The most precious gift I have ever received

Twelve days down of vacation and only four days remaining. My days this round of being a fake SAHM are fast becoming numbered. *sigh*

I maintain the believe that I am definitely not a woman made to be a SAHM and rather a working mom but I'll tell you what, the Lord is certainly doing a job on my heart these days in the way of making me feel as if the only thing I want to do is just spend nothing other than copious amounts of time with Miss A.

I don't know if it's the wonderful age and stage that she is at right now but I just love it so much. She's such a fun little person to be around but even aside from that she really lets me indulge the party of me that will always be a fun-loving and curious little girl.

When I was pregnant and anticipating the arrival of parenthood, a friend of mine told me that there were two types of people - baby people and kid people. They acknowledged the fact that they were kid people more than baby people. When Miss A came along it was a learning curve for me but it didn't keep me from loving her in her infant stage. She moved into her toddlerhood and I thoroughly enjoyed that as well. Now she is a full-fledged little bitty gal of preschool exuberance and I cannot seem to get enough of it.

So am I a baby person or a kid person? Hmmm... I just don't know. I think the most accurate answer would be that I am a Miss A-person. I LOVE Miss A. I LOVE her more than anything and everything ever in the whole wide world.  All of her wonder and excitement for the tiniest things in the world that nobody pays any mind to, the silliness that can't help but erupt when she is super delighted and overjoyed over something of the moment, her obsession over all things pink...

I just cannot seem to get enough of any of it. But if there was more anyway there is! There is always ALWAYS (what I like to call) her sweet  round little "moon face" with her gorgeous velvety brown eyes.

I could just sit and stare at her for hours and days on end and never notice the time that is passing or I could follow her around for miles just to see the things that make her stop to look and take in.

When people told me that having a little girl, a sweet darling daughter, would change my whole entire world and turn it on its head, I never believed them but only because it was so unfathomable that a love like that could exist. But I'm here now and so is she, my sweet little Miss A, and for all of the Christmas and gift giving occasions that ever could happen to me, she is and will always be the most wonderful gift and blessing I know I will ever receive.

I love my fake SAHM days

I suppose in this time of vacation away from working my day job I could do the stuff that real SAHMs do like clean the house and get majorly caught up on the laundry and such things but I'd much rather do things like make mini pizzas, doodle, and be silly with Miss A.

For the record: cleaning and organizing did get done! I've just lost a little steam and motivation because I think I'm burnt out and getting whatever sickness she is trying to get over. :(

O Christmas tree!

It would be nothing less than an understatement to say that all of us Ellwoods are anything less than really excited about Christmas this year.  Last year was very fun and exciting but this year is the first one that Miss A just "gets" all of the excitement and festivities. Unlike many families, we don't do the Santa Claus thing but we still partake in plenty of other rituals of the Christmas season.


We got our tree up last weekend - a little later than we intended for Miss A's sake - but she was dazzled with the event just the same.  Miss A has an ornament on the tree for each of her Christmases and here are the two we have from last year and the year before:

Both ornaments above were handmade - the first one was by me and the second one was made by Miss A with my assistance out of air-dry clay and then painted with tempera paints I had leftover in the studio. 


We didn't do a handmade ornament this year (but I think we will return to it next year because I think it adds a little bit of something extra) but this year's ornament WAS handpicked by Miss A herself.

The ornament actually came from what was the first of what we hope will be many annual trips to Hershey Park earlier this year. The cool thing about the ornament is that it has a bit of a story that goes along with it as we snagged it at the end of a day where Miss A rode her first roller coaster (over and over again!) and when the huge rainstorm started and ended up flooding the area where Hershey Park is located. Miss A and I got separated from D when there was mass hysteria when the rain started coming down and Miss A and I sought refuge in the Christmas ornament store just inside of the gates at the park. Funny thing is that it's the only store I told D that I wanted to hit up before we left for the simple fact of getting an ornament to commemorate our trip to the park! Miss A and I were able to stay there long enough to pick out an ornament for her and one for the whole family...

 ... and then we headed right back into the storm to try and find D and get to our car and get out of there. The rain had come down so quickly that we literally had to both run and wade through standing water and if it sounds like it was chaotic and like mass hysteria then take it that way. I'm not coming even close to overdramatizing it.


It's awesome to look at the ornaments we have and remember the time we had at Hershey Park and I think that's why I like Christmas tree ornaments so very much. I've tried to make a point of getting one any place we travel to but I've done such a bad job at it and I'm going to make a point to do better from here on out.  


