Eloise's Interview - 3 years old

I stole this awesome idea from a couple of friends who've done it with their little ones. I just love the snapshot these simple questions give you of this time in their life. Let's see what Eloise has to say...

What’s your name? Eloise Margaret and Eloise Klemsz

What does Mommy call you? Eloise

What does Daddy call you? Sweetie

What’s your favorite color? Pink

Who’s your best friend? You (Mommy)

What do you want to be when you grow up? Cowboy

What is something Mommy always says to you? Good morning

What is something Daddy always says to you? Thank you

What makes you happy? You

What makes you sad? monsters

What’s your favorite animal? kitty

What’s your favorite book? Amelia Bedilia

What do you like to do with Mommy? play blocks

What do you like to do with Daddy? make breakfast

What do you like to do with friends? play Mr Potato Head

What do you like to do outside? play ball

Where do you like to go? Lost In Fun

What is your favorite food? spaghetti

What is your favorite drink? white milk; I like cow’s milk

What is your favorite thing to watch? The Lion King

What’s your favorite song to sing? Huskers (Justin has taught her, "There is No Place Like Nebraska" and "Hail Varsity")

What’s your favorite toy? Thomas

Brand new

One year

Two years

Three years

Eloise - 3 years old

Oh my, oh my. My first born is 3 years old today. My joy has overflowed with you in my life. You, my sugar plum, are the most fantastic little person around. You are so smart. You are so beautiful. You are so filled with love and joy for this world and the people who surround you.

There are moments you drive me crazy. But only because I love and care about you so much and because I want what is best for you. But I have to remind myself in those moments that you are only three. With your intelligence, sometimes I forget that you are just three. Just three? You have so much awesomeness rolled up into those three years. Let me tell you about some...

You love to talk. About anything. You ask questions to learn more and more and it is a joy for me to see you grow in your knowledge and understanding of things.

You love to play pretend. Anything, anywhere can become a place or person of make-believe for you. In any one day, you will pretend to be 20 different people and you assign me a role to play with you. Many times I forget who is who, but in your place of make-believe, you know exactly what is going on.

You hit the ground running. No easing out of bed, dragging your feet for the day. I can only picture your eyes popping open and immediately you what to come check on Mom and Dad and ask if you can have breakfast. I'm sure we'll miss those early morning wake-up calls one day...

You love music. Love it. Mumford has been your favorite for some time now. Rain for Roots is always a go to, and on sunny days where we can roll the windows down in the car, we like to listen to Fun. You make up songs, sing them out loud and expect an applause after you've finished. With this and your love of dressing up in costumes, we can only imagine that you'll be on stage one day.

You love your baby sister (and she love you). She gets your biggest smile of the morning (and she gives you hers right back). Dare I say, as annoying as it is when you distract her when Mommy is trying to feed her, I just get a kick out of how you two play and crack each other up! I love that you ask for her kisses and hugs before she goes down to bed. And you always remember to tell her you love her. A couple times I've come in the room with you two girls playing and I've seen you with your arm around her telling her you love her and that she is "sooooo sweeeeet!" You two just steal my heart.

You make me so proud. In so many ways you make me proud. I know it's something I tell you often. One of the biggest achievements you've made this year is overcoming your fear of the swimming pool. I don't know what caused you to be so nervous about it, but the first two lessons you screamed. The next three or four you cried at some point. Today was your ninth lesson and you were a star. Smiling, splashing, holding hands with your newest friends. Face in the water, kicking your feet. Every now and then looking over at me watching you and you had the biggest smile. You are a strong little lady and I'm so proud you stuck with it, even when you probably were mad at me for dragging you in.

I'm so incredibly thankful that God choose me to be your mommy. I love you, Eloise Margaret.

Challenge 4: Media

This Sunday starts our next challenge of "7", media. Justin and I's list will be a bit different for this challenge, but in all, we are each choosing seven different media outlets to turn-off for these next 30 days. It's going to line up nicely with this Lenten season and will take us up to Easter. It's a good time to pick up better habits about being scripture and taking more time to slow down. Meditate. Pray. Be. As much of an adjustment I know it will be, I'm really actually looking forward to it and pray that what we learn will stick even after the challenge is complete.

