Happy birthday Elena

Elena turned 3 on May 9th.  We had a family dinner and then a friend party to celebrate.  She was so excited to have her "friend party"!  She wanted puppy cake.  My cake decorating skills are basically non existent, but I think they turned out cute.  She also wanted balloons and stickers.  I provided the balloons, and many of her friends brought her stickers. I guess it met all of the requirements and she seemed to have a good time.

Elena has a great imagination.  She has several imaginary friend that are constantly getting into trouble.  She quite often tells me that one or another of them is in time out.  She loves to imagine herself in different rolls, (as a puppy, a monster etc)  The only thing that is off limits is to try and get her to pretend that she is the baby.  She is a big girl and nobody better say any different.  She takes issue with the game "so big" that we play with Michael.  When we say "how big is Michael? So big" (Michael's favorite game!) Elena gets very upset.  We have had to change the words a bit to make it appease her.

She loves to be a part of things and drags a stool or kitchen chair around the kitchen as I make dinner so that she is ready just in case I need anything stirred.  (I have to watch carefully or she might add a few spoonfuls extra of salt or sugar to whatever I am cooking.)  She is very good at putting the silverware away from the dishwasher.  She has recently learned to make her own bed.  (a bit lumpy, but she definitely has the concept down!)

We love having Elena in our family!  Happy 3rd birthday Elena!!!

My green thumb

I know nothing about gardening and even though my parents always had a big garden, I always chose jobs inside rather than outside.  Thus, I never really learned and have been a bit scared to try.  In the past 13 years of marriage, it has always been my intention to grow a garden.  As with many good intentions there was always a good excuse for not gardening.  (pregnancy, new baby, moving etc.) This winter (yes, in San Antonio we have to think about gardens in the winter) I had another solid excuse for this not to be my gardening year.  (Hurray for baby number 5!) However in about the middle of March, my oldest, Joshua, decided to use his allowance to buy plants.  (Dang allowance)  So he bought plants and I bought the soil.  We decided to plant a container garden.  We used some buckets that we had and not knowing anything about what to do, planted away.

After about a month, our plants were flourishing!  This was amazing to me, but I was still not convinced that they were going to produce anything.  And then we found some small tomatoes!

So far we have a bunch of banana peppers some anaheim peppers, some jalepenos, and 2 tomatoes.  Sounds like it is time to make salsa!

It's a wedding!

Back in December I got a call from Rebecca's 1st grade teacher.  She said that they were going to have a wedding between the letters Q and U.  This is how they teach the concept that Q always has to have U beside it.  (Kind of a lot of work to teach this simple concept, but it's cute and fun) Anyway, Miss Barker said that of all the girls in first grade, Rebecca was chosen to be the bride, representing letter Q.  So of course we had a lot of fun trying to find a dress ("It has to be a REAL wedding dress Mom!")  and veil.  After looking in many stores we finally borrowed a dress and veil and gloves from a friend.

Of course Becca was really cute as she walked down the isle.  (Also about 6 inches shorter than any of the other kids) 

Here is a video of the ceromony.  It was pretty cute, but surely they could have taught this concept in an easier way.



Super big sister

Elena loves her little brother.  She has gone from being the baby of the family to being the big girl.  Not only is she a big sister, but she is almost potty trained.  Yeah!  She loves to help with Michael and with housework and anything else she considers big.

Michaels blessing

Michael was blessed on March 13th. He was 2 1/2 months old. Grandma and Grandpa Ellingson came along with Aunt Anna and Uncle Travis. Jonathan gave him a very nice blessing and it was a very special day. We love our little Michael, he is normally so content and easy going. It's a lot of fun to see him interact with his older brothers and sisters.

Elena's Snack

Elena is a wonderfully independent child.  She will ask for something once, but if she doesn't get it quickly, she will just figure out a way to get it herself.  I love this quality in her.  I try to instill independence in all of my children, and it is definately more natural for some than others.  Because of her independent nature, at 2 1/2 she is able to dress herself,(most of the time with a backwards shirt and shoes on the wrong feet) get her own water, wash her own hands, and climb the climbing wall at the park.  Every once in awhile the independence is a bit much.  When she is hungry, she will help herself.  This photo was taken after a bout of the stomach flu and so she hadn't eaten all day.  She was hungry and had already eaten one peice of bread.  I wanted her to wait to make sure she could hold it down before giving her anything else.  She decided to take things into her own hands.

Smiley Michael

Look who is smiling!  Michael likes to be played with and has a very cute smile with little dimples. 

Chess

So the boys had their regional chess tournament in Austin this weekend.  They both did awesome.  I am really proud of them.  Josh has worked really hard and improved his game so much this year.  He tied for 2nd in the JV Elementary division. 

 Ethan has also worked hard.  He tied for 11th place in the primary JV division. 

We've had a couple of fun weeks.  I have some great kids and it is fun to spend time with them.  Elena got to go to an art studio and had a great time creating.

We also went to the zoo.  We wanted to use our zoo pass before it expires next month.  Michael didn't like it at all, but everyone else had a great time!

We went to the Winter Olympics at Carson Elementary.  There was snow and skiing and hockey and everything.  OK, so the snow was trucked in and limited to a tubing slide,  (We only had to wait 1 hour in line to go down it.) the skiing was 2x4's with ropes attached, (no snow, just walking on the pavement) and the hockey was in the gym.  It was fun and the weather (75 degrees) was lovely.

"Snow" in San Antonio!

We had a snow day today!  The kids of course were excited to stay home.  Unfortunately there wasn't much snow to play in.  We had about a 1/4 of an inch of snow, but it was over an inch of ice.  The ice made it pretty treacherous to drive, but by noon it was mostly gone. The temperature has been in the 20s for the last several days, and while I know the rest of the country is a lot colder than that, we aren't used to being that cold around here!!!  Lets just say it's not flip flops and shorts weather.

Joshua and Ethan freezing in their jackets.

 Elena didn't know what to think.  She lasted about 5 minutes.  Then decided it was way too cold.

Rebecca scraped enough snow off of the trampoline to make a snowball.

1 month old!!

Michael is 1 month tomorrow!! He is a very pleasant baby 90% of the time. He doesn't seem to have issues with me eating dairy, he is content to swing or lay on a blanket. He has his moments of fussiness, but I'm not complaining!

And 1 more makes 5!

Our big news for this month is that Michael was born at 5:10 am on January 2nd. He was 2 weeks early, but certainly ready to come. He weighed 8 lbs, 1 oz and was 19 inches long.
After 2 days in the hospital we were ready to go home. Unfortunately Michael had a little infection on his umbilical cord stump. This is called omphalitis. He had to have 7 days of antibiotics given through an IV. This meant 7 days in the NICU. Of course we were very sad that we couldn't take him home right away, but were very glad that the doctors caught it early and that the infection didn't spread. Jonathan got to stay home and play Mr. Mom, while I stayed in the hospital with Michael. The kids couldn't come and visit, because they weren't allowed in the NICU, but I went home every day to see them for a few hours. It wasn't an easy time, but we were blessed to have lots of help from friends and ward members.