Miss A has been completely enthralled with all things Christmas and I swear it's because of her that D and I are just that much more excited as well. We've tried our best to make the whole thing as "kid-friendly" as possible by not having it be a situation where she is not allowed to touch things like the Christmas tree or the nativity we put out.

We have a regular nativity set but the one that we are using this year is one I picked up for 50% off last year at Family Christian that is so much more kid friendly than the Willow Tree one that I have and love so very much. I highly recommend the What God wants for Christmas set since it has little boxes that you can open up on days leading up to Christmas until the set it complete which go along with scripture readings of the real story of Christmas. We're trying our best to keep Christ in Christmas the best way we know how and in a way/on a level where Miss A gets it as well.


Hard to believe but we're finally so close to Christmas that tomorrow is Christmas eve but I'm getting so excited that it still feels like it is just a touch too far away!! :) Last evening D took Miss A shopping and she almost spilled the beans to me about what she picked out for her gift to me because she is just so excited. Only one more day for both her (and me) to wait. 

Busy as a bee

Miss A is such a busy little lady these days. It's like she always has some kind of agenda. Last week one of our long distance friends from Dallas sent her a little art project and she wouldn't even indulge me with one smiley picture at all.

It's not out of the ordinary to have her play tent pitched in the middle of her play room either. The rule is that she can't have any more than three toys in there at any given time but somehow she always sneaks things in there to keep her company while she is working on her drawings and colorings.

And then there's her natural curiosity that beats the heck out of anything our cat has. I don't even know where this box came from originally but Miss A found it and has taken it over for herself! For a while she was just stuffing herself into it but lately she's been using it to store random toys for random reasons.

Last night while D and I were decompressing from the day and watching the Pens vs. Blackhawks game we heard Miss A warbling and ticking the ivories in her playroom. When we looked in on her she yelled, "Look! I'm PIANO-ing!!"

I think we'll keep her around. She's pretty fun.

She's no Bob Ross

It's been a while since there have been pictures on here taken with anything other than my phone. Here are some I took with "Dino" (my nickname for my big digital camera that is ancient compared to today's standards).

Way back at the beginning of the school year, Miss A and I had some "clay time" with some leftover air-dry clay I had in the studio. Ever the fickle artist, she couldn't decide what she wanted to make but it ended up (with my strong suggestions) becoming an ashtray of sorts. *shrug*

We left it to dry out and kind of forgot about it and then Miss A brought it up in the way of, "Hey! Can we paint my clay?" I honestly felt kind of bad about forgetting about it for so long.

Miss A was thrilled to be able to break the paints out and put some color onto it today. She is ALL about doing artwork and I couldn't be more thrilled that she is such a drip off the ol' palette.

The next picture is of two chickens. She made them by putting her hands down and then painting around them. I'm assuming she learned this technique at preschool.

These masterpieces are drying on the dining room table/play fort thing in the playroom. They will be hung up tomorrow.

Miss A -cam strikes again!

We did a major overhaul in the way of cleaning, sorting, junking, and getting bagged up for Goodwill today. In the midst of it all I found some batteries that had just enough juice for Miss A to snap some pictures with her camera! D got in on the action and I could hear the both of them laughing like crazy even while I was cooking dinner in the kitchen. Apparently they were taking turns making ridiculous faces and taking each others pictures. Like father, like daughter? Apparently so. Here are some of Miss A's best shots - both with her behind the camera and in front of it.

Starring... MISS A!!!!!

I'll tell you what. Nothing makes you feel more like a mom or a dad than sitting in an audience anxiously awaiting for your kid to go on stage for their very first performance art piece. To be totally and completely fair, Miss A wasn't cast in some piece of performance art like The Nutcracker or Hamlet or anything BUT STILL(!) this was the first time EVER that she was up on stage "performing" anything at all.

Tonight was the annual Christmas concert at her preschool. She has only been at her new preschool for just under a month and she is the youngest in her class by almost a full year so it was a big deal for her to get up on stage even with the rest of her class beside her. She was supposed to sing three songs - Deck the Halls, We wish you a Merry Christmas, and one more that I can't recall - but she really just stood there giggling emphatically with her hands over her mouth and occasionally waving to D and I who were seated in the third row from the front. We got video of it but for some reason blogspot isn't letting me upload it so here are some pictures I took instead...

Her teachers said she did a wonderful job and we are so proud of her for getting up there and being neither the kid who cried the whole time nor the kid who stood up there and picked their nose continuously in front of everyone (both types of kids were in every group that went up). We'll take a giggler like Miss A any day of the week.