Sweetness, with a new hint of spice

I didn't take Cran for her dance pictures this past Sunday (too expensive), hence my own pictures of her in her adorable tap/ballet recital costume. She looks so darn precious. I'd actually been needing to try it on because I had to cut some ribbon, and it fits her really well. She's quite excited for her big dance show at the end of May (as are WE!) and is already talking about how she wants her hair done. My little Crannie!

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Four years old has emerged as the feisty age for Maddie! She's our same, sweet little girl with a new streak of tenacity and feistiness that has only ever been seen in her little Beebster sister. It's been so funny, and surreal, to see it all emerge within the last month for sure. She asks "why?" about EVERYTHING now, including tasks that we ask of her. She wants to know why she is being asked to do something, and I end up with the classic "because I told you to do it!" Of course, "why?" is asked about every single other thing under the moon as well. She wants to know about everything, and I mean everything. She is not a girl that accepts vague answers, and wants to know an in-depth answer and wants it explained to its fullest-- or, as best as can be answered. She's so funny about that, especially when it comes to nature and wanting to know why things are so. 

I wouldn't have it any other way though. Our Crannie is growing up and, inevitably, molding a new personality. She is the absolute sweetest 4-year old girl that I know though, and her whole life is spent with her classic sayings of "this is the best day ever!," "I'm so excited," "oh, I love this day," "I'm so lucky to have you, Beebster (or, Momma.. Daddy)," etc etc etc. EVERY day to her is her "best day." She's thankful all the time for the most trivial things, and I just love that about her. 

Four years and 2 months old. I am reminded of this every day. Little Alexa was 4 years and 2 months old when she went to Heaven. I can't even imagine losing our Maddie or our Faith, and it makes me crazy thinking that if we were in their shoes we wouldn't have our Cran anymore here with us. I feel so blessed every day to have my little girls, and the challenges that await us on our path of raising little women are challenges that I look forward to wholeheartedly. There will never be a day that goes by that I don't look at our Crannie and thank the Lord that she is here. I love my sweet girl so much. 

Dancing chef

Cran and I haven't been baking or cooking nearly as much lately since I've been trying to cut the grocery bill as best as I can. She checked out another cookbook though from the library the other day, and wanted to make two things in particular: nachos and dalmation cupcakes. The ingredients were few for both of these things, and so I promised her that when we went to the store on Friday that we would get what we needed to make these two things.

Dan grilled last night, and he and his Cran had a mutual admiration for their jobs as chefs. It was quite funny actually. Dan absolutely loved her nachos (which were so easy to make-- just salsa, melted cheese, and scallions.. I think next time we'll make them with pulled pork since she loves the ones from Smokey Bones so very much!) and she was asking today at lunchtime if Dan was going to grill again tonight. I thought that was funny. He made her day when he asked for them again today- he told her they were the best nachos he's ever had- and she made them for him again tonight. 

She baked dalmation cupcakes this afternoon after her rest. They came out really cute, and she and Beebster added sprinkles to a few since she didn't want them all to be dalmations. Haha. She then asked for a 'science lesson' (which would be "Planet Earth") and told me that "the most vicious animals in all the Earth are african hunting dogs." Haha.

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I am so proud of my little Triggy at dance. She's always done so well, and now lately with them practicing every week for their show at the end of May, she is definitely the most animated little girl there. Ms. Dawn tells her all the time that she appreciates that she sings the songs the loudest and always tries her hardest at every class. The mothers all tell me how animated she is and how they can tell that she loves going to class every week. She absolutely loves practicing the shows! She starts laughing when they turn out the lights to re-create how it will be for the actual show. They line up (Maddie is first in line) and Maddie burst out today saying "This is the best day of my life!" when they asked us to come in to watch. She sings the songs by heart and sings them so that is heard above everyone else. It's crazy because she doesn't seem like she is the youngest in the class, but really she is. She loves all of the girls in the class and LOVES Ms. Dawn and their assistant, Miss Melissa. It seems as though she's made for doing actual stage shows because she gets even more enthused about practicing than when they used to do just random steps and practice basics, etc. 

