Anna and the Underdog

Anna is mischievous sometimes. Lately she has been doing this thing where when she and Elise both get a treat she will eat hers until it is almost gone. Then she tells Elise to trade with her. Poor innocent Elise, the nice little sister, just trades treats and has no idea she is getting short changed out of most of her treat.  It has been happening a lot lately. Well, a funny thing happened while driving home from my mom’s house the other day.

 My mom had given each of the girls a little bag of fruit snacks to eat on the way home.  Halfway home I hear Anna say to Elise, “Here trade.” I heard the switching of fruit snack bags. I think to myself, “oh brother.”  Then I hear Anna fiddling with her new bag, I look back for a second and I see her turning it upside down shaking it and realizing there is nothing in the bag; that Elise had given her an empty bag of fruit snacks. I see Elise chopping away happily.  Then Anna realizing what had happened, that she had given Elise her last few fruit snacks and she got nothing in return, quickly said to Elise again, “here trade.” I hear another swapping of bags; then a horrified cry from Anna, “there all gone!”

 I just chuckled to myself, you got what you deserve dear Anna, you had it coming to you.

A Little About Our Darling Elise

I feel like I haven’t written much about Elise lately and she has grown and changed so much in the past few months; so here is goes. She turned 18 months in November and finally got to go with her sister to the nursery class at church. This is the pic I took of her on her first day of nursery.

It was kind of funny. Before church I told Anna that Elise was old enough to go to nursery with her and I asked her if she would show Elise where to go and teach her everything about nursery and she was excited to do so. After Sacrament meeting I told Elise she was going to get to go to nursery today, and she didn’t wait, she took of running down the hall, between people, straight to the nursery. Anna was trying to catch up yelling. “wait!”

When Elise got to the nursery before Anna, Anna had a meltdown, because she wanted to help Elise go to the nursery. So I had to go get Elise and bring her back to Anna. Anna took Elise by the hand and walked her into the nursery with her. It was cute. They were excited to be together at church and it is fun they were in the same class.

One day in Nov. I got Anna a little tutu I found at the thrift store. Anna, loved it. It was her first frilly type skirt. She wore it every day, all day long, and would not take it off for anything; except I made her take it off to got to bed. I think Elise was a little jealous because one morning we found her in her bed sleeping with it over her footy pajamas. It was so funny. She must have woken up in the middle of the night and put it on and went back to sleep so she would be first to have it on in the morning.

She also loves to put on anyone's socks and shoes that she finds lying around. Elise love to put things on. Sometimes I will find her going through the dresser drawers putting on pants on top of pants and several shirt around her neck and multiple skirts on at the same time. In this picture I think she was wearing 4 skirts.

Elise loves her sister. She does her best to keep up with Anna and at times leads the way and shows Anna how to go down the slides and up the jungle gyms. She talks in one word sentences, but gets her point across good and clear. She now also can hold her own against Anna when she needs to, though she she is very sweet and loves her sister dearly.  If Anna isn’t around she always asks, “Anna?”  One day we got home from the store and Anna didn’t want to come in so I let her stay in the car for a few minutes while I brought Elise in along with the groceries. When we got inside Elise started crying and pointing to the door in much distress saying, “Anna, Anna, Anna!” Lately, Anna and her have been actually been really playing together for the first time and laughing and having fun.

Elise is a smiley, smiley girl and loves to have fun and be around people. She hates when we leave her in her room at night to go to bed. She also loves to snuggle. My favorite time is right when she wakes up, she will walk over to me and climb into my lap and just snuggle for awhile. She is very affectionate and gives wonderful hugs and kisses. she also has the most kissable cheeks and loves getting kisses on them.

It was so sad. A few weeks ago the girls both got fevers and coughs and were just not feeling well. Elise looked like this for about 3 days.

Oh and another thing that has happened is last month Elise moved from a crib to a big her bed. . Every time we put her in her crib she would climb out and then we realized that if we left then crib rails down she would stay in. She just did not like to be trapped and confined anymore. So she was moved into a twin bed along side Anna and was very happy about it.

Elise’s favorite thing to wear is her lady bug dress that her grandma gave her. Her favorite things to eat are cheese, raisins, and cheerios. The swings are her favorite thing to do at the park. Her favorite toy is her stuffed animal gorilla that resides at Nana’s house.

Elise's New Favorite Word

This is Elise's new favorite word...

She always holds up one finger and says one "minute."

Christmas in Mesa 2012

All of us siblings and our families and my grandmother came together at my parents house for Christmas this year.

We had a baby shower for Brigham and Elizabeth and since guys were invited Brigham had fun playing the shower games.

I think my favorite part was sitting around playing games like boggle and spelling bees with the family. We got together with the Powell cousins a few nights and played some fun games like Blurt with them too. We all loved Brigham’s wildebeest.

The girls loved having all their aunts and uncles around to play with them. Elise especially liked all the “horsey” shoulder rides she got she wouldn’t let Brigham put her down.

We went to the orange patch, got together with the Powell family at the Park on Christmas.

And we just hung out together ate ate a lot of good food and sweets and cutie oranges. We so much enjoyed having Mina around and the fun that she brings with her. We were able to sit down one afternoon with her and record many of her memories of her parents and grandparents.

.

Christmas morning was a delight. Being a parent is really fun on Christmas. It was so fun to get presents for the girls that I knew they would love and to see their faces and how excited they were opening their presents.

I also loved that my mom gave me the nativity set I had as a child. There are many fond memories there. As I explained the Christmas story to the girls using it, I think they understood somewhat why we celebrate Christmas. 

I am grateful for this time of year, not only for Christmas trees and lights, presents, family and good things to eat but that our Father in Heaven gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ for us that we could one day return to him with our families.