EJ girl @ 5 years

I feel so fortunate to have met the friends we have here in Springville. So much of that is THANKS to Trent and Lindsie. We have such awesome neighbors and the neighborhood is GREAT! Trent and Lindsie's neighbors behind them have 2 adorable girls and 1 boy. Colbie is EJ's age and Porter is Rowen's age. Colbie is SUCH an awesome little girl and she and ej get along SO WELL. They have been fortunate to have preschool together the last 2 years. I don't know what they will do if they aren't in the same kindergarten class!!! They love to play together and will spend hours in the basement. The other day I kept hearing:

ej: "my mom is going to be SO surprised"

colbie: "she is going to love it"

ej: "she is going to think we are so great"

colbie: "your mom will laugh so hard"

.... and while i was a little worried about what i was going to "be so surprised" about, i let them do their thing and waited for them to come get me. They were giggling SO HARD as they walked me downstairs and when i opened my eyes "the most giant picnic ever". They were so proud..... as was I, they worked a long time on it! 

and then they turned into monsters...

 While babysitting Wyatt, EJ and Colbie were taking turns feeding him. Then Rowen wanted in on the fun so EJ fed him a bottle. The 3 of them were laughing pretty hard!

 She caught a ladybug & butterfly the other day.... the ladybug kept hiding {or trying to escape} on the inside of the lid.... ej LOVED that she was playing HIDE-N-GO-SEEK with her..... so her name went from Polka-dot to Polka-dot Silly Hide-n-seek {quite a few hyphens in there!}. She is so full of spunk and loves to give eVeRtHiNg a name!!! And she is logical about her naming!

 As i went to initial her homework last week for music class i noticed it was already done. "I just looked at the other ones you did and wrote them". Apparently she didn't want to wait any longer for me to sign it!

 Ej is the best little friend! She is {usually}pretty helpful and loves to do things to surprise. She is very patient with me as well as Nate & Rowen. She loves to teach Rowen new things and always wants to carry him places. She still loves her cozies and sleeps with them every night. She loves stuffed animals and is a total bag-lady with her bags full of her collections. She is totally my mom's revenge on me being a pack-rat. I remember having 2 drawers of my tallboy dresser designated as junk drawers.... and they were full of just that - JUNK! I remember once {or many times} them getting too full to shut and I was instructed to condense them down to one drawer and everything else was headed to the trash. Not even DI material.... just pure garbage. I remember what seemed like an entire Saturday spent with gut wrenching, heart-breaking decisions of what to keep and what to send on it's way. EJ loves treasures and trinkets..... and loves everything to have a little home. Whether it is a shoe box or a purse, a back pack or an empty q-tip box, EVERYTHING can be up-cycled ;) She is innovative! She continues to drive Nate crazy with her delay-tactics.  She loves to barter. She is so sweet and loves to cuddle. She loves to wander into my room in the middle of the night to ask "Can i snuggle you a minute?" She can sing EVERY song on the Frozen soundtrack and she totally get into character and you can see the weighing emotions on her face. She loves to go to dance class and is learning TONS- can't wait for her recital. She hates practicing music but loves it once she learns a piece or an assignment. She loves to pretend that she is magic and make things disappear and reappear. She has a really funny sense of humor and giggles as much as possible. Her memory is UNBELIEVABLE! She still talks about things in Cleveland and places we visited last year. I am so LUCKY to be her mom and enjoy the small things of life with her! She teaches me about unconditional love daily as she accepts me so completely and wholeheartedly, my faults and all. She has this innocence to forgive and continues to forgive as i stumble through my journey of parenting.... which is very much so less-than-perfect.