finally FIVE

she actually said that to me the other day and of course i thought, layout title! this is what five and elsie look like.

growing her hair out. american girl. the dolls and the movies. baking. reading or being read to. crafts galore. the more colors the more patterns the better. just recently has become a picky eater. more noodles in the last few months than in the 5 years she's been alive. loves her BFF kili so very much. would go to the park, go for walks, have picnics every day if possible. her best literary friends are ladybug girl, fancy nancy, pinkalicious and eloise. 🙂

finally five and fabulous!

March 4, 2011 16

in a blink of an eye

she's off to another dance.
note that father here will protect young daughter by all means necessary 🙂

above shot was one of my faves of her. 🙂 the two below were my favorite candid shots i got. so sweet and classic!

from last year to this year: from getting her first make up done to doing it herself. from curling her own hair to getting her first updo. from flats to heels. from cardigan to 'i won't be cold!' from getting dropped off to a limo. from forever 21 jewelry to juicy couture and tiffany's jewelry.

sigh. it goes quick people!

February 7, 2011 9

elsie today

my schedule got kinda mixed up this week, i was going to post something else but had to bump it. so here's my stand in till then. funny story to go with her cute picture :)
today she had a playdate with a new friend. when new friend said that she lived in a tall apartment building with lots of floors and doors, elsie squealed, like at the PLAZA HOTEL, like Eloise?! 🙂 Wooooow! 🙂 it's not the plaza hotel, or nearly close, but our little girl is one who sees the glass half full quite often. i absolutely cherish that little bit about her! i'm not saying she's like that all the time, she tells it like it is too. when told she needs to wait, she says, i hate waiting.

she's almost 5. and is "so nervous" for kindergarten. when taken to Stats recently for the first time, she said, this is better than disneyland!!! and has asked to go visit more than once. she is the queen of winter wonderland and is quite disappointed we haven't put our lights up yet. 🙂 she is into this little thing where she says, "i love you more than_____" recently it was cupcakes and candy and puppies. i'm flattered 🙂

those yellow trees behind her are now bare… all year we can't wait for the leaves to change and when they finally do their presence is fleeting. kinda reminds me of parenting. 😦

December 14, 2010 9

walking

els loves to go on walks… nowhere in particular, just out to walk.

she's been a little off since the move- super clingy. tomorrow we have our first wedding since the move and she has been really concerned about it. lots of tears and requests that daddy go alone 🙂 so today she requested to go for a walk. i obliged. we picked flowers and talked. i let her lead the way. i just followed….

and she led us 2 blocks away… to our old house.

she looked up at me with those big, round, brown eyes and held in her tears. she said, 'i just wanted to see it.' i bent down and asked, 'do you miss it?' she said, 'yes.' i hugged her and told her we could come back and visit anytime she wanted. she decided to invite her imaginary fairy friends to the new house, as she accidentally left them behind. 🙂

when we got home, she wanted to go on another walk, with just chris. again, he let her lead the way, and again, they wound up at the old house. they put their hands on the door and said prayers of thanks for the memories and wishes that we will have many more sweet memories in our new home.

these walks melted me. els is such a strong little girl. we underestimated how much our move would impact her. we know that she'll bounce back and end up loving our new place as we love it… till then, if going on lots of walks to visit the old house is what it takes, we'll do it… bringing each little fairy with us as well.

July 2, 2010 11

together

he's been traveling but is now home. i can't explain how out of whack my head and heart gets when he's gone. i'm so thankful for all my munchkins that keep me on my toes, not too much time to really feel sorry for myself! he's my partner that gets to tackle our day to day life with moi- working, parenting. parenting especially. last week was incredibly emotional for me. as soon as i picked him up from the airport till the minute we fell asleep, i don't think i stopped talking. 🙂
i love him.
(i'm super thankful for my 2 girls (sil and conster) who babysat me on text/fb/phone while i talked their ears off everrrryday) 🙂

layout for writeclickscrapbook.
lots of goodies from studio calico and some basic grey here.

super cool photo by the amazing jonathan canlas.