Here's my list:

-Netflix/Amazon Instant Video
-TV (I don't watch regular TV anyway, but this will mean no March Madness)
-Facebook
-Phone apps (for me this is only Facebook and Gmail, but still a distraction. I'm going to uninstall both of these from my phone) *Also, Justin and I both are going to start putting our phone out of reach when we are at home.
-Online window shopping/web browsing (for me this basically Amazon and Etsy)
-Catalogs and magazines
-Adding: Reading before bed (The Bible or other spiritual growth titles)

I'm at home most of each day and the few hours that I'm not, I'm at my office job. I find myself going non-stop from the moment my feet hit the floor (or even before my feet hit the floor. When my early-bird of a daughter makes her way downstairs before my alarm even goes off...). For the most part, I don't have a ton of media outlets that take up my time. It's mostly Facebook and email that are so readily available on my laptop or my phone, that it seems like I click on my phone every time I pass by it laying on the counter to see if I have any emails (90% of which are daily emails from stores that I just delete anyway). Or maybe someone commented on my Facebook status and I just have to know what they said or I can't go on with my day. Seriously. It's really sad to admit that. Here is a reference from the book we are reading to a New Your Times article about "your brain on computers":

Scientists say juggling email, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information (for me, Facebook is the ultimate example of information "bursts"). They play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. The stimulation provokes excitement - a dopamine squirt - that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored. For millions of people these urges can inflict nicks and cuts on creativity and deep thought, interrupting work and family life. 

I completely believe it. And I'm ready to take on this challenge. I'm ready to want to punch these time-sucks in the face.

Challenge 2 and 3

It's supposed to be close to 70 degrees tomorrow. What a fantastic way to celebrate the end of our second challenge! The clothes challenge was infinitely easier than the food challenge, which I was confident it would be. That being said, I'm pretty excited about wearing skinny jeans and some spring flats tomorrow. Old man winter may have played a big role in this challenge being as simple as it was. With it still being so cold most days during this challenge, all I ever wanted to wear was my sweatshirt anyway. Now with spring time weather knocking on our door, I'm looking forward to changing things up a bit.

I don't know that I necessarily learned anything that I didn't already know from this challenge. It mostly just reinforced what I've already realized. Though I've never been a huge shopper and my closet space is no bigger than my husbands, I still had many items that I hardly ever wore. I would consistently pick out the same handful of items time and time again. And this goes for myself as well as the girls. I've collected so many cute things for them, but still choose to put them in my same "favorite" pieces. I may have been in denial for a few years about buying on consignment. I would tell myself that because everything was so cheap, I could afford to buy five times the amount of things I really needed. Well, I'm wising up. I'm now on more of a mindset that quality matters. (Don't get me wrong. I still will be shopping on consignment; I just know now that I don't have to fill my cart with it.)

This time of year will be tougher for me to resist buying any new clothes. I mentioned in a previous post that along with the 7 challenges of this book, our family also has a goal to not buy any new clothing for the whole year. I've always liked to refresh my wardrobe in the spring and fall, so this year I'm really having to completely refrain from any temptations. For myself and maybe even more so, my girls. I have to consciously avoid the little girls clothing section when I'm in Target. Gahh! So many cute things! I have to remind myself of all the clothes hanging in the closet, just waiting to not be worn.

Since Justin and I figured this challenge would be a lot easier to swallow, we also decided to tackle Challenge 3: Possessions, simultaneously. You see, as I was choosing my seven clothing items, I realized then how many things I had in my closet that I just needed to get rid of. So I started a pile of just my items.

Twenty-seven things I felt that I didn't wear regularly enough to rationalize a place for them in my closet. So that just jump-started me to go through all the closets and spaces throughout the house to see what else I could find. The third challenge of the book is to give away seven items a day for 30 days. 210 things. When I first read the chapter, my immediate thoughts were, "No. Way." First of all, I've always been a passionate organizer and a hater of clutter. I didn't feel there was any way I'd be able to get close to that many things to give away. Secondly, we just moved here 8 months ago. That means, before packing extra junk in boxes to move, I packed them in garbage bags and dropped them off at Goodwill. Again, I thought, could I just count all that as challenge completed? How sorely wrong I was. 27 items from my closest. Close to 200 separate items from Eloise and Mirabel's closet. Disgusting. Seriously. In all, we've given away almost 300 items and my work is not done. Though this really sickens me to think that I thought I wouldn't have anything to give away, I'm glad that so many things have gone to organizations here in Lincoln that can put them to use. We've been able to give most of our baby items to the Friendship Home. My clothes and other household items get taken to Fresh Start. It's also been fun to just give something to a friend who would be able to use something that's just taking space in your closet.

