Our Three Girls

We are so thankful for our three wonderful girls!

Bella has recently taken to wearing her Cinderella dress and dancing to the song "Cinderella" by Steven Curtis Chapman. She even goes so far as to declare, "Mommy, I can't go to school today. I need to stay home and practice my dancing!" and she throws a fit whenever she cannot wear her Cinderella dress (although she at least agrees to change clothes for mealtimes to keep it clean). Often "Cinderella Bella" also wears wings so that she can fly. Why not?

Annabelle talks (or sings) non-stop these days. One of Bella's idiosyncratic phrases is to feel me better, as in "I need some medicine to feel my tummy better" or "Ice cream feels me colder." She can spell and write BELLA on her own, and she loves the letter B. When she sings the alphabet, B makes multiple appearances (standing in for P and V and sometimes other rhyming letters). Her pronunciation of words like pajamas and dessert begins with the B phonic. Poor Bella has suffered a dramatic loss in hearing these past few weeks because her ears are full of fluid, but at least she doesn't have an ear infection. Hopefully she'll recover soon.

Although I mentioned in my last post that Katarina finally learned to sleep through the night, we have not had the pleasure of enjoying that new ability; she is cutting her second tooth and waking up frequently. At least she's cute! She is learning to clap her hands, and we started signing with her. She is also able to scoot short distances while sitting on her bum, so greater mobility is not far in her future. Little Kati loves bathtime and laughs when I pour warm water on her.

Gabi recently competed in her First Feis (pronounced "fesh") in Irish dancing, and she won a second-place medal! Congratulations, Gabriella! She is also learning to play the glockenspiel (a German xylophone) at Kindermusik class. She is very social and has invited all the girls in her class to be in "her club." I wonder where she gets these ideas! Here she is with some friends at a pirate birthday party:

The first week of November, one of Gabi's Kindergarten homework assignments was to write a riddle about her favorite animal. She wrote this all by herself. Can you guess what it is?