March 2, 2010 10

play

it's her favorite thing to do! most of the time she requests that we play with her. which sometimes, i will admit, is sorta hard for me. i don't mind doing things with her, baking, gardening, cooking, being crafty… it's the pretending stuff that i'm not so good at. she's the mom and i'm the sister. she's the princess and i'm the friend. she's the mouse and i'm the lion. yeah, tough sometimes.

this is my favorite thing, looking over my shoulder and seeing her engaged- pretending with her toys. reading to them. talking to them, singing, dancing and being a mom. i LOVE it.

she's four in a few weeks, we cannot believe it. :( she requests nothing but a few friends at the local indoor playground and some cupcakes of course! 🙂 hoping she will have a day of play and feel celebrated. we are so blessed to have her busy little self in our lives!

i told her today that i thought she needed a haircut and replied incredulously, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" ha! love her.

February 16, 2010 10

old school, happy birthday caleb :)

9 years ago today caleb was born!

he was born a week early in a hospital in chesapeake, virginia. kira was nearly six and cam just turned two.
kira would be off to school for a few hours each day. the boys were home with me while chris went to work and finished his masters. we lived on the east coast for barely a year while our family lived on the west coast. we weren't used to the cold weather. we lived in a tiny apartment with one car. our days were lonnnnnng. we passed the time with lots of playing and Toy Story and baking. the internet wasn't quite big yet and we didn't have a digital camera, i remember calling my sister in law lots and sending lots of photos to family via snail mail! to say that these days were the toughest of my life to date isn't an exaggeration!
this image above is a perfect description of a long day. 🙂
and now that they are all grown up, i miss those long virginia days!

elsie was looking through all these photos with me and was wondering why she wasn't in any of the pics 🙂 seems i cannot quite escape the playing with a toddler stages of my life, oh well. wouldn't trade it for the world! 🙂

more old school, via scrapbooking talk here today 🙂 crazy to see the evolution of my style 🙂

February 8, 2010 7

he said she said

i've already twittered and facebooked this but i need to record it here on the ol' blog for posterity 🙂
she's nearly 4 and has been attached to her fingers since about 3 months old. (oh my gosh, looking back at the blog to find that- i can't believe so many pics i haven't scrapped! i love my blog for taking me down memory lane for a bit tonight!) we've had plenty of family members tell her she should stop sucking her fingers. most of the time, she takes them out for a second, then sticks them back in ever so defiantly. 🙂 today while at trader joe's, a man was walking past us, stopped, looked at her and said, 'you shouldn't suck your fingers, stop that.' he then turned and knocked over a stand of oranges. i didn't say anything, i think out of pure shock. that was the first time a stranger commented on it, to her, ever! i walked away with elsie, looking at her, trying to read her thoughts. i could tell she was hurt and sad and maybe embarrassed.
later when we were home, i asked her how that incident made her feel, and she replied, "sad…… and i wanted to punch him."

🙂 🙂 🙂 that's a girl with 2 older brothers. 🙂

ps thanks for the kind words on the brothers post. nice to know that the evolving sibling bond is similar all over the world.

—– and we would really like her to stop with the fingers. we know eventually she will stop. she doesn't do it at school.. the first few days of school, she came home, shocked that no one else did it. i think as she gets older, she'll phase it out herself. she's the only one of our 4 who does this! those pictures capture her 2 soothies. her fingers and her blue blankie. heaven to her!

November 16, 2009 20

seems like so long ago

but it's only been 2 weeks since we got back. i think it's the weather change that makes it seem so drastic. i look at the clothes we are wearing in the pictures and it just seems like forever ago since we wore winter clothes! a few glimpses that caught my eye the other day while browsing thru our enormous file of pictures. i l o v e this one. the kids at a maze with chris, in the rain. you can see the raindrops in the picture!
also love these so much.
one at merrick's- with our auntie jo who took very good care of our massive crew. she fed us yummy dinners and our first kangaroo. she also took a family photo of us right after but for some reason it got lost along the way. im so sad! 😦one of her tasty meals 🙂
we fell in love with fitzroy and came back to do one of our family shoots there. you can see that one on the jac blog, click here.

kira said it was the best hot chocolate ever:
we thought the flat whites were especially delish.
sorta family pic, without moi.
luna park:

chris' dad who graciously had us over for many night and days, trekking our big family to his beautiful home in the mountains as well.

