it back. She looked down at her empty bucket and started crying, so I put one candy back in. She looked at the one piece of candy and started crying even harder, so I had to take back her bucket and put about 6 pieces of big candy back in it so it looked like it was full again before she would continue on. Papa and I had to say thank you for her every time.

Hopefully next year she will be able to say “trick or treat” instead of giving a stare down for candy.

It was fun to have Papa along too! On the way home we stopped by our neighbor Claire’s house to bob for apples. I have never bobbed for an apple before in my life and it was quite daunting to stick my whole head under water to get the apple. Kent had to show me how. Claire thought it was great fun to watch us.

Happy Halloween!

Smiles

Gardening, the Hippopotamus, and Other Fun Stuff

Gardening

Finally! Finally I can plant flowers. It has finally dropped below 100 degrees here in AZ.

So we went to Home Depot Gardening Center and after buying several pots of flowers I realized flowers are really expensive! Dang! I wanted to get more but they are like $3.00 for one pot of flowers.

Anna sure had fun playing in the dirt. Except she kept moving the dirt from the planter to the grass, then to the patio. A couple minutes later I found a pile of dirt on the living room floor. Anna!!!

The Hippopotamus

Anna is pure toddler craziness. Today in sacrament meeting she was playing with her little jungle animals nicely and quietly on the bench. I thought, Anna is being such a good quiet girl at church today, how sweet. Then next second I heard Anna holler, saw a little arm project upward, and a hippopotamus fly into the air over the heads of the congregation. Uh oh!!!, I thought, and then down it went. The hippopotamus landed on the man’s head in front of us. I mean of all animals, why did it have to be the Hippopotamus! I can just see it, “Ya, today in church a hippopotamus landed on my head.” I apologized immensely.

Other Fun Stuff

Just like when Anna was little, Kent has surprises waiting for me when I come home from work. He puts the girls in forts make of blankets or dresses them in funny hats to greet me when I walk in the door. It makes coming home from a long day fun.

Anna walked around for a good 5 minutes with a cookie in her mouth like this and Elise immensely enjoyed getting her first taste of an apple in the fruit net today.

Update: Elise finally stopped making faces when I kiss her.

Anna's new phrase she just learned is, "all done."

And to end this post, a funny Elise face to say good-bye.

Sweet Elise

We are in trouble. Big trouble. First, we learned that Elise really wants a cell phone. Already! Your only 4 1/2 months old. We expected this in middle school, but not now. Second, we have a little mover. She has been rolling all around for a few weeks, but today she started scooting. She began this morning by scooting backwards across the blanket in our front yard. Then this evening she decided she wanted mom’s cell phone, so she army crawled / scooted her way forward as you can see below.

I just love when babies sleep with their little bums in the air. It is one of her favorite sleeping positions. And she also loves to suck on her two middle fingers to put herself to sleep. Oh I could just eat her up!

So remember the little cowlick she had as a newborn? Well funny thing is, all her long dark baby hair fell out in the last few weeks except the cowlick hair. Ya, weird huh?! I thought it started looking kind of ridiculous to have a bald baby with just one long piece of hair growing out the side. Kent, loving father that he is, did not want to cut it because it was a unique part of Elise, but I thought it should go. I have an Aunt Teresa who will not allow her family member to sport unbecoming hair styles so last week while watching Elise she cut it off. Yeah for Aunt Teresa.

We also call Elise our 'little gopher' because when she wakes up she doesn't cry, she just pops her head up and looks around the room.

Then when she spots somebody she gives them a big smile.

Elise is a super chill and happy baby. She smiles all the time and is a super good sport when it comes to surviving her older sisters loving. We love having her around.

We love her smiles, and the joy she brings us!