Brother: PM & AM

Oh, he's a growing boy. Still not too big to sleep with a lovey.... Love that.

 ...and in the morning: sleepy, bed-head, cereal before he heads out in the morning, already has his back-pack on.

He's growing up so fast.
I can't believe that this is his last year as a SINGLE DIGIT age. This is it.
{sniff*sniff, somebody pass the tissue!}

Cake is ALWAYS a good idea.

...especially at birthday time!

 How many candles? A lot....

 "Somebody call the fire department!"

Seriously---that's fun.
:)
And Sister? Yes, she's a fan of cake.

....and AFTER cake???

Sibling fun on a big ol' pile-o-pillows.
Good times.

Little Mama?

Back in December, Daddy worked really hard on making a baby doll carriage for Eliette....

So sweet. Daddy made it and painted it. I added a pink stencil design on the side and made cushions for inside the carriage.

I think Eliette likes....but her parenting skills need a bit of improvement.

She'd rather push an empty carriage.

Whaaaaat???

I normally do NOT pay attention to the price of gas. For real. Maybe I should. I just operate by the mentality of "I have to have it, so I pay what it cost." Thank you, dear husband, for being the fiscally minded half of our partnership.

For the average conversation about the price of gas---I'd be out. $3 a gallon? $5 a gallon? Idk....But on THIS particular day---my eyes were WIDE FREAKING OPEN. What????? Less than a dollar a gallon? This chick took a pic! I used my fuel reward points at the gas station and it paid off.

 Now, my car cost less than Sister's to fill up, and hers runs on goldfish!

I may not know much about the price of gas on a daily basis, but I'm quite familiar with the cost of goldfish.

UPDATE on Eliette's Kitchen.

So, you can read the first post about Eliette's re-designed Ikea kitchn here.

Here's the remodel in a nutshell----left is how it comes, right is what we did to change it up a bit.

Above: how it sits today. Phone on top---came from my sweet Mema's house. The mixer? A gift from her Jessica. Red double decker bus? From when Megan lived in London. Red chicken on the right cubby? Part of a gift from Darnin to Daddy, but she hijacked it for her kitchen. Most of the inner kitchen goodies? Gifts from Santa and Memaw. We mounted a pot rack to the upper left side (Thank you, Darnin!). The bottom left has a real, working mailbox. The keys are attached to the side of the kitchen with a small chain. I'm thinking---work on those fine motor skills with the locks and flaps, but let's not lose the keys okay?

On this day in particular, it was laundry day. Sister-Sue decided to help with the socks. She put them all in a shopping basket, and then tried to mail them to someone.

"Bye bye, socks!"

....silly girl.

Fort of Fun.

Brother was so sweet to include Sister in his Fort of Fun. He also generously taught her about Nerf weaponry, and went on to give her instruction in sniping. What else are big brothers for, right?

"A brother shares childhood memories and grown-up dreams." 
-Author Unknown

She's a helper.

I could write this post about all that Daddy's been building and doing around the house...but I would be remiss to not mention what a helper Miss Eliette has turned out to be. {helper or hindrance? still debating that....}

So, Hubby built us this "landing zone" area with a built in charging station for ipods, ipads, and iphones. Yay!!!

Top part, finished! I added the magnetic chalkboard and those are magnetic clips. {See the not-straight one? It drives me nuts that it wasn't straight in this picture. Grrrrr!} We've since added a monthly calendar, invites to various things have come and gone, and a little bit of school work and Sunday School work. Yay for Mommy's new happy-place!

Hubby also put this little area in by the front door:

As you can see---Eliette helped all along the way.

  ...and then there's THIS:

Oh, how I love our new table. LOVE it. My husband made that. HE MADE THAT. He's also making split-benches to match. We may do benches on one side and chairs on the other. We'll see....

Sister doesn't let her help end there... She also helps Mommy vacuum. Sweet girl....

 ...and she'll use a baby wipe, Kleenex, paper towel, or bit of cloth to clean just about anything!

Jack with the blinds and move ALL of the pillows off the window seat? Sure. No problem for this toddler. She's so helpful....

Wouldn't trade her for a thing though!

The Bronchitis that just wouldn't END.

So, early January 2015: thought we would NEVER lick this bronchitis. How many trips to the doctor? Three. How many nebulizer treatments? Too many to count. Steroids, nebulizer, inhaler, and antibiotics. FINALLY we licked it.

It was a long road, and this dude was a trooper!

Some days were easier than others....

FINALLY this boy licked it, and got back to normal. Being a slave to the nebulizer was no fun for anyone!