elsie jo is five

Really she turned five two months ago, but who is counting, right?  Miss Elsie Jo is now a whole hand old.  Suddenly she is so grown up and getting ready for kindergarten!  Her emotions still get the best of her at times (so do mine, let's be honest), but she can be so sweet with her sisters.  She gets lots of praise from her teachers at school for being an excellent friend and always willing to learn.  She has started reading a bit here and there, loves to try and do math, and still really loves to draw, craft and create.

Elsie participates in dance, soccer and gymnastics.  She never can seem to pick a favorite, and she does a great job at each one.  I think she really likes dance and soccer, because she gets to do both with several of her friends.  Not that she has a problem making friends.  Sometimes she is shy, but for the most part Elsie just loves to have other kiddos to play with and is happy to befriend whoever is around.

To celebrate Elsie's birthday we started off with donuts, opened some presents, took a trip to Kansas City to visit the doll hair salon at American Girl, ate some Panda Express in the food court, opened more presents, had a gymnastics class, and got some Chilis To-Go for dinner (because we had a three week old at the time and we always have a Thea, so public is... fun...).  I think she had a great day!

Elsie really is a character, and loves to make people laugh. And her genuine laugh is one of my favorites.  She is constantly setting up toys in a big circle to play with.  She'll get out all the Playmobil structures we have (castles, barn, etc) and put them all around her.  And then the Playmobils, her Hatchimals, LOL Dolls, etc, will play amongst them.  When she gets going she can entertain herself for over an hour just playing.  She doesn't like if I'm around while she is playing on her own.  I guess it embarrasses her?  At first I thought she was trying to sneak some sweets by me, but it wasn't the case.  She just doesn't want me around when she is pretending.  If only she could learn to pick up her massive set up of toys when she is done playing.  That sure would be something.

One thing I really love about Elsie, is that she doesn't give up too easily.  Sure she can get frustrated trying new things, but she really has held tight to the concept that if she tries her best she can do hard things.  The way she phrases things to herself makes me believe that they do a great job instilling that at her preschool, but I'm sure part of it is just her nature.  She isn't as near as much of a perfectionist as Ryann is.

For some reason she can never remember her middle name.  Her favorites include tacos, ice cream, watching dumb toy videos on YouTube, all the colors of the rainbow (but mostly red), dates with Daddy on Thursdays and doing 'work' with Papa.  Unikittys are her jam, and Target about blew her mind when the dollar section included mermaid unikittys.  Elsie also love love LOVES her baby Arden.  She tells me a million times a day how cute Arden is, she absolutely loves when she gets her to smile, and overall she is just so sweet with Arden.  A complete 180 from when Thea was born and Elsie didn't care about her one bit.  Girl is growing up on me!

Elsie girl, I can't wait to see how you change over the next year.  I love you so much!

elsie's fifth birthday fiesta

Just before Miss Elsie Jo turned five we hosted a little fiesta themed birthday party at our home to celebrate.  Which really just meant chips, queso, tacos and sweets.  Plus sombrerros.  But hey.  I had a three week old and it was snowing.  You do what you can.  Ha.

Originally Elsie asked me for a 'unikitty hatchimal taco party'.  I wasn't exactly sure how to pull that off, so I nudged her towards her love of tacos and we settled on a fiesta.  I ordered some random fiesta decor off Amazon, my mom picked up some cacti from Home Depot, and we rolled with it.

Our taco meal consisted of your average beef with store bought taco seasoning, along with some slow cooker cilantro lime chicken we made following this recipe. Chris made a giant batch of guacamole that naturally we forgot was in the fridge until over halfway through the party.  Chips, queso and a couple kinds of salsa as well as some fresh cut fruit and veggies rounded out the meal.  The sweets included cookies made by the oh so talented Jenny, churro cupcakes my mom made, and a chocolate cake by Hyvee for good measure.

With Elsie's birthday being in February, it has always been tough to come up with activities for a bunch of kiddos in our home.  Next year we might try to do the party elsewhere (because families keep expanding and I think we had upwards of 16 children plus adults even after some couldn't make it!), but this year I stupidly got brave and decided to let the kids paint pots to go along with the cacti we got as favors.  Thankfully all of my mom friends are champs and helped out and somehow the only children who ended up with paint on them were mine.  Figures.  But the kids did a great job and the pots turned out pretty cute!  Sending them home with a live cactus that actually hurts when you touch it might have been a jerk move, but it just seemed so fitting.

Elsie loved having all her friends over to play, and was genuinely excited but each one of the gifts she received.  That girl my still have a short fuse, but she loves hard and adores all her little friends.  Thanks to everyone who came to help celebrate her birthday, she had a blast!

elsie says

Elsie:  "Oh man, there is a stain on my pillow case!"
Me:  "It's ok, I can throw it in the wash, it'll be fine."
Elsie:  "Mom!  You know what you need?!?!"
Me:  "No, what?"
Elsie:  "Oxi Clean!  It can get ALL the stains out."
clearly my child has seen too many commercials

I know I had another one I wanted to share, but I can't remember what it was.  So I'll throw in this little Elsie story for good measure.

