a party.

Elly's favorite friend, R., turned 4 a couple of weeks ago. They had a BBQ & invited our whole family. It was such a wonderful evening. The kiddos enjoyed the bouncy house & pinata...

Elly enjoyed raiding R's closet & changed into one of her dresses... (scroll up to the first picture to see what Elly wore to the party)

Aren't they sweet standing together?

I didn't get a picture of this but at first all of the children were in a neat little circle around the candy. I thought that was pretty funny...they all acted like they had never seen a pinata before. No yelling, screaming, or diving for the candy... :)

Enjoying conversation while waiting for cupcakes & ice cream... Elly & R.

Elly doing something silly... R. imitating her...

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Thanks for a great night...we are really gonna miss you guys when you move to Minnesota! :(

crabs.

We have had some guests for the past week...5 hermit crabs! :) Now, we have only seen 3 of the 5 (the others have buried themselves in the sand) and only 1 has been out for the past 3 days. The first day, though, the girls gave 2 of them a bath.

Elly was excited to give us a lesson on how to bathe them. :)

thanks.

The Wade girls had an amazing year at school! Elly completed her first year of preschool with Ms. Ann (shown above). :) She will have another year of preschool with her & Elly will also spend her kindergarten year with Ann, too. :) We are so blessed because Maddy spent her preschool days with Ms. Ann, too. She knows our family really well. Thanks, Ms. Ann! We appreciate all of your hard work.

Miss Ashley just completed her Montessori training and is heading to Sweden for a year. Elly calls her "Ash-u-lee." :) Thank you for all of your hard work at school while you were making materials & doing homework for your training. Good luck in Sweden, enjoy Fredrik, & be safe! :)

This is Mr. Joe with a gaggle of 1st year girls who are now 2nd graders! Can you believe it? I can't. The girls love him. Thank you for putting up with me, Mr. Joe. I am a needy, overprotective, helicopter mom. Thank you for being so patient with Maddy as she came back around to the Montessori way of thinking. :) And, thank you for guiding that gaggle of girls while they learned how to be "friends."

And, thank you, Ms. Jan! This woman works so hard! You deserve your summer off. :) Thank you for working with Maddy this year & keeping an extra close eye on her. I really appreciate it. :)

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By the way, we took Red Fish home with us for the summer, so we are pretty sure that Maddy will be spending her 2nd & 3rd year with Joe and Jan, too.

PS~Red Fish is still alive. I even cleaned his fish bowl once & added more water yesterday. He's still swimming, swimming, swimming. :) Keep your fingers crossed we don't kill him.

sadness.

I found out in March that Elly's favorite friend was moving to Minnesota. I couldn't be more sad for her...

because, of course, she has no idea. We have talked about it a little. She is moving in July.

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And, if you are thinking that they have similar haircuts, you might want to know that she used to have longer hair. But, she went in to her hairdresser and said, "I want a haircut like Elly Wade." Ha! So...here they are...like 2 peas in a pod. Only one is moving... :(

the zoo.

Three weeks ago, Elly & I went with Maddy and some of her Brownie troop to the zoo. They were earning their animal /zoo badge and had workshops and fun activities throughout the zoo. Elly & I went with the troop for some of the things but, ventured off on our own, too.

Elly liked seeing Dory from "Finding Nemo."

We got to see this gorilla up close & personal. Yeah, um...going to the bathroom. This picture shows him sitting...not going to the bathroom. Ewww.

He was very active! Getting really close to the glass & climbing up and over the glass tunnel.

Watching the baby giraffe.

This iguana was not in a cage. Just traipsing through the tropical forest... After the zoo, we went for a train ride and a ride on the carousel. A really fun day!

flashbacks?

Guess what my little Elly belly did when her daddy trimmed our yard this weekend after he mowed?

Oh, yes, that would be her...hiding with her head under a pillow on the couch. And, she wasn't just hiding. Poor thing. She was crying her eyes out. "Is he all done trimming?!" "When is he gonna be all done trimming?!" I really did try to comfort her. I tried holding her & talking her through it. It was to no avail. I finally gave up & tried not to laugh at her. I did rub her back when it became obvious that she wasn't going to calm down.

When he trimmed right out front...she really hunkered down. Look how tight her little hands are gripping the pillow. Oh, she really did break my heart.

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The only thing I can think of (because she has never done this before) is that the night she hurt her foot, Kevin was trimming. He was trimming the outside of our privacy fence & the girls were playing in the backyard. They were running away from the fence when she stepped on that piece of splintered wood from the tiki torch. I think she is having flashbacks. It's gonna be a long mowing season...

