Now a decade old

Well, 7 years since the last post and Faith is now 10 years old!

I have decided to print these blogs for my girls so they have a small keepsake of their childhood to read and smile at some memories that they may or may not remember.

I wish that I could bottle up everything as a way to remember it all, but I am hopeful that they are able to smile at the memories that they do have (and maybe even cringe at some, that is ok too!).

Faith has always and will always be our daring girl. She is usually the first one to want to test something new (or quick to see if Abrie is willing (unknowingly) to be the guinea pig!). She wants to do everything first, be everywhere first, climb the highest, run the fastest. She is our competitive spirit, and she has a drive inside of her that will take her to such great places. I can not wait to see what she will do in life!

She is a fiercely loyal friend and sister, and I love that about our Flop. She still adores her Maddie and loves her Abrie, and there just couldn't be a better "medium" sister for this family. She loves a good joke and can be very sneaky! She is our social butterfly who makes friends so easily and loves her teachers (especially Mrs. Myers from 2nd grade).

I am so thankful for our little Flop!

Ears pierced

Little Floppy told us today she wanted to get her ears pierced. She has been saying this since before she turned three, but we definitely wanted to wait until she was at least 3 to keep in synch with how old Madison was.

She was insistent today that she wanted her ears pierced so that she could wear earrings like Maddie. I sat her down and explained the procedure, but she insisted she would be "brave in a cave." Haha. Dan was very much against the idea, but we went to the mall to see if she still wanted to do it.

She watched a teenager get her ears pierced, and she still wanted to do it. I remember Maddie watching two other girls get theirs done before them, and I know they both definitely wanted to do it since they both still insisted upon it even after watching the procedure. Faith picked these pretty little blue flowers (Maddie had the same ones, only pink-- they always joke that they are Merryweather and Flora because Faith has always loved blue, and Maddie has always loved pink, pink, and more pink. Now they say that Abrie will be Fauna and love green! We'll have to see).

She sat on my lap and was so good. I thought I was going to have a heart attack with how long they took, which gave me more time to dwell upon the pain my poor Flop was going to feel. She screeched, but literally stopped the second they asked her if she wanted a lollipop. I couldn't believe how little she cried! She was a true little trooper. Maddie was sobbing instead saying "I want to protect my sissssssssssttttter!" They are too funny.

So, now we have a new little girl in the house with earrings. And, she looks so darn pretty!

Princess names

The princesses according to Faith:

Aurora- 'Arara'
Snow White- 'White'
Jasmine- 'Asmine'
Pocahontas- 'Pokeyhontas'
Mulan- 'Mooolan' (although it used to be 'Tattoo' for whatever reasons!)
Belle- 'Belle'
Cinderella- 'Cinderedda'
Ariel- either 'Riel' or 'I no say this' (as in, "I can't say this!")

Our girl also loves to whisper secrets in our ears all the time which are almost always "I love you Dad, I love you Mom" which is precious. Oh, and she also LOVES to be the one to say the prayers at dinnertime. I'm going to have to videotape it because it is priceless. She has her eyes closed and mumbles things that NOBODY can make out and then says "AMEN" as loud as she can!

Gotta love a girl named Beebster!

Student Beebster

My Beebster just loves to learn new things all the time.

She's really picking up on her number and letter recognition, counting to 20, learning to count by 10's to 100, and even writing her name almost perfectly and some other numbers and letters. Maddie was doing these things at 3 1/2, and I think that it helps a lot that Maddie loves to "teach" Faith things in the early mornings when they are awake and playing and at night when they sit together on the bottom bunk and chat. It's really cute, and Faith gets so proud of herself. She's funny too in that she loves the things that I come up with to help her remember things. I told her that 15 is smelly from not taking a shower, and she'll point to "him" on her number chart and say "oh 15... you need a BATH!" She says 6 loves "eggscream" (as in ice cream), 16 is going to the beach, 17 has long hair, and all the 'teens' are the "big brothers" of the single digits.

I can tell that she wants to do things earlier because of wanting to do everything that her Maddie does. She has been wanting to know how to spell her name for awhile now, and actually can write it pretty well now.

3-year old

Faith went for her "official" 3-year check-up yesterday at the doctor.

She weighed 27 lbs and is 36 inches tall! Nene told me that I weighed 27 lbs also and I was 35 3/4 inches tall when I turned three, so my Beebster and I are pretty much one in the same. She's so small and adorable! She was so excited for everybody (aka Dan, Cran, her Beeba, and myself) to watch her, and she was so proud to do everything that the doctor told her. This doctor has been our doctor since Faith was a newborn, and knows Faith very well. She asked me if anybody that we've talked to ever voices concerns about her speech, and I told her that yes some people have asked us about it but we understand her and have understood her since she was not even a year old. The doctor wasn't worried at all, and our Flop is doing wonderfully!

She loves to tell us that she loves us a lot by saying, "I love you much!" It's so perfectly Beebster. She is the best 'medium' sister there could have ever been, and I admire it so much since I was just like Faith, being the 2nd of 3 girls. She is in love with both her big sister and her baby sister and tells them this all the time.

Faith's ONLY Guy

Faith is as steadfast as Maddie has always been about her one and ONLY boy friend.

Her beloved Guy. Aka, her cousin, Donovan.

Today she told me that she has a brother, and that it is Guy.

On the cusp of turning.... three!

Gotta keep up with my running journal of all things Beebster and everything that she loves:

She is soooooo fastidiously conscience about her hands being washed. I think I have definitely instilled in them my own OCD qualities of having to feel clean, but I think Faith also is fastidious about it all by herself. She is constantly asking to wash her hands, and even wants hand sanitizer. She's also hilarious when she uses wipes to clean herself. If she is sticky from something she has eaten, she will get one of Abrie's wipes and not only clean her face and her hands, but she will also stick it down the front of her shirt and wipe her throat and her chest. I have no idea where this came from, but it is absolutely hilarious to watch!

She is totally all about the toilet for pooping. I have not changed a poop diaper of Faith's in probably 3 weeks or so. But, pee on the other hand? It's hit or miss with that. She wants so desperately to wear princess underwear like her Dee, but is not quite there 100%. I am so proud of her no matter what, and I know she is so incredibly proud of herself as well.

She wants to be just like Dee. Man, she adores her big sis. She has been asking for months now to get her ears pierced like Maddie and like princesses. We are trying to stick to how we did everything with Maddie and her timeline, so I suppose 3 years old might be a good time for Faith to get her ears pierced IF she still wants to do it. We will see.

Abrie's head is a comfort to Faith. She just loves to sniff Abrie's head (she calls it 'ohhh, Fuzzy head' or 'ohhh, Lumpy head!') or rub it while she sits next to her Beeba. Those two are two peas in a pod. It makes me feel really good to know how much they adore each other also, since I know how much Faith will miss Maddie if/when she starts kindergarten next year.

She loves card games- and all games really- and anything craftsy. She loves drawing with Maddie, and they spend hours together coloring pictures in coloring books or on construction paper. Actually, Faith is getting really good at drawing.

I think Faith tells me about 30 times a day, "I love you, Momma" and I love it. I will never, ever grow tired of hearing that from my Beebster!