Another quick Ellieism

I have lots of things to post, but I had to add this first. This from Ellie this morning at breakfast after Margaret said she was very ANIMATED today: "I'm not animated. Anna is animated. I'm ELLIMATED."

April Fools

This morning, as I got up and headed down the hallway with Anna in tow, passing the bathroom, I glanced in and noticed a rather obvious crumpled piece of plastic wrap hanging down the side of the toilet. I continued into the kitchen and told Margaret to go and remove the plastic wrap, because this isn't really a funny joke and it would be very messy if someone went potty. She sheepishly went to remove the wrap, I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down to check my email.
When, a minute later, I heard a splashing noise behind me I looked back to see Margaret at the sink, covered with water, hastily removing a rubber band from the sprayer. This time she was apparently caught by her own trap.

I proceeded to give her a little talk about jokes that are funny and those that are just plain messy and mean and admonished her not to try and do anymore April Fools jokes. Her response: "I didn't mean to mom."

It seems she somehow accidently put plastic wrap on the toilet and a rubber band on the sink sprayer. Rrrrriiiiight.

Gotta love her :).

Sophia's Fashion Designs

Here is a sampling of outfits for girls, designed by Sophia. The descriptions are by Sophia, just typed by mom. :)


A violet skirt with a pretty Valentine's Day shirt and heart-shaped earrings. This outfit comes with a green belt, peach high heels and a purple rose.



A green and peach party dress with a pretty heart-shaped necklace that is pink, and pretty blue high heels.



This outfit comes with a violet purse and high heel boots. The dress has pretty orange ribbons for straps and can be worn on a date or to a party.



This outfit has a brown shirt and blue pants with a pretty pink belt; the jewelry is a pretty heart-shaped necklace and pretty earrings; the shoes are violet purple and come with the outfit also.



This is a wedding dress for a flower girl, or it can also be worn to a party or everywhere you go.

Ellieisms (or random funny Ellie stories)

The other day we were looking for the DVD remote, and I asked "Has anyone seen the remote?" Eleanor answered "Yes!" and then said "it was on the sofa, then it was in the kitchen, then it was in the bathroom, and now it's lost."
At the Jacobs Circus someone is always trying to locate something they've misplaced. I've posted before about Eleanor's less than helpful input when we're looking for something. When she did it again the other day, I realized something. When asking Eleanor if she knows where something is, never ask "Have you seen X", rather ask her directly if she know where X is right now. Because if you ask her if she's seen it, the answer is likely "yes," she has seen it, many times, in fact. When she gives a list of all of the places she's seen it, "on the sofa, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, under the bed," and then ends the list with "but now it's lost" she's only answering the question she was asked.

I haven't posted before about Ellie's embarrassing fascination with the names of body parts and with bodily functions, because they're usually too gross to mention, but this one cracked me up.
We were visiting at the house of some friends who were hosting a celebration in honor of their son's 16th birthday. Ellie was seated next to the dad as he was busy putting candles on the cake, and she leaned over to him and said "Hey, listen to this" (pause) "PP and Jam!" and then she just cackled so loud everyone around was laughing with her. Get it, not PB and Jam, but PP and Jam. I don't even know where she got that one.

OK, I have one more that might not translate well, but I'll give it a try. Ellie frequently, when asked to do something, will invent some reason why she can't do it. I've come to expect it, so when I say "Ellie, it's time to clean up this paper mess" I expect her to immediately say "My arms hurt too bad" or something of the sort. The other day she had a bunch of toys all over the living room that she was finished with and I said "Ellie, it's time to pick up this mess." She immediately said "Ummmm" as she was trying to decide what excuse to use, then said "I'm so embarrased." (pause) "And, I have a tummy ache."

If it's worth doing...it's worth overdoing.

Today, I decided to make cookies. I pulled out our Farm Journal cookie cookbook, and decided to make Oatmeal Raisin cookies. I was reading the recipe as I went along, only skimming over the ingredients to make sure we have everything.
Behold the four egg, 2 cups butter, 4 cups sugar, 6 cups rolled oats mess:



and no, I didn't look at the amount. It said 14 dozen. I guess that is.... 168 cookies. Oops.

I got an F in cookie recipe selection. And in tidyness of food preparation.

A Photo Post

Here we have Anna showing off her interesting teeth, and Ellie's foot for good measure.


The February girl, who wanted to be included before her month was up.


This is Sophia's beautiful tribute to Prsilu (Priscilla) the fish, who passed away last week.

February winding down

We were busy last week, so I didn't post anything. It was a cold, cloudy, dreary sort of week so we stayed inside and did a lot of cleaning. I've been working on downsizing our life somewhat and I bagged up lots of stuff to donate, and then spent some time re-organizing what's left. We discovered some old cameras we forgot we had, and it has sparked a newfound interest in photography for Margaret.

We also closed the book on a chapter of our life that has hovered over us since Tony was involved in a minor car accident 3 years ago. He let his foot off of his brakes while waiting at a red light and drifted into the car in front of him. Not so bright, but it wouldn't seem like such a big deal. The woman he hit had a dented bumper but our car didn't have so much as a scratch. We really didn't stress out about it at all and had assumed it was resolved by our insurance until one year ago when a man showed up at our door and handed me (I was 1 week postpartum and holding my newborn baby) a lawsuit for injuries she allegedly sustained in the accident. The lawsuit was asking for $75,000.
We were pretty dumfounded, but our insurance company hired a lawyer who told us that it would likely get settled and that we had plenty of coverage in our policy. To make a long story short, it wasn't settled (she was offered almost as much as she was asking and turned it down) and it went to trial last Tuesday. I'm sorry I wasn't able to be there, it sounds like it was an interesting process and we had a very competent lawyer representing Tony. The trial took two days and after hearing the evidence the jury found for the plaintiff in the amount of $2500. Yes, that's only 2 zeros. So we lost, but really the big loser was the plaintiff. She could have had tens of thousands more, but she wouldn't settle and she (or at least her lawyer) got instead what the jury felt was the right amount. It feels pretty good to have it all behind us finally.

Toward the end of the week we passed around the flu, but we're all pretty well recovered now and getting back to life as usual, which is pretty unusual most of the time. :)