Too much! Too fast!

That's my feeling these days about pretty much everything the girls are doing.  It's all important in one way or another, and it's all stuff I want to remember but by the time I realize it, they've moved on to the next big thing.  For example: Marielle had one week where everything you'd do for her was received with a 'thank you'.  Change her diaper?  Thank you!  Bring her water?  Thank you!   Buckle her in her car seat?  Another thank you.  But it wasn't any ordinary thank you, no.  This was more along the lines of: thang-KEW!  with the 'Kew' increasing about 2 octaves.  Anyone who has heard Minnie Pearl's " Howdy! " would have heard a startling resemblance.  I thought I might die from the cuteness but I was unable to get it recorded.  Anytime I'd have my phone set to record, she wouldn't do it.  Of course.  And there are many more of these type of things that I want to make sure I don't forget.  But of course I'm going to and it makes me sad.

Elianna has gotten even more sassy if that's possible and she's our little negotiator.   Her usual bedtime routine included reading 2-3 stories and singing a song.  If she loses one of them because she's been stalling she'll insist, "no, how about ONE story and a song?  Okay, 2 stories and a SHORT song?" etc. etc.
She's got her own little cadre of friends and her best buds are our next door neighbors.  They have a 9 year old, Sabrina and a 3 year old, Samantha and if everyone would be in agreement, they'd be playing 24/7.  She's even taken to renaming our family the names of the neighbors;  I'm Marcia, Mike is Mark, ( the parents) Elianna is Sabrina and so on.  She'll holler down the stairs, "Marcia!  Marcia!  I need help with XYZ..."  and get quite perturbed with me if I don't answer.

Favorite things right now for Elianna include, playing with her friends, reading (yes, she's actually reading.  Blows my mind), coloring, and putting her sister in time out.  Poor Marielle.  They'll be playing outside and we'll see Elianna leading her sister back inside, telling her she's not being a good listener, and she can come out when time is up.  Then Marielle will get mad and not come back out to play and Elianna gets angry...it's hard not to laugh.

Marielle is talking up a storm and if we knew her language, we'd be all set but since she's speaking fluent Marielle-ese we're up a creek because none of us took that in high school.  She's becoming more understandable but there's a lot of guessing going on.  If we didn't have signing, we'd be totally lost so thank God for Signing Time.  As it is, there are more than a few tantrums caused by frustration with us not knowing what she's saying.  The things that we CAN understand make me smile every time I hear them because they are so stinking cute!  "Byebye, see you later!" is one and it's usually followed by her running off and hiding in Elianna's closet.

She's also starting to hit that independent phase where she wants to do everything 'by self'.  It's interesting because juxtaposed with that is her continued desire to be anywhere Mommy is, preferably 'up!'  So one second she'll be screaming at me to 'walk!walk!WALK!'  and the next she's sobbing because I put  her down so she could, you know, walk.  She's always had a temper and we are starting to see it come out more as 2 years old approaches.  It's going to be interesting.  Good thing she's cute, heh heh.  

Okay, here's the real reason you all came...pictures!

Elianna in her dance recital costume:

And in a bad mood.

Marielle after she fell in the bathtub, right after her bath.

And in her helmet which she refused to take off for the better part of the day!