Four and a Half

Our sweet sweet babes turn 4 1/2 today. Yikes. The downhill slide to the big five. Thank goodness they are not starting kindergarten. We missed the cut-off by five days. My sister is registering our precious Cousin Avery for kindergarten and it hurts my heart. It can't be true.

I think we are doing what all 4 1/2 year old do: whine, dance, sing, build, color, whine, change clothes, read, whine, build puzzles. The girls both love art and their baby dolls. Elliott loves his little lego sets and is getting quite good at them. He also loves puzzles. Mazie says she wants to be a collector. She loves arranging all her little trinkets.

In our four and a half years, we've had several trips to the emergency room. Busted chins and cut thumbs. Elliott grabbed a knife and thought he'd cut him a slice of cheese. He cut his thumb instead. We got it glued shut. His sweet NanaLin mailed him a cheese slicer so he never finds himself in that predicament again. Lucia had to go to the emergency for a busted chin. She is a serious dancer and one evening she met the floor with too much force. The sweet nurse, who Lucia still talks about, taped it together and it has healed nicely. Mazie busted her chin open. H was driving her to the hospital when she saw the paramedics outside the drug store working on a Christmas parade float. She pulled in and they butterflied it.

Here are some of the things they've said over the past few months that H and I have loved.

One of our favorites is something Elliott has said several times in various forms. He loves to eat the tuna packets as a snack. He was at the table one night before bed eating tuna out of a bowl. Lucia asked him what he was eating. He told her, "It is chicken but some people call it petunia."

All three of them will say things like--Does C start with car? and H starts with house.

After I talked to Elliott about not pouring his milk down the drain he said, "I promise I'll do that not again."

Mazie calls her pigtails Pinktails. And Lucia calls freckles nickels. Elliott sometimes calls freckles ankles.

Lucia said she wanted to get a haircut. I asked her when she wanted to go. She said, "March 13th the sepril of April."

Elliott said one day when we lost a helium balloon, "I can't even see a wink of that balloon."

When we were cleaning up, Lucia said, "Only the left thing is I've got to throw these in the mistook."

One thing Elliott loves to do is get a hammer and bam stumps. He also loves to blow out candles. One day he hit his finger with the hammer.  I got a batman band-aid for him, kissed it, and put the band-aid on his hurt finger. I told him "I love Batman but he doesn't hold a candle to you." He said "No, Batman doesn't blow out candles."

Lucia also talk me one day that we need to take Aunt Tiff and Garrett his zippy cup so that we could "business" with them.

When we went to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D, Mazie said, "The glassess make the movie come out."

After Elliott hurt his toe, he said, "I didn't want it to happen to that toe."

Afraid we might have swept a missing puzzle piece up, Elliott said, "We might have swope it up."

Lucia told me one evening when Mazie was being mean to her, "Mazie is being tramatic ugly." I think she meant dramatic but it was also traumatic for Lucia.

We have one pair of little high heeled dress up shoes that the girls play with some times. Lucia was telling me she wanted to wear them and couldn't find them. I was having a brain freeze and couldn't think of what she was talking about. She said, "You know. My uphill shoes."

I have heard Lucia say the following, but I've also heard the other two say similar things. Maybe I should say I've evenly heard the others say it : "He helped her evenly" for He even helped her. Lucia loves to find deer prints when we walk in the woods. To say that she'd found another one, she said, "I found one evenly."

Elliott cracks us up when he says strangerous. It means strange to him. He has used his word on many occasion. He told Grandpa, "Lucia doesn't like butter. Isn't that strangerous?"

One night we were eating shrimp and Lucia turned to me and said, "Mama, thanks for not putting any bones in it."

We ate more tangerines this winter than you could shake a stick at. All three of the children called them Tamberines.

You know you have two daughters when you hear one tell the other, "Yours is sparkly and mine is glittery."

When Lucia found her doll naked, she brought her to me and said, "She has her bottom on." All three of them will still ask us if they can wear their feet when they want to go barefooted.

