Love, Big sister

Maddie just told me:

"Faith is my sweetest Beebster friend I ever had."

"My friend, Alexa"

Took Cran and Beebster to the library the other day, and one of the books that Maddie checked out was "Alex's Amazing Lemonade Stand" about the little girl, Alex, and her lemonade stands that raise money for cancer research. This has triggered non-stop talk ever since about her friend, Alexa.

I was reading Alex's book to Maddie and Faith this morning, and about 15 minutes later when I told them to get their sandals on for our walk, I noticed that Maddie was quiet. I asked her what was wrong, and she just burst into tears: "I miss my friend, Alexa, Momma!" I told her that everybody does, especially her own Mom, Dad, and little brother. She hugged me very tightly. She talked A LOT about Alexa during our walk. She kept saying that "well, there are a lot of people that miss my friend, Alexa.. you miss her, Daddy misses her, Beebster misses her, and I think even the Bay Breeze misses her." She kept asking me when she would get to meet Alexa, when Alexa would get to see her family again, and if Alexa would ever come to Pennsylvania to meet her and her sisters? All difficult questions to answer. She told me she wanted to draw pictures of Alexa's favorite things and send them to her, and then asked me "well, do you think a helicopter could take the pictures to her in the clouds?" She kept asking for me to tell her all about Alexa's favorite things, even though I've told her so many times about how alike they both are. She just loves to hear about how she loved everything fancy, pretty, and princess-y just like her. She came home and worked on her spelling this afternoon, and requested that 'Alexa' be one of the words she spelled since she wanted to know how to spell it. Then, she chose a Cinderella picture to color and wrote Alexa's name on it. She's anxious to finish her drawings (Beebster later chose a Snow White to draw as well for 'Dee's friend!') and send them to her friend.

We are definitely going to have to get Maddie (and Faith and Abrie) a copy of Alexa's book so that they are able to understand a little better about their sweet "friend."

We never met this precious little girl, and yet we miss her so much. My girls will always know of her and about her. 

Little scholar

There are so many things that I love, admire, and respect about my three baby girls.

Cran is such a little scholar. The girl loves to learn. And, I love to sit back and watch it.

Relating to THE girls!

Some of the neatest experiences in having my girls is reliving some of my favorite things when I was little through them. Maddie and her new found love of American Girl books is one of those really neat memories of mine.

We literally have an enormous stack of American Girl books checked out from the library on our couch. I've been taking her to the library just she and I on the days that Faith actually naps, and she just LOVES, LOVES, LOVES looking for American Girl books (and always insists on finding Faith some books too before finding the nearest table to sit and page through all of the new chapter books she found). She doesn't want only one; she wants as many as they have at the time. And, we've been reading through them like fire-- almost one a day. She's not even the only one that likes them; Faith-y Q. loves them as well, and HER favorite is "Meet Molly." Oh, how the Beebster loves that one. 

We've been taking a book with us on our walks, and stopping to read a chapter when we get to our destination (so long as Abrie is napping in the stroller). It's neat to see the different quirks that Maddie likes/dislikes in each of the girls from the stories. I always remember 'Kirsten' being my favorite, and Maddie says 'Samantha' is her favorite at the moment. I kind of figured she would love her since she has all the elegant clothes and tea parties, and stuff like that. In fact, now she has been requesting a tea party for her birthday party where everybody brings a doll and we make ice cream with rock salt. Haha.

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She's been doing wonderfully also with her interest in spelling and sounding out words. I've been trying to make my own workbook pages and helping her with 3-letter words, but she'll often ask for 4-letter words. 

And, on top of that, her new favorite song is Michael Jackson's "Heal the World!" My little Crannie Tannie.