Visit with Grandpa

Papi came for a visit this weekend to see Lucy perform with Mountain Strings at BYU.  She's pretty much the star of the show.  Bea had so much fun with grandpa.  One morning they went to this huge new sports store, Sheels, and rode on the merry go round.  We also went sledding a couple of times and spent a couple nights just hanging out around the fire playing games and eating treats.  We're even listening to Christmas music already.  It's so fun!

Bea's Ballet Dreams

Happy 4th Birthday Bea!(August 23rd)

These are the photos the two guys were taking when they first saw us in the piazza in Florence

This is very late, so sorry my sweet Bea!  This year you had a very special Birthday because we were in Italy. 

We bought some paintings from this man.  You gave him a cherry and he painted you a special picture just because you were so kind to him.

 Bea, you are an extraordinary little girl.  You have grown up a lot this year.  You have turned from a little girl into a big girl and I can't wait until you get bigger because you have such an instinct for mothering and cleaning that I will appreciate more and more the older you get!  You went from Babykiller last year to my sweet little helper.  You and Clementine are playing so well together and you and Henry are also able to connect more now that you are a little older.  You still fight here and there, but I catch you having more fun together than ever before and it makes my heart so happy.  Of course you love your baby Violette more than anyone and you spend so much time playing with her and thinking about what to do to help her every day.  Even though you make giant messes wherever you go, you don't mind cleaning up when asked and I still frequently find you in the bathroom or kitchen up at the sink, "cleaning" with water dripping everywhere and all my kitchen rags used and the towels all over the ground.  I look forward to the day I can utilize that desire to clean bathrooms and be confident the bathrooms will actually get clean.

Bea, your favorite activity right now is ballet.  You live for ballet class every week and you ask me why you can't go to ballet every day just like Angelina Ballerina.  If you're not at ballet class, you're dressing up like a ballerina, dancing ballet and singing about how much you love Ballet.  Your songs go a little something like this, "I love ballet, I love to dance and run around like fairies, but I have to wear my tap shoes sometimes even though I just want to wear my ballet shoes.  Ballet is so pretty and I can be a ballerina princess if I want to." You sing this an octave above most normal songs and you do all your ballet moves while you sings.  I have to say, you are getting much better at ballet and your movements are getting a lot more graceful, you're bending your body and using your limbs to do beautiful extensions.  I think you could be a ballerina someday if you really wanted to.

No matter what you're doing, your singing about it.  If it's not ballet, it's babies, or Henry or your family.  Just yesterday I got after you for not listening and you made up a song about how you got in trouble and that you didn't want to be in time out.  You even said I didn't love you anymore, which is usually what you say every time I send you to time out.  Just so you know.  I LOVE YOU GIRL! Clementine always copies you and constantly dances and sings about loving ballet, even though she hasn't done ballet in her life. 

You do love your Popsicles!

Bea, if you're not dressed in your ballet costumes you always have the same few outfits on.  Sometimes you wear the same blue dress until it's brown and you love your purple skirt so much that it has holes in it and paint stains on it, but you don't care.  You still wear it every day.  You used to change your clothes 5 times per day, but now you've changed and now wear the same thing for 5 days straight.  You really hate to have your hair blow dried and curled and I have to threaten you with a short bob just to get you to stand and get your hair dried and curled.  You always have dirt all over your face so in the end, you really look like an old fashioned farm girl in a dress covered in dirt.

Climbing the clostrophobic steps of the tower of Sienna. Over 300 steps in all

Bea, you really love animals! You aren't afraid to pick up chickens, touch the toads in our pond, collect cool bugs like the giant moth and mammoth slug we found in our yard.  You, however, don't have a problem killing bugs and now that I think about it, I haven't heard that toad in a long time.  Poor guy!  You have scared off almost all the cats so they won't come close to you anymore but our neighbor's dog still loves you.  I'm so glad that even though you are definitely girly, you know that there's a time to be pretty, but there's also a time to get dirty and we love it!

