First Day of Ballet Class

Today is Elise's very first day of ballet class! She was super excited, and she did great! She's a natural.

I think this picture just about sums up her excitement.

And here's a lower quality one. But seriously, she was grinning so big.
Her teacher, Miss Grace, is so sweet with the girls.

Fishing

Elise decided she and Charlotte should go fishing. I love how creative she is!

It's a big one!

Snow Cave

Matt made a snow cave as a scout once and wanted to make one for the girls to play in. So much fun! They loved having an igloo.

best dad

Ballet Shoes

Aunt Holly sent us the best package in the mail, including all kinds of fun ballet clothes. Elise nearly jeté-ed to the moon when we opened it.

Great Girl

dressed for church

Sometimes I look at Elise and just marvel and think, Wow, she is growing up to be such a fantastic, beautiful kid. I'm so blessed and glad to have her in our family.

Have a Heart

It snowed! A lot! Perfect for building a snowman with Dad. Vera and I watched from indoors.

eclectic snow gear

Matt is such a fun dad.
Even with the snow being pretty powdery, he made them a great snowman.

Our snowman even had a heart!

Two Things

Elise and Charlotte wanted to wear their Thing 1 and Thing 2 outfits from Halloween and read The Cat in the Hat together.

Reading Together

One of my very favorite parts of Elise being an early reader is that she reads to her sisters.

Pigtails and Ballet Shoes

Elise has been working hard doing chores around the house to earn enough money for ballet shoes. I'm happy to say that, at a quarter per chore, she finally earned enough! I'm proud of her hard work and diligence.

This was my first attempt at pigtails on Charlotte.

About to do a joint leapfrog off the stairs.

I love that these two have each other.

Elise Types Too

Elise loves to type on the computer, just like Charlotte. Except she uses capital letters and can type her whole name and everyone else's names in our family too.

Simple Gifts

One of Elise's favorite things to do is to wrap things up and give them to me. This is a present she gave me today: the Tag pen, wrapped in Vera's sock and tied with a bit of ribbon.

I love her little gifts and the way she always tells me to cover my eyes when she gives them to me, even if she knows I saw what it was already. Sweetest girl.

Beach Day

Elise and Charlotte wanted to play beach, so they got a blue blanket for the water, toy shells, flip flops, and puddle jumpers, and they had so much fun pretending to swim.

Once There Was a Snowman

So excited for snow!

Once there was a snowman
tall, tall, tall.

In the sun he melted . . .

. . . small . . .

. . . small . . .

. . . small.

Nutcracker Convert

Elise reading the scriptures to her Nutcracker Barbie

Day 26.2-Pete the Cat

I already posted for today, but this is my blog so I get to make the rules, right? I'm a sucker for kids' art and writing. I think it is so adorable.

If you haven't heard of Pete the Cat, you should read some of his stories. He's a favorite around here.

Elise drew Pete in his favorite shirt with his four, big, colorful, round, groovy buttons. So cute.

side-by-side comparison

Day 25-Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ Love Me

Elise gave a talk today in Primary, and she did amazing! I stood by her to help her, but she didn't need any help at all from me. She confidently read the entire thing by herself and did so great. She also colored that crest she is wearing, cut it out, and poked a hole in it. (That was awhile ago, so it's pretty wrinkled now.) CTR stands for "choose the right." I'm so proud of my big girl!

Day 23-Tutus, Tickling, and Airplanes

I let the other girls nap too late so I could spend some much-needed one-on-one time with Elise. She is amazing.

You know it has been a good tickle session when it ends with, "I'm gonna pee in my panties!"

Day 21-It's Important to Be Silly

Don't worry, I'm teaching Elise all the important things in life.

Like how to write words on a calculator turned upside down.

This picture was Elise's idea. I love my sweet girls.

And she's teaching me how much fun life can be.

Day 19-Strung Up

Elise loves to tie strings. She makes some pretty gnarly knots, and we often find things like this:

Gotta love her.

Also, I know my husband loves me because he bakes me gluten free cookies for no particular reason. He's a keeper.

Day 15-It's What's Inside That Counts

Elise started randomly crying one day because she didn't know what the inside of a throat looks like. Um, okay? So then we looked up diagrams on the internet of throats, then hearts, then brains. She has asked about what the inside of the body looks like repeatedly since. Future doctor maybe? She has the stamina for it.

We went to the library briefly today, and while we were there we asked the librarian in the kids' section to help us find books about the human body. Well, the librarian did even better than that. Our amazing public library has kits on all kinds of subjects. The one we checked out about the human body was a backpack with x-rays, books about the body, a game with body trivia (over our girls' heads still), and--our favorite part--this amazing apron thing. The organs velcro on. Elise thought it was the best thing ever and told me she was going to wear it always.

The brain headband is pretty great, right?

The kidneys on the back add that special touch.

Of course, Charlotte had to have a turn too.