A Little Ode to Ellie!

Such a funny little sweet bunny she is. This came home with her yesterday, and I love the way she sees herself. 

She's really pleased with her gymnastics moves, and getting better every week. Probably because she practices non-stop. Any time she has a quiet moment, she's trying go to into her splits or kick her legs over her head. I've only gotten one call from the school about her cartwheeling and knocking her head on the ground. Last week at gymnastics she got very close to kicking over from a bridge.

She's also FINALLY very close to losing her first tooth. Both of her center bottom teeth are wiggly... and both of her adult teeth are already erupted behind them. In fact, she's having trouble wiggling the teeth because they bang into the adult teeth! I remember wondering as a kid why adults didn't want to see me wiggly my teeth... the answer is because it's DISGUSTING. I can't wait for her to finally quit showing it to me, or asking me to stick my fingers in her mouth. She's just trying to trick me into a terrible bite - those other teeth make clear that she is obviously a shark.

Valentimes.

Here's a small selection of the things the kids have made for us over the past few days, and this afternoon:

Look at this lovely craft they made with Adam's little noodle arm, and then enjoy what he said when asked what he loved. Please note - he obviously listened to his classmates say they loved their families, and then said the following:

Done. Trucks. Next question.

We are all still sad, celebrating Valentine's Day without our orange and brown kittens. I'm glad we already have Lucky and Taco filling the house with their energy, otherwise it would be really terrible. Tim and I have been once again looking through old pictures of the cats when they were little, marveling at how little we were as well. We were hardly old enough to drive, who let us adopt two little dependent lives? 

We've tried to keep the sadness at bay by having the kid share their favorite memories with us. Both kids love that Thor would sit in the bathroom and wait for them to come in and turn the water on for him in the sink, and how he would meow at them. On Monday, before we had to put Thor to sleep, Ellie had done a homework page asking how many pets she had, and she wrote three. She was then very upset thinking about turning it in and having it be wrong, so I told her, she could always draw three cats and draw Thor as an angel. She wasn't okay with that - she went and crossed it out and wrote two - but she did draw a picture of Thor for me. 

And while we are talking about Valentines and about love, let me share this quote from Ellie, in regards to her little boyfriend. There was an incident last week where another classmate was trying to get her to kiss her boyfriend, and so I asked her, have you kissed Preston? She said no. I asked her if she wanted to, and she was aghast and told me "NO! Not at this age! Plus, there are a bunch of security cameras around my school."

Thor.

Like a widower who's lost and bereft after the loss of his lifelong partner, our sweet Thory Boy Bear joined Lulu in kitty heaven yesterday. We adopted him because we thought he was a beautiful animal, and loved him even though he was incredibly dumb and smelled bad a lot of the time. He was scared of everything under the sun, but would flop at our feet for love, and meow excessively around 10pm, hoping we'd hurry up and brush our teeth so he could drink out of the sink. Then he'd do some additional meowing before coming to sleep on Tim's legs during the night, and if he found your hand outside of the covers he'd slam his face into it, making you pet him in your sleep. Of course, no one else experienced it because when others were around he spent his time under a bed or in a closet, working on being our Secret Cat. 

Losing two cats in two months has been heartbreaking, but we feel so grateful for every bit of love we've shared with them. They were the most wonderful practice babies two undeserving twenty-somethings could ask for.

Use It or Lose It.

To the guest at our 2005 wedding who gave us a gift card to Pottery Barn - thank you! I have to admit, I'm not much of a Pottery Barn shopper, but I never turn down free money, and despite my house being a whirlwind, I always have my gift cards stored safely in case I need them. Turns out, I needed them to buy this awesome floral duvet cover! As you can see, Taco also approves.

Keep Climbing.

This past weekend we had two birthday parties and a Superbowl party, and Adam is back to soccer at the YMCA (they don't have enough older kids to make it worth it for Ellie, but we'll consider AYSO if she wants to play soccer again - she's definitely working on her gymnastics for now.)

Sparing the gruesome details, the first part of the day was a disaster, full of tears, very few of them for an important reason (example: much sobbing about the pinata breaking, despite the fact that it was full of candy and toys!) So the afternoon party at the trampoline park had me worried about how it would go, especially when I think that a party at a facility is a cost to the host, more than when you're at someone's house (because don't worry, we always eat our share of pizza and cupcakes before we split. Mama's hungry!)

But for once, they rose to the occasion, LITERALLY!

Oh my wild little spider monkeys (Adam got much farther than the photo demonstrated. And he climbed up there without sobbing, which is a victory in itself.)

Also, can you believe how long Taco has grown?!?!