Her memory is ridiculous too. She can sing the songs she learns at dance class after the first time they practice them. She and Faith love this Christmas Princess CD that they borrowed from the library, and the girl has the lyrics down after listening to each song 1-2 times. She made me laugh so much on the way to dance this morning because she was singing one of the princess songs and it had a very high note to it. She sang it, and her voice cracked and she goes, "I just don't have a good voice" and laughs. It was hilarious!

Our little performer

Maddie and her dance class practicing their ballet portion of the recital

Waltzing Matilda

a preview to Maddie's ballet dance for the recital!

Tap dancing Crannie

I personally love this song for their tap dance, and Maddie's always so animated when she does it (although of course the day I take the camera, she was slightly less animated!)

Strawberry Patch with Sally

Maddie's tap dance for their show in May

Budding artist

I think the Easter bunny might have to bring Maddie a sketch pad. 

I wish we had more room for an easel, but with living in an apartment, we can only really have a handful of 'big' things that take up space. She's so very into her drawings these days though. It's really sweet how she gets into it. She uses up so much construction paper though! She insists on drawing everything on its own piece of construction paper; if she wants to draw our family, she needs a separate piece for each of the 4 of us. 

After her rest time today, we played 'Cootie' and then she wanted to draw. She drew her Beebster, herself, Daddy, me, Nene, Grampa, Uncle Schnoogo, Tia Rosa and the cutest picture of what she deemed "two mystery people." It looked like two little girls in her "mystery picture" so I asked her if it was Dee and Dis (herself and her Beebster), and she told me "nope, it's me and Ella. And, we're picking cherries." Low and behold, she had drawn cherries in their little hands. It was so cute! Her drawings are becoming increasingly more elaborate; she puts buttons on dresses and shirts, she draws bellybuttons, and she puts hairbows in the hair of little girls. She loves asking Faith what to draw, and Faith gets so excited to have a picture that Maddie drew for her.

Conversations with a Cran, and artwork

Cran was quite full of interesting conversations today.

While on a walk this morning, Maddie started talking about the difference between 'nice' killer whales (in captivity) and 'mean' killer whales in the wild. She then went on to say, "but, the meanest, meanest, meanest animal in the whole, wide world is a sperm whale. Can you believe it? Momma, he will pull you down to the depths of the ocean."

She then, out of the blue, asked why we don't live at Nene's house. I told her we used to live there when she was a tiny little toddler before her Beebster was born, and that she used to dance in the kitchen with Nene every single morning, afternoon, and night. She laughed, and then very seriously asked again "Momma, why can't we live with Nene?" I asked her, "well, why do you want to live with Nene? It'd be a far drive for your poor Daddy to go to work." She answered, "because I love Nene." We then went inside for lunch and Maddie and Faith were excited to get to choose a bag of chips from those big variety bags of snack packs (we never get them, but we had a coupon at Target for them). She picked a bag of Cheetos and goes, "oh, these are wonderful snacks. Well, ok Momma, I guess I can stand living here." Hahahahaha.

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Maddie's artwork is getting so cute these days. She loves drawing and asks Faith all the time what she wants her to draw. Usually it's always "a boo, a baa, a (sniffs her nose like a bunny), a (makes bubble sounds for a fish), a ruff, Momma, Da-Da, Dee, Dis." Ha! She made pictures of all of us today on separate pieces of construction paper and immediately now goes to hang them on the fridge with pride. While we were out for dinner, she drew an awesome picture of a fish. I didn't even believe that she had made it at first. I truly thought Dan had made it for her. So, I was quite proud. She then made a blowfish (which actually did look like Bloat from 'Nemo') and then a sperm whale "like Monstro." 

Sweet smelling

Little Cran just emerged from her room looking for her Beebster. I wondered why she smelled so good if tonight wasn't bath night, and then I remembered.. she insisted on three splashes of perfume before bed so that she would "smell like a princess."