Swimming like a fish in the Italian Emerald Coast waters

 This year, all you have talked about at home is going camping.  Just about every morning you pack up every bag you can find with toys, clothes, stuffed animals and food and cart it around the house saying you want to go camping.  You even got a sleeping bag to complete your preparations from Grandpa and Grandma for your Birthday! This drives me crazy because there's nothing that takes longer for me to do than sort through everything you've collected from around the house and put it back where it belongs.  The playroom is 100% disorganized and no one can find any parts to any of the toys because of your camping adventures.  I just can't keep that place organized anymore! Now, since we have a giant apple tree, you go out there and cart hundreds of pounds of wormy apples into the house, eat one bite and throw them under the couch, under your bed and you hide them in your room...and then take them camping with you.

Playing with a friend you found in Ravenna.  You two were fast friends!

You also love playing with water.  When your hair is really bothering you because it has turned into a rats nest, you compensate by dunking your nappy head in a sink, which you always leave running, and slick your hair back and put a head band on.  I'm actually so happy you like head bands so much because your hair won't break off as easily with head bands as opposed to hair ties.

Bea posing as a Roman statue in the ancient city of Pompeii

This year I have loved watching you develop into a big girl, becoming so capable and so independent with such a great big personality.  You gather your sisters up like a hen gathers her chickens and I can tell you will be a loving mother someday.  You love Jesus and always remind me if we forget to read our scriptures.  You have never complained about going to church and you still love it when I sing you, "I'm trying to be like Jesus" and "Away in a Manger" every night before you go to bed.   One of the funniest things you do is say the same prayer every meal and night, which goes something like this..."Dear Heavenly Father, thank-you for this day, thank-you that we don't do the things we don't supposed to to and that our mommies and daddies don't ask us to do and don't do the things we don't supposed to do.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." And you know what? I think after saying it hundreds of times, it's actually working!

Bea, the thing I love most about you is that you are so thoughtful and loving.  You are constantly creating things for me and telling me that you love me.  You kiss everyone when they get hurt and give such big hugs.  I love the feeling I get when you completely wrap your little arms and legs around my body and squeeze me tight.  Then you usually give repeated kisses and hugs to my head over and over again.  When you do that, you melt my heart.  I love you my dear sweet girl and I hope you have a wonderful year here on the farm.  Thank you for being such a lovely part of our family, our sweet little Bea.   

Always Interesting

This is Bea on the boat at the Mystic Seaport in CT.  She actually let me do her hair and I'm glad because it doesn't look half bad in this shot! She has a strong personality but she is so motherly.  I know she'll make me lots of grandbabies:)

 Bea keeps my life interesting in many ways, one of which is that she will only wear about three outfits, all of which are sleeveless and are not meant to be worn in public, like her ballet tutu, white pajama tops, swimsuits and one little blue dress that I actually really like when it's not dirty and stained from wearing it for 5 days in a row.  She also loves headbands and sometimes we go to tennis and swim lessons for the entire week without ever combing her hair.  She just gets grimier and more grungy looking and she likes it that way.  I'm trying to get her to care more about her hair, or else I think I may just chop it off again.  It's just awful!She's also constantly stuffing bags full of toys, headbands, trinkets, food and jewelry to take with her wherever she goes, and now Clementine is catching on.  It makes keeping the toys organized virtually impossible.  Everything in the house is litterally not where it's supposed to be. I'm waiting until winter to purge and organize. 

This is Bea playing tennis: tank top, tutu, hello kitty socks, sparkly shoes, pink racket, nappy hair, eyes closed

Haha. Wonder why she missed. 

Nice follow through Bea(eyes still closed)

This one actually hit the racket, but not because she was keeping her eye on the ball.  

This is her preferred method of taking a break.  Racket in the net and sit on the ground.