They all call the remote the commode or the cammote. It is funny to hear Mazie say, "No Elliott, I have the commode."

When Lucia stuck her pants in the wrong pant leg she said, "I was the matter with it."

Elliott has told us that God lives at Disneyland. He has also suggested that we "ask God if this is fingerpaint or brush paint."

Our son will also ask us "How do you think?" when showing us a painting he just did.

They all say "lose" for "use." But sometimes they say use for lose.

One night at supper I served Jello with fruit in it. Some thing the children had never seen before. Mazie looked at it and said, "Oh gahhhwd, What in the world tarnation?"

Instead of Dadgummit. They all three will say, "Awh dummick."

Lucia has said, "I wanted some candy and I was thoughting I wanted bubblegum."

Lucia was excited that she hit a balloon all the way up to the ceiling. She said, "Elliott, I have certain news to tell you."

After Halloween time, Elliott was wearing a plastic pumpkin ring. I asked him if he was wearing a ring, he said, "I asked it is it candy. He said no it's fruit."

Lucia, "If it was 89 100% to go past bedtime that would be right now."

Lucia told me one evening, "Bee is gonna come home in a few whiles."

Lucia also likes to exclaim thanksgiving in her own way. She has said, "Goodness sake we got the toys in before the big bad rain comes." Also, "Goodness we got to the icee house before the closed."

Mazie says, "It's no matter," instead of It doesn't matter.

Lucia told Elliott, "You better stop be roughing."

Here is a conversation H had with Mazie:
Mazie: "Did you know I used to be a dentist?"
H: "No, were you a dentist when you were three?"
Mazie: "No, I was a dentist when I was Lordy, Lordy, Mazie's 40."

Our cats have to stay outside at night. Lucia said to me one night, "When the dark isn't up we can go get the kitty."

Elliott and Lucia do not like butter. At breakfast one morning he asked me, "Is there just bread in my biscuit?"

We often here them say things like what Mazie told us when we told her it was about time to get out of the bathtub, "I want to stay in here a few whiles."

Lucia came to me crying, saying, "She was aggravating with us and we were being so mad."

One morning, we were painting rocks that we'd collected on a walk. Elliott asked me if I had anymore rocks for him to paint. I didn't. He said, "You are grossing me out." I ignored him, thinking he was talking to one of the rocks or to himself. He said it again. "You are grossing me out." I asked him if he was talking to me. He said, "Yes." I asked why he was saying that. He said, "Because you don't have anymore rocks for me to paint."

They all say things like "watch an eye out for it."

Elliott: "I asked her twice times."

Mazie, talking about bagels: "We didn't have these last morning the other day. So can we have then later ofter?"

Elliott told me: "Good for not losing the lid, Mama."

After spilling water out of the tub, Elliott said to his sisters, "Let's do eennie meenie miney mo to see who did it."

When Brandi Carlile's song "Dreams" came on, Lucia said to me, "Mama, this one rocks out."

Mazie realized "headache is kinda like you don't need a loud voice."

Mazie will also say, "Look, they are taller than each other."

Lucia says "goodness" instead of "thank goodness." As in, "Goodness we didn't lose your bracelet, Mazie."

Elliott has recently had a phase of not wanting his hair washed because he doesn't want the shampoo to burn his eyes. Who knows why, we've always used Johnson and Johnson. When I went to put shampoo in his hair one evening, he freaked out. "Does it say yes tears?" he asked me, instead of No More tears.

One night at the supper table, Lucia burped and I got onto her. She replied with, "Our bodies just don't think they're at the table and they burp it out."

We went to Christmas Eve service with my dad. Cousin Avery got to carry the Baby Jesus up to the front during the service. It was a plain wooden doll. The next day, Avery, Lucia, and Mazie were talking. One of my girls said, "Don't say a bad word or baby Jesus will spank you. Avery said, "Baby Jesus won't spank you because she's wooden."

Elliott's favorite number is fifty-eighty. He usually has fifty-eighty of something and whatever is about to happen usually happens in fifty-eighty minutes.