So as I said, it's still a work in progress. I think with kids in the house, it will be that way for a long time. But with the things I realized with the clothes challenge, I'm hoping eventually that knowledge and resistance will catch up with us and since there will be less coming in, there would be less that needs to go out.

Mirabel - 8 months

Oh, the fun we are having these days! Eight-month-olds are great. Mirabel is learning new things everyday it seems. She wants to crawl so bad! She gets herself into position but goes backwards. Very frustrating for her to get farther away from where she intends to go. Babbling more all the time. Now that she's sleeping better, she is just an all around wonderful baby and lover of life. This whole sister thing is getting sweet, too. Eloise is Mirabel's favorite to give kisses to. Busy days full of fun, mess, kisses and cuddles, we just are in love with our girls.

Mirabel's New Tricks

Mirabel is learning lots of new tricks these days. It's been so fun playing with her! Eloise is always so proud of her baby sister. Love these days! 

Pat-a-cake with Mirabel

Sooooo big!

2 of 7: Clothes

Tomorrow starts our second challenge in the book Justin and I are reading. This 30 day challenge will be on clothes. We've each chosen 7 different articles of clothing to wear for the next 30 days. (Note: we DO get to wash them :) We aren't including underwear, coats or pajamas in that count and in addition to the 7 clothing items, we also each choose one pair of shoes to wear for the 30 days as well.

In comparison to the first challenge with food, I expect this month to be much easier. Granted, it was a little tricky picking out my items, but all in all I think I made some good decisions. One thing I realized I had to change my thinking on right off the bat was, "If I choose this shirt, will people notice if I wear it 2 or 3 times in the same week?" I'll have to throw that way of thinking right out the window for this challenge. So there, folks. I don't care if you care that I've worn the same thing 3 (or 4 or 5, maybe even 7 times that week).

In fact, I'll go ahead and just tell you that I've decided to only designate one pair of pants in my 7 count. Risky, I know. But it really came down to the whole decision to have only one pair of shoes for the duration of this challenge. I chose my comfy Keen shoes and they really only go with one pair of jeans that I have. So why waste one of my items on another pair of pants that I probably won't wear much anyway?

My other items include 3 basic V-neck t-shirts. One black, one yellow and one striped. All of which coordinate with a green long-sleeve cardigan or can go under my comfy half-zip pull over sweatshirt that is charcoal grey. (I anticipate this to be what I wear ever other day, if not multiple days in a row.) Finally, I choose a nice-looking but casual pain blue sweater. Those in addition to a plain ol' pair of blue jeans are going to get me through the next month.

I already realize I'll have to do laundry on more days during the week, but it will be a much smaller load. I won't spend but 5 seconds on deciding what to wear that day. This challenge should also solidify Justin and I's desire to completely renovate our wardrobe next year. In addition to the challenges we are taking in this book, we've also made a goal to not purchase any clothes this whole year. For us or our girls. So far, so good. Starting next year, we really want to invest in a few quality items of clothes rather than having lots of cheap items that don't last and just fill up your closet space.

I'm going to try including the girls in on this month's challenge as well. Rather than 7 items though, I am going to up that to 10. I think because in the past I've found most of my girls' clothing on consignment, I've collected so many more pieces just because they were so inexpensive (and cute!). And even with 2 closets full of clothes for each of them, I still find myself going to the same pieces every week. As Mirabel continues to grow and I clear out her closet just to fill it back up with more of Eloise's old stuff, I'm quickly learning how much of it they just don't wear. Why keep it all? I'm having a hay day packing up the extra stuff and finding worthy causes and people to give it to. Win-win.