Evi is 5!!!

Evi is 5!!!! My sweet baby girl is 5! She once again, gets to have several birthday celebrations. We went to Tampa for a week and she celebrated one night with her cousins Grace & Mya. After opening 2 presents from them, she asked why she only got 2. (just wait, there's a theme here) She celebrated again on the actual night of her birthday with just us, and after opening 4 gifts, she asked why she didn't get more!!!! From there we had a little talk about being greatful for what we have and what a lucky little girl she is to have all the toys she has. I told her that we needed to pick 5 things in her playroom to give to other kids who don't have as much and she tried to talk me down to 3! And then said she knew what 3 things she wanted to donate, but she couldn't find them! Turkey!
When we celebrated for the third time with Scott's family, she asked how many presents she was going to get. I said "it doesn't matter how many gifts you get, remember, so if you only get one present..." "I'll be happy" she said. So at least my talk got through a little! She still has her friend party and a party in Houston with my family to go.
Halloween this year fell on a Sunday, so living in the bible belt, they of course, moved Halloween to a Saturday. Evi ended up having 4 days of costumes: school Fall Festival, Pirate Princess; StoryBook Forest Trick-or-Treat, Cinderella; neighborhood Trick-or-Treat, Mulan (which everyone just thought she was a geisha, yes, I dress my 5 year old up as a Japanese prostitute, come on people!!); and finally a costume birthday party as Sleeping Beauty.
Eli was a dinosaur, and got the hang of trick-or-treating pretty quickly. He would walk up to the door and knock harder than Evi, and really wanted to go in when they opened the door. He wouldn't carry his bucket, but knew how to pick candy out the bowls when they let him choose.
His communication skills are getting better. When he's hungry, he beats on his chair, when the tv is off, he will bring you the remote. (much like his father, the tv always has to be on). He says "hot" and tries to sing with the ABC's song that's on the fridge. He was starting to say "daddy" pretty well. But while in Tampa starting referring to everyone as "nya-nya." No matter who he's talking to or looking for, he says the same thing. He says "meow" for the kitty, and pants like a dog for puppies. He came up with that on his own. And says "WOW" a lot. His great sleeping habits are starting to crumble a little. If he cries out in the night and I respond, he will not let me sit in his room, only stops crying if I lay him in my bed. Damn kids! Always little control freaks!

The week in Tampa was great, as always! The girls got along better than ever. Eli loved the beach. We spent 2 days at Sea World and a day at Busch Gardens thanks to a pass I have from work.
As you can see from the picture up top, Evi is finally not deathly afraid of large characters. After tears every time we've been Disney, she actually ASKED to take a picture with Shamu. When she asked, I moved quickly so she couldn't change her mind. Eli on the other hand was very excited to see the Count walk by. When he tried to tickle him, you could tell Eli wasn't sure of the situation, but at least he still laughed!
The roller coasters were AWESOME!! One of my favorites was the Manta, where you basically ride face down. It was a pretty cool sensation. We even convinced Evi to ride a coaster that did a loop. I had to turn to my top mothering skills of bribery to get her to do it. She kept saying no, so I asked, "what can I promise you to get you to ride this?" She said, "a toy...no a penny" (a flattened penny that we had been collecting every time we saw a machine anyway, and it only costs 50 cents) So I said, "OK! A penny it is" (sucker!) She rode with me, with Scott & Grace behind us. After you do the loop you go into a spiral and she shouts "I WENT UPSIDE DOWN, AND I LOVED IT!!!!"
Needless to say, they loved it and immediately wanted to do it again.

Caveman stage

September was a somewhat uneventful month. Lots of Frontier City roller coasters. We did the Great State Fair of Oklahoma with the unwashed masses. Just kidding, but there is some great people watching to do there. And the Indian Taco was YUMMY! And that is pretty much the whole reason we go, for the food. Now on to my children:

Eli can now remove his own diaper, letting him find his "friend" whenever he would like! So now we'll have to keep pants on him to challenge him. I did catch him trying to climb into his crib to get his Mickey the other day. It's only a matter of time until he figures out he can climb out of it. Great! He has, however, seemed to have found his voice in the last couple of weeks. I was beginning to worry that he may not ever have the chance to speak with his sister around, but I guess her being at school 3 days has let him discover how vocal he can be in her absence.

He is cutting 2 more teeth on top, so that will be 4 on top and 2 on bottom. And while Evi had a fever with every tooth, Eli just seems to not sleep well. But for the most part, he is still an excellent sleeper. Very easy to put down.

There are now some signs of intelligence too. He's getting better at the signing. And when I asked him to go get me a diaper, he went to the right place, brought me a toy instead of a diaper, but he was in the right place. Obviously the toys just distracted him.
And he is starting to understand more statements. He's also gotten "Dad-dee" down pretty good when looking for Scott. Other than that, he's pretty much at the caveman stage: pointing, grunting and growling.

Evi had her first dentist appointment. The dentist's office is right next to where she takes gymnastics, so I scheduled it for after her class. And that smarty pants noticed that I made a u-turn and was asking, "why did you turn around?", "where are we going?" I did not warn her in advance that she was seeing the dentist. So when we parked and I told her we were going, she immediately began crying. I, being the excellent mother that I am, pulled out "The Bribe". I told her if she could be a big girl, and let them look at and clean her teeth, when we to WalMart, she could have anything she wanted. And amazingly enough, she actually did pretty good. The hygienist was excellent with her and she let her clean her teeth and even let her use the vacuum in her mouth. I was shocked at that one. The doctor said that her teeth looked excellent. No cavities. YAY! She gave Evi gloves and a mask, so needless to say, we have been playing a lot of dentist lately. And she says exactly the same things to me that they said to her.

True to my word, she was able to pick out anything she wanted at WalMart. She went down every row, methodically, not wanting to make a rash choice. She had her eye on a few expensive things, but when she saw the "I can be a Dentist" Barbie she was sold. Luckily, it was actually cheaper than some of the other Barbies, and came with a chair and little girl doll all for $10 bucks!! I got lucky on that one!

Scott has expressed a couple of times recently how much he is enjoying his Mr. Mom roll. How he feels he missed out on stuff with Evi with having to work. I am so glad he has gotten to take this time off to enjoy our children. Because I know that soon, they won't be quite so cute!!! :) And I think he might actually be better at the stay-at-home thing than I am. I think he actually plays with the kids more and is more creative with them. And even more patient. Sadly, I feel like I am constantly saying, "just a minute" and getting them to self entertain so that I can do other things around the house. But he's gotten pretty descent at cleaning, grocery shopping and laundry too. I think overall, it's been a good experience for us all.


Conversations with Evi:

EVI: I DON'T HAVE ANY CAVITIES, YOU HAD CAVITIES MOM, THAT'S FROM TOO MUCH SUGAR, YOU SHOULD STOP THE TOO MUCH SUGAR


On the way to the library, we were discussing that we were going to get books for mom & dad too:
EVI: I REMEMBER WHEN DAD HAD THAT BOOK, HE READ IT ALL DAY. THAT WAS NOT MY BEST DAY!
(in Scott's defense, I too have completely ignored my children to read a book- 4 of them to be exact, hello Twilight!)

While fishing with her dad, Evi had a fish put up quite the fight when reeling it in
EVI: NOW THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT, BABY!