at the cabin, chris and caleb went on a fun gnome hunt in the village:

these guys geared up to go skiing/snowboarding as i stayed back with the little two.

a night of scrabble. NO KIDDING. caleb drew all of these letters. seriously!!!!! driving back to the city, through areas where the fires had passed.

st kilda, this shot is wrong with the water being crooked. but who cares. look at els' little hand gripping chris' jacket and caleb's little face watching in horror or amazement 🙂

sea glass in aus…that i later found in my bag once we got back to the US

maling road. love this area. chris' mom grew up around the corner. favorite little spot. found dr pepper there for 3.75 a can. i missed it but just couldn't stomach that price! we didn't get to see any koalas in the wild this time, we sure looked but didn't find any. the kids one request was to see some. 🙂 these are at healsville sanctuary. special treat, a bunch of active koalas and a little baby on it's mothers back. sweetest thing! and up close with a kangaroo…. they even got to pet it.

time with cousins.
we think their icy poles are better than our otter pops!

we were fortunate to have some really beautiful days of weather while there, kira was saying she wished she packed her flipflops and cam wished he packed shorts! but it was still chilly for me!

long chats with donna and snuggles with baby max.she housed us as well… both families together = 12. such good times. we are so grateful and will always remember it. thank goodness for ichat 🙂
and one more. though it's blurry, such a good memory. girls performing for us. learning a routine and practicing till it's time to perform. (i used to do this with my cousins, so i love seeing kira do it as well) 🙂

chris will have some of his film shots posted at the jacshoot blog sometime today.

as my air condition is blaring beside me, i think of our family so far away snuggled in their winter coats….missing them lots and wishing they weren't so far.

August 7, 2009 7

2 graduations

in one day is sure to put parents in emotional overload.
last time driving to school for him- until college 🙂 the rest will be walking distance.
last walk from car to school together until high school. 😦 (that's what sappy moms do, document in the littlest ways) 🙂
i wish i knew what was going through his mind right here! he's a year younger than the rest of his class and at the time, and even now.. we think it was the right thing to do to put him in early… but now we can't help but look at it as, one less year with him at home. 😦 i'm such a sap!!! seeing him in that tie just gets me!
the ceremony began with the somewhere over the rainbow version that used to make me think of the ER episode where dr. greene passes away. now i will have my little guy's sweet face cemented in my heart when i hear that song. chris, my mom and i were pretty much big cry babies at that part 🙂
my baby! i love him so much and cannot believe what a big guy he's getting to be.

goodbye big brother, see you in high school 😦
i know this is down below but i am so glad chris got all these pics, as i get all shaky and emotional and can't compose a picture worth beans. i love my matchy men! 🙂
and then a few hours later, we went to kira's middle school graduation. it's a lot more formal at that grade so we managed to keep ourselves together 🙂 but we are super proud of her and are shocked that she will be entering high school in september. she has lots of sports to keep her busy this summer, including training for cross country. here's our lovely girl!
looove this picture of her 🙂 lei for our lei 🙂candy lei! me and my girl

he is so wonderful with kira. i don't know what i'd do without him. my mom and my 2 girls. and this one cracks me up so much. elsie's little face and my mom looking at her. i love it!
amazing! a picture of all 4 together!!! one of these two that melts me!! there's all kinds of crazy light/shadows going on here but dang they look cute 🙂
and our little buddy… who is dragged around wherever we go.. without a complaint. we adore her! 🙂

these sets of ages, where all my kids are now… i wish i could freeze it. kira about to start high school, where i know our next 4 years will be a blur. cam about to start middle school, and the overprotective mom in me wants to protect him from any social anxiety that may come. caleb in elementary and who still plays in class and adores his teachers. and elsie. 3 and home with me. i can't imagine elsie 10 years from now, in kira's graduating shoes. kira will be over 20. scary. i never thought i'd have such a large family and now i can't imagine my life without them.

there's my sappy graduation post with a plethora of pictures. i will look through them again with the youtube video of somewhere over the rainbow and surely tears will fill my sappy eyes 🙂

June 23, 2009 18