Cran was so excited the other day. We had gone to a local consignment shop looking for clothes for the baby. She LOVES looking at baby outfits, and says "awww" constantly while holding them up to examine them. She and Faith look through the baby stuff every single morning. Maddie helped me pick out two sweet little outfits (I was so proud... a Carter's and a Gymboree outfit, each with tags still on them for $2.99!) and just loved them. She found a new workbook too which she really loves. She doesn't even want to wait for me to read her the directions to each page, and I find her in her room with a pen circling things and underlining things while coming up with her own sets of instructions! We went to the Dollar Store afterwards, and they just love going there these days. Maddie's insistent on finding Jasmine socks (they each love getting princess socks for $1/each.. I think those will be added to their Easter baskets this year!) and she and her Beebster just love browsing the store. Dan found Maddie a pair of jeans for $.95!! He was so proud!

Crannie is looking forward to the grocery shopping tomorrow. I told her she and Faith could make a more elaborate recipe (that they agreed upon) from one of her three cookbooks since we've been making just simple boxed things lately. Too many ingredients= too expensive sometimes! But, she and Faith picked a candy pizza, so they're both excited to get baking tomorrow. 

Big sister-to-be for the 2nd time

Cran felt her baby sissy's hiccups today. We were playing 'Candyland' and she is always asking me to tell her if I feel the little miss moving, so I told her her baby sissy was being funny with a case of the hiccups. Cran was thrilled to put her hand on my stomach and feel the constant repetition of little baby hiccups. Her face totally lit up and she told me, "she kicked me! she's so silly! why does baby sissy have the hiccups?" It was great.

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Poor Cran now is the one with the horrible cough that Faith had last week. Neither one of them is sick persay, just with this God awful cough. Fresh air and exercise seemed to make Faith's cough better when she had it, but it made Maddie's worse today when we were out for a long walk this morning and then at the playground in the afternoon. Maddie came out of her room at about 9:45pm coughing up a storm, and it's 10:46pm and she has only now seemed to be able to settle into some restful sleep. I just came from turning on a steaming shower again and sitting on the toilet with her to let the steam do its work. That seemed to work wonders with Faith's cough, but it's not Maddie's favorite thing to do. Poor thing. I just sat there holding her and rubbing her leg while she fell asleep on my lap for a few minutes. 

Attention to details

Maddie cracks me up with the things that she does just like me.

The other day after her rest and before her activity, I was going through this big Disney book that she has in their room. I will admit to some slight OCD about certain things (and it's definitely not nearly as bad as it was before having had my girls!) and I have to have their Disney movies in chronological order according to what year they were released. I'm just like that. Anyway, I noticed I had a few wrong. So, Maddie thought it was neat helping me go through the book and fixing some of the movies on their DVD rack.

Today during her rest she came out of her room and whispered to me, "Momma, you were wrong about something. 'Cinderella' comes before 'Peter Pan.'" She had gotten out the book herself and was re-working our reconfiguration from the other day. She had it perfectly right, and told me "See, now they're in the right order."

Cranster- miss animated!

BY this time, Faith had grown bored of dancing but Maddie kept on going! She's too funny with the face she makes while she dances!

Cracks me up

Crannie just came flying out of her room during 'rest time' full of excitement. She's been busy circling things from the American Girl catalog that she'd like for Easter (which includes practically every single item listed in the catalog!) and she came out wanting to show me what she had circled for myself, Dan, and Beebster. She had circled the Bitty Twins for all of us: the Caucasian ones for me, the African American ones for Dan, and the Hispanic ones for Beebster. It made me laugh! Not to mention, she's giving all of the dolls her made-up names rather than the names from the books, and they are all either Ellie, Dellie, Lellie, or Bellie. It's too funny.

Needless to say, she is quite excited and ready for Easter. She finished her math workbook within a few days of getting it, and then finished a princess book of spelling words that she loves. So, she decided her 'activity' for the last 2 days would be to make the Easter bunny a list of things she'd like. The Christmas list took about a week to complete, but this list only took 2 days. She's getting fast!

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Have totally forgotten to mention Cran's love of baked potatoes. This girl LOVES her baked potatoes, and I think it's now been several months where this is one of her favorite foods. She and Faith love picking out potatoes at Giant with us and then taking turns putting them on the scale. I swear Maddie would eat a baked potato every single day, for every single meal!