Anson and Ella

I keep this blog because I am horrible at keeping a journal! So this post is an update on all things Anson and Ella...

Anson: 4 years old, 39 pounds, 41 1/2 inches tall

Anson still loves his blue elephant and makes up elaborate stories about him. (I just performed minor surgery on Elephant and re-stuffed him! He was completely flat!) It is amazing how much Elephant and Anson have in common! :o) Elephant just had a baby that Anson "takes care of" and makes sure he's tucked into bed with them at night. Tonight at dinner, elephant's mom baked us a berry pie for dessert! He is really into making forts now and his favorite place is under the dining room table. He brings tons of toys under there and will play in there for hours!

He had his four year check-up last week and had to get 4 shots. He was so brave and didn't even cry! He told the nurse, "Ouch! That really hurt!" As if to say, "How dare you?"

He loves to pretend he's a lion or a cat or a mean dinosaur. He would like a baby bird as a pet. When we told him the baby bird would grow up, he said we could let him fly home to his family and get another baby bird! He always has an answer for everything! He can write his name now! The letters are not always in the right order but they are all there! - semantics. He can count to 20 and usually leaves out 14 and 17. He can say and recognize the ABC's. He would like to name his new baby brother or sister "Rudolph" - which is his all-time favorite song! To Anson, anything in the past happened "yesterday" and anything in the future is "tomorrow". He loves going to the park and zoo and pool. At his four year old check-up he told his doctor that he can even swim backwards! (He can't :o) He loves playing with "fake food". His friend Sagan has pretend food and little dishes and that is what he plays with everytime we go there. And in Maine, he played with his cousins' miniature Barbie-sized food and carried them around in a little tiny suitcase. At Gramma and Papa's house he loves playing with our old miniature dishes sets. He also loves his trains and cars and animals. When asked what he wants to be, he says "the ice cream" man everytime. He knows 42 of his catechism questions and can tell you that sin is "any lack of conformity to, or transgression of the law of God" and the scary part is I think he really knows what that means! :o) He could technically start Pre-K in a month but I am going to "teach" him at home. He will shout from the back seat of the car at random times "Mommy, you just went through a red light!" and scare me half to death! Usually he's looking out the side window and sees the other light... He can be pretty moody when he wakes from his nap - which now is about every other day. He stays in his room for the whole 2 hours but sometimes he plays instead of sleeps. He is learning how to tattle on Ella - and unfortuantely there is a lot to tattle about.

So on to Ella! (22 Months, about 28 pounds, 34 inches tall.) She is really coming into her own! She has a very sweet spirit and loves caring for her baby dolls. She learned to wrap them up in blankets and will carry them around like that, usually with a bag over her sholder. She now has quite a vocabulary, too! Some of her favorites are "I do!" and "Hold me", followed by baby, Mommy, Daddy, EE, (She calls Anson EE now which is what he used to call himself!) mine, pool, book, hi, bye, uh-oh, happy, ti ti, more, and bowl. She loves to tackle Anson and sit on top of him, which makes him squeal at a barely audible pitch! She will sneak in and turn off the TV right in the middle of his favorite show. She wants to do anything and everything Anson does...And when I tell her no, she puts her head down and runs to her room! Sometimes she cries, sometimes it's just a silent rebellion. :o) She LOVES shoes. Who ever has left their shoes in her reach, she puts them on! She can actually put her own shoes on the correct feet more often than Anson! She also loves the potty. She will come take my hand and say "Ti Ti" and wants to go sit on the potty. She hasn't actually done anything in the potty yet but at least she's practicing! I have hope that maybe she'll be potty trained before baby #3 comes! She loves to smile and uses it as a tactic with her father! It's hard to discipline a "smiling little cutie"! She now successfully wears pig-tails! - another favorite of Dusty's. And now for the "dark side" of Ella... she will stick out her tongue and spit at Anson when she's mad. A couple weeks ago she went through a biting spree - she would only bite Anson and it was usually on his back or sholder. Ouch! It seems to have gone away(after much prayer!) and now she just sticks her tongue out at him! Progress. That pretty much sums up my little princess in a nutshell. But then again they change everyday so stay tuned! :o)