6 out of 10

This little Wade girl has missed 6 days of school in the last 2 weeks! 1 day last week for a random fever (?), 2 days last week due to her foot injury, & 3 days this week b/c she has strep throat! I don't know what to do about these girls & the strep virus. I really think that Kevin or myself is a carrier. We have a prescription ready for Maddy just in case...but, we are praying we don't have to fill it.

prayer request.

My sweet elderly grandmother, Jean, went to her local post office yesterday to buy some stamps. She tripped on the sidewalk out front and broke her nose! Poor thing! Could you please say a prayer for her? On a different note, my cousin was driving by the post office at the exact moment(!) and saw it happen! He quickly turned around & drove her to the ER. Coincidence? I think not. Thank you, Lord...for being near. UPDATE~My grandmother started vomiting this morning & had to be taken back to the hospital. She has a concussion. Bless her heart.

Happy Birthday, Grandma Vicki!

Someone close to the Wade girls is having a birthday! :)

Happy Birthday, Grandma Vicki! (We think that's who they get their silliness from!) :)

together.

We met my dad's side of the family for a special Mother's Day lunch today. It was fun to spend time together. My Aunt Diane took this photo of us. Family pictures of us are so few & far between! Thank you, Aunt Diane. And, I thought the food was very yummy. Maddy was especially happy because...

they had popcorn shrimp! Who knew this girl liked popcorn shrimp? She cracks me up! :)

a mother's day suprise!

I can always count on my mom to send me flowers for Mother's Day! They are lovely, mom. Thank you so much. I miss you.

the hardest day.

Wednesday evening the girls asked if they could play outside. Of course, I said yes. Kevin had just mowed the back yard (ie~picked up all of the dog doo-doo) & I was trying to make dinner. They asked if they had to wear shoes (it was hot & they didn't want to), I said no. Then, Elly stepped on this...

Let me just tell you that I could hear her screams inside the house (which was closed up b/c we had the air on), over the music I had on in the kitchen, and over the trimmer that Kevin was using along the back yard fence. My poor little sunshine. I ran outside and picked Elly up to carry her inside demanding for Madalyn to tell me what had happened. I looked at her little foot and put her in a warm bath to soak. Her little feet were so black it was hard to see what had happened.

After a bath & dinner, I had our wonderful neighbor, Sharon, look at her foot to see if we should take her to the ER. Sharon is a nurse (and most recently, looked at Maddy's tushie when she did a cartwheel in the house & landed on the corner of her wooden book "basket.") Dear Lord, I think I owe her $ or flowers. Maybe both. :)

Elly looked like she had some wood still in her foot but would not let us touch her to really get a good look. By this time, though, Elly was exhausted, and I did not want to wait hours in the ER.

We put some hydrogen peroxide on it, some neosporin, & a Dora band aid (which makes everything feel better, right?) We figured it would get us through the night. Elly slept in her bed the whole night. :) I was so proud of her but, quickly discovered why she stayed in her bed all night. She would not put any weight on her foot and cried whenever she tried. :(

I took her in on Thursday morning to see Dr. B. He looked at her and right away said that he thought she had some leftover wood in the wound. He would need to give her a shot of Lidocaine (in the wound, mind you) to numb it...so he could pull the piece out. He said she would be in pain for about 5-10 seconds until it went numb.

I put on my brave mommy face. It was my job to keep her upper body still & talk her through it. Nurse J. held her feet & Dr. B. did the dirty work. I have to tell you that it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do...hold my baby down, watch her sob in pain, & tell her it would be okay. She was so brave. Even when she ended up having 3 (yes! THREE!) shots of Lidocaine in the wound, and even when they had to make the wound bigger b/c it was so deep that they had to make sure no wood was left behind.

Let me tell you that when she was sobbing for me to "take her home!" and that "she was all done with this work!" I started to get really emotional. I had tears in my eyes when I told her that I would NEVER let anyone hurt her and that I trusted Dr. B. and Nurse J. and that they have known her since she lived in my belly. That they loved her & cared about her little foot and that we had to do this so she could walk & run & play with her friends again. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

But, she made it. And, afterwards, I took her out for chocolate custard for lunch. :)

Dr. B. thinks that he got everything out. Time will tell & I need to call on Monday to give them an update. If it becomes infected (she runs a fever, it has pus coming out of the wound, etc) then she will have to go back in for an antibiotic & they will decide if she needs to see a surgeon. But, I am praying that all is well. She started walking a little by Thursday night and did a little more on Friday (when grandma Vicki came down to stay with her! Thank you, Vicki Lou!). Today, we accompanied Maddy on a zoo trip with the Brownie Scouts and she climbed & played. She walked and ran! :) Yay, Elly!

Tonight, we instituted a new rule at the Wade house...ALWAYS wear shoes outside! :)

wordless wednesday.

egg dye