quotes from a three year old.

“I want to eat with the cat food spoon!”

“Yum, I like to drink Nala’s water.”

Elliot: Cora, don’t touch the TV! Cora: Why? Elliot: Cuz that will make Dad mad and not happy. Cora: Why?

“Sure is a nice day. Sure is!”

“Hey, I have an idea! Maybe we can ride a rocketship to outerspace. And I could drive!”

“I wish I had sharp claws so I can run fast like Nala.”

“MOOOOM, there’s up-chuck on the floooooor!”

“Dad, don’t squirt that tree, it’s really old. It’s like sixty bucks!”

“I wish I was a blue dragon so I could blow fire at other dragons in the sky.”

“If I was a dragon, I would eat ketchup and beer… I don’t want to be a dragon.”

“I’m a funny, lucky gummy bear.”

sisters.

These two will forever have a special bond because of their close age. There has only been a few months where Elliot didn’t seem too interested in the fact of having a sister, and that was when Cora couldn’t do anything else but cry and sleep. Since Cora has been about 8 months old, the two of them have been completely in love with each other; chasing each other, reading to each other, hiding from Mom together… and its just recently been where they can actually have [kind of] a conversation between each other. It’s really pretty cute trying to figure out what they’re saying. They really don’t leave each others sides all that much. Here’s a snippit of the two of them together throughout the days.

getting the girl to smile.

All I wanted was a photo of Elliot smiling. Just a single photo of her looking at the camera, or at least in the vicinity of it and smiling so I can feature her in a post for her 3rd birthday. Being a 3-year old, this is what I got:

Seeing what I was dealing with, I decided to have some fun with it. I told Elliot to give me a model face. Look at that pose! The next Top Model, right? Work it girl!

She’s such a goof, but I now know that in order to get just one good photo, I need to take about 300 of them. But the 299 of the rest of them are pretty fun to look at, too!

a typical [mon]day.

I am very lucky to have an extra day during the week to enjoy being with my girls and now that it’s nice out I try to take full advantage of the day. This morning I thought it would be fun to “Go, go, go, go on an adventure” (yes, you may sing the Cat in the Hat jingle as you say that), so starting at 8:30AM our day begins with a trip to McDonalds for breakfast. A plate full of pancakes, hashbrowns, syrup, orange juice and ice coffee later we are seated at our table. (That’s lovely, Cora).

The novelty of being somewhere new for breakfast lasted a total of 5 minutes, 3 bites, and a container of spilled syrup all over the table, the floor and Elliot’s hair and hands. Seconds away from a tantrum, and a toddler squealing to get out of her seat, I started to second-guess my fun adventure idea. Needless to say the group of retired people gathering at McDonalds didn’t seem too pleased with us interrupting their morning so we decided to take our food and have a picnic instead, hoping that a different place would help entice their appetite. It didn’t work. The playground was much more intriguing than cold pancakes.

Though we started early, and they may be acting tired, the girls were definitely still raring to go, so close to an hour later and a full sun shining, we went home to lather on the sunscreen and play in our own backyard.

This is the neighbors tree – it’s so pretty for a couple weeks!

A little more playing, fighting, and relaxing (if I can call it that) and it’s time for snack.

Lunch break. Can you guess what we’re having?!

To continue the day, we head off to another park after lunch and an outfit change. Cora’s excited!

 

A sky full of ominous clouds and a few raindrops later it’s time to head home for a nap. I think Mommy needs one too!

somebody is three!!

Where in the world has three years gone? It seems like yesterday that I was ready to pop and anxiously waiting for my little peanut to arrive. It’s all so amazing, so unbelievably amazing, that I cannot even begin to capture the magic of this age with you in words. You are a complete sweetie-pie little girl one minute giving hugs and kisses to Cora, and a spit-fire of a child the next, falling to the floor in a tantrum over not being able to hold a green balloon. (Everything and anything green is your favorite right now!)

You are such a little helper trying to help me with everything; making dinner, changing Cora, feeding the critters.

The funniest things come out of your mouth and sometimes it has no real context what-so-ever; Dad: “Elliot, get off that box, you’re going to break it.” Elliot: “Just give me a fighting chance Dad!”