Mid-play hug from sister, Clementine

Tromping around on the farm in her favorite dress. See all the dirt?

Do I have the Titanic theme song playing in my head right now?

Ballet Baby

Our little pumpkin

 Bea performed as a tap dancing pumpkin in her dancing school's Cinderella production a couple of weeks ago at Kingsbury Hall.  As I was sitting and watching her on stage I had to hold back some serious happy tears of pride and joy.  Not only was she adorable, she actually did most of the dance steps (unlike most rehearsals when she just stood around watching the other little pumpkins) and was FUNNY! She had such personality and made everyone in the audience laugh with some little silly steps.  I seriously loved every minute of the show.  I signed her up for next year and I'm contemplating signing Clementine up too.  I enjoy watching my kids learn, grow, achieve, and perform so much that I am totally willing to give up my previous hobbies just to support them. I guess that's what becoming a mother is all about.  Feels good.  

Goodbye, Hello

Bea has renamed the barn cat previously known as Hammond, Hello.

Meet Hello Kitty

Needless to say, this cat doesn't come around much anymore..

Goodbye, Hello

 I'll spare you all the rest of the cat abuse photos

New Friend

Bea with her crimped hair.  She likes it when I braid it and surprisingly enough, it doesn't get as ratty

This is Bea and Jayden on their way to preschool which is just down the street.  He lives in our neighborhood and is the most darling boy ever!  He was adopted and his birth father was a linebacker in college, so his parents are hoping that he gets those genes.  So far, he looks like a pretty sturdy kid.  He is really sweet and he and Bea get along pretty well, considering that Bea usually drives all her friends away by hitting them with sticks or telling them that they are dumb or that she isn't going to be friends with them anymore.  She tells me every day that she's "not going to say dumb anymore or hit and kick".  I'll believe it when I see it.  She may not have any friends left if she keeps this up.  I do believe she's improving though, baby steps.

Happy Clowns

I bought these clown costumes for one dollar at my friend's garage sale.  Ella and Bea put them on and ran around in circles for about a half hour, laughing hysterically. It was adorable.  All I need are a couple of red noses. 

Daily Tea

This tea pot was my grandmother's and the tea set I got for my bridal shower in Tokyo.  It's so special to use these with Bea.

Bea and I have a tea party just about every day.  It's our "special time".  She is getting really good at pouring the tea and gets really excited about all the "tiny food" I put on the plates and for the little cups, plates and spoons we use.  Just yesterday I tried to pour out of a new teapot and spilled it all over my plate.  Bea told me that she knew how to do it without spilling and that she would do it for me next time.  She felt so good about her tea pouring skills:)  Even though Bea is hard right now, I'm really looking forward to her growing up a little more so she can be more capable and we can enjoy more activities together.   

 

Field Trips

Henry pretending he's eating Bea with his Mouth Man shirt

Just kidding! I love you little fox

The Fox and the catch of the day

 I'm trying to do some school with Bea.  She never learned her alphabet when she was a baby so she and Clementine are learning it together.  I make everything I can into some sort of school activity.  This week we took two field trips, one to the new Natural History Museum of Utah and another to the local Aquarium.  She loved both. 

Time to go!

At the NHMU she dressed up as a fox or something and caught fish to put into her backpack.  Henry was dressed up as a hunter to catch her.  It was really fun.  We talked about bugs and learned the names of trees and bugs and spiders.  We love that new museum. 

Bea looks so big in her pig tails

I also have to say that Bea knows a lot of the Dinosaur names.  She watches Dinosaur Train often and she now knows more dinosaurs that I know.  Smart little thing!  She's constantly telling strangers that Dinosaurs died a long time ago with a really sad face.  haha. 

Don't these look like fake fish! They were huge!

She also has learned quite a few of her letters.  I make her write them every day and we learn a new one every couple weeks.  It's slow going but that's what I get for waiting so long to teach her the alphabet!