The other day I had taken off my wedding rings and put them on the counter.  While I was cleaning up from lunch I saw Elsie pick them up and put them on.  "Elsie, please don't play with Mommy's rings, put them back for me ok?"  "Ok Mama."  But, I didn't watch to make sure she did.  A little while later I went to put them back on, but they weren't there.  I asked Elsie and she said very confidently, "I was wearing them upstairs.  I put them on the toy shelf in the playroom by the little bucket."  So I went up there, and nope.  No rings.  Elsie swore up and down that is where she put them.  We picked up all the toys, looked under the toy shelf and quickly checked her room, but no rings.  I had to take the girls to dance so I just left it at that.

When we were back from dance we started searching the house.  Chris and the girls went back over the playroom again.  He dumped out every toy bin in there.  I looked all over downstairs, in cabinets and drawers, everyone's backpacks, in my purse, in the pantry, all over the study, everywhere that I could think of, but no rings.  When it was time for bed we gave up for the night.  The next morning my mom joined me and we went through the playroom yet again.  I moved every piece of furniture, every bin of toys, checked the pockets of the pretend aprons, looked through some of the bins in the closet, everything.  My mom moved on to Elsie's room, emptying most of her bins (anything that was within reasonable reach), took the sheets and stuffed animals off her bed, moved all her doll furniture, everything.  Still no rings to be found.  I debated moving to Ryann's room, but figured Thea's was smaller and easier to look through in the time I had left.  I looked in the bins on the floor of her closet, under her crib, behind the rocker, through her drawers.  Nadda.

Just before I decided I was done in Thea's room, I decided to pull out the glider for good measure.  And there they were, underneath the back portion of the glider.  Oh Elsie.  She runs up there to hide sometimes if she beats me upstairs.  When I picked her up from school I told her to guess where I found them.  She had no clue.  I told her under the glider in Thea's room.  Her response?  "I wonder why Thea would put your rings under there!"  Really Elsie?  Really.  She still claims she had nothing to do with it.  Silly girl.

elsie's pokemon 4th birthday party

After giving birth to three girls, I can absolutely tell you I never thought I'd be planning a Pokemon birthday party.  Granted I've planned a glittery dinosaur birthday party and a school bus party, so I shouldn't be all that surprised.  But Pokemon?  I dragged and dragged and DRAGGED my feet on this one.  Ryann and Elsie became obsessed with Pokemon after Christopher let them watch a few episodes of the old cartoon (which turned into many many MANY episodes).  Elsie now loves Pikachu and naturally had to have a Pokemon birthday party.  But as much as I threw a fit about this theme, I'd venture to say everything turned out pretty well.  We didn't go too over the top, but it worked and the kiddos had a great time!

A friend made Elsie's Pikachu dress and I think it is so stinkin' cute.  Just another perfect way to girlie up the Pokemon theme.  It is made out of a t-shirt that I bought at WalMart.  Her bow is by Zozu Baby.  And I made the streamer background much like I made the one for Thea's birthday party.  Since I was hanging this one indoors up against a wall, I just taped the silver mylar curtain straight to the wall.  Then I tied the streamers to a clothes line and used command hooks to hang it to the wall.  Minimal effort, big impact.  I've used 2-3 rolls of crepe paper per color on both backdrops I've made.

 

The party was from 11-1, so we served lunch.  On the menu was Panera mac n cheese, two different tortilla roll-ups, fruit, veggies and little smokies.  Desserts for the party included sugar cookies made by my friend Jenny, oreo truffles courtesy of my mom, and a chocolate cake with red frosting made by Jennifer.  I'm so grateful to have friends and family that can cook and bake.  I can make brownies.  I can make chocolate chip cookies.  But beyond that it's a toss up.  Elsie wanted lemonade to drink so we took the easy way out and bought some lemonade!

Most of the decorations were just random red, yellow and black items that we grabbed last minute at Party America and Target.  I found the idea for the favor bags on Pinterest.  I didn't follow their instructions, just created the different pieces I'd need in my silhouette software and used the machine to cut them out.  Elsie was able to help me put them together with double stick tape.  After had the first one done she looked at me with a huge smile and said "Mommy you are AWESOME!"  It doesn't take much to please kiddos and it sure is fun.

The Pikachu headbands below also came from Pinterest.  In her instructions she says to cut the rectangles 1.5 inches by 12 inches, but later in the comments she mentions only getting about 6 rectangles per sheet.  And the 16 inch ribbons plus only 12 inches of foam didn't go all the way around Elsie's head.  I think the rectangle is supposed to be cut on the 18 inch side of the foam.  We didn't do these as an activity at the party, just had them ready to go for the kiddos to wear.

We lucked out with a beautiful February day, so we were able to spend a fair amount of time outside.  Excellent since Elsie's one request was a pinata.  I was trying to figure out how to pull that off inside without destroying anything.  Lol.  We also played pin the tail on Pikachu.

Elsie we had a fabulous time celebrating you turning four.  Can't wait to see what you dream up for your birthday next year.  Love you lots girlfriend!