You have entered the never-ending question-asking, the desire to understand why why why and how how how?  Your dad and I try our best to give you reasoning so you will understand, in which your vocabulary is developing (“What would you like to drink, Mom? An Americano?”) The girl knows my Starbucks drink!!

You continue to grow at such an unbelievable pace and you’re on track to becoming an amazing, intelligent, creative young girl – I can’t wait to watch the journey continue. Your dad, sister and I love you very much!! Happy Birthday Ellie-Bear!

Here’s some photos of the puppy birthday party. The last photo is of “Lala”, her new ginormous stuffed puppy that makes it’s way up and downstairs about four times a day so she can be with it constantly.

sweet spring is finally here!

The term cabin fever is real. It is what has happened to my family for the last 6 months and the girls have been itching to get outside into the fresh air. Luckily, lately it has been pretty nice to do just that. We took advantage of every outside opportunity that we could, even if it meant sitting back, and trying not to see the shovels of dirt flying over Cora’s head as Elliot throws it… there’s always bath time, right?

We were even able to have a family bonfire that Elliot has been begging for since January. The girls enjoyed it, for say, seven minutes before they found more interest in building a beautiful “rock garden” in the planter.

And we’re off to another park again today…

So glad the warm weather is back and we can start our family walks and enjoy being outside again. The windows are open, the faint breeze blowing through… this is what we have been missing!

hold please.

Life has been pretty busy lately with the hectic every-day routine of our lives so even thinking about updating this little blog has been tough. I found these images that pretty much sums it all up :)

It really is all about living in every moment and taking the good with the bad. Trying to enjoy the cute way that Cora now opens the dog food drawer and can conveniently help herself to all the dog food she wants. She thinks that the dog needs a mountain of food in her bowl so she’ll continue to feed her, but can’t quite make the transition into the dog’s bowl, therefore spilling a million little pellets of food all over the kitchen floor. Or the way that Elliot is working on potty training and she’s got the “I havta go potty NOW” down (yay!), but in reality it’s not entirely true, so she sits under the table and does her business in her Rapunzel panties. And the “business” is not fun to clean up.

See, I can do it – the good and the bad, right? I hope to get some more photos up here of the girls soon, stay tuned.

a little of what’s been going on

E making a tower out of cat food cans.Helping Dad with her new big-girl shovel.

Such a little helper!

Stacking again, this time making a water-tower with the help of some sponges and bottle caps.

Cora loves to climb onto the counter and play spices. She’ll sniff them and rearrange them all over the counter. Also such a big helper!

The Paci Fairy came to our house last week and took Elliot’s paci’s to give them to little babies that need them. In return she left a little present for the big-girl: a new Dora book and bath bubbles!

Just a snippet of what’s been going on in the Daniels’ house.

sweetheart dance

Last weekend we took the girls to a local elementary school that had a Sweetheart Dance for little kids. It included a live DJ, an open gym, arts & crafts and treats. The girls had a blast dancing and playing and I have never seen Cora run as fast (and free) as she did! In one gym to dance, in the other gym to throw balls, back to the music, back to the balls…

Elliot loves tattoos!

They were so busy Elliot didn’t have time (or the attention) to even eat her cookie!

Not quite sure what Elliot is doing, but the girl has many faces!

I almost cropped this one until I saw Elliot in the corner running at full speed :)

I have proof!

I never thought this day would come with how bald Cora has been since she was born. I remember with how fast the delivery was I really didn’t get a chance to take in all of her features until a little bit later, and I remember thinking that along with being very long and tiny, she really is quite bald!

Fast forward 15 months later and here it is… proof that my little chunky monkey… okay, not so chunky, my lean (sweet) stringbean is finally getting some hair. She actually has a little curl on the back of her head! It is even thick enough to hold a hair clip. It looks a little strange with just a clip hanging onto her hair, but hey, I’m embracing what I have to work with!

At this age (actually at birth!) Elliot had a full head of hair for me to play with. I think I got spoiled :-)

It’s so fun to see how different the girls are from each other and how their personalities are continuing to grow and develop. I think it will still be awhile before Cora can really start accessorizing with cute little bows and clips in her hair. The time will come… until then I will enjoy not having to hold her down while I try and de-tangle her hair after bath-time like I have to do with a certain little somebody – I won’t mention any names…