Eliza Lately (May to November)

I haven't done a post about Eliza since May.  She is sure growing up fast!  I can't believe that in less than a year I will be sending her off to school.  I'm sure I'm not ready for that.  She, on the other hand, is so excited.  Caleb is sure going to miss Eliza when she goes off to kindergarten next year.  They play together really well.  They will spend hours together outside exploring, chasing animals, climbing trees, and collecting acorns.

Eliza is good at negotiating with Caleb and her younger cousins.  She is very skilled at getting what she wants, but making the other person think they got the better deal.  Sometimes she is sneaky and tries to manipulate mom and dad.

Eliza is smart, very observant, and has a good memory.  When we were reading scriptures the other night there was a reference to the ten commandments.  Mike asked if the kids remember when we learned about the ten commandments when we were reading the Old Testament (picture scriptures).  They said they did.  He asked what some of them were.  Eliza immediately said, "You're not supposed to sleep with someone who isn't in your family."

Since we got to California (until the frost hit a few weeks ago), Eliza has spent nearly every morning in the garden with Grammy.  She loves learning about all the things that grow in the garden.  She is a big helper and sticks with Grammy even when it's hot.  When I would go out and pick, Eliza would inevitable correct something that I was doing or inform me of something she learned.  She figured that since she spent a lot more hours in the garden, she'd better teach me.

On the way to church today, Eliza was teaching Caleb about reverse psychology.  I had noticed her trying it on me the past few weeks.  "I like time out.  I'm having so much fun in time out."  I can't remember the exact way she explained it to Caleb, but it was something like "If you want something, you have to pretend like you don't.  You should say that you like the thing that you don't want and then they'll give you the thing that you really want."  She even gave him some examples.  Mike and I were cracking up in the front.

Eliza is so much like I remember myself as a kid.  She is stubborn and strong-willed.  She doesn't like to be wrong and has a hard time admitting when she is wrong.  She doesn't like to apologize.  She is bossy and a little manipulative.  On the upside, she is imaginative and fun.  She is confident in her ability to do just about anything.

I intended to do an "Eliza Lately" post a while back (go figure), so I have the pictures divided into two time frames:

MAY-JUNE

Picking strawberries at our house in Champaign.  Mmmm!

 Just a profile shot.

 Riding bikes with her good friend Laney.  We sure miss Laney and family.

 "Intense" is the best way to describe Eliza's interactions with Joshua.  She will go to extremes very quickly to continually get a better reaction out of him.

 She is animated in other activities too.    Playing in the sand was a favorite at the park.

 Learning to hula hoop at the petting zoo near our house in Champaign.  You can also see that she has her own sense of fashion.

 Eliza did a great job in swimming lessons.  She was brave and she listened to her teacher.  She loves swimming!

 Blowing bubbles in the water.

JULY-NOVEMBER

Eliza picked me some flowers from our yard in Champaign.  Every time I see this picture I think it is popcorn in the cup.

Eliza loves riding her bike.

 You might not be able to tell, but Eliza's shirt is on backwards (the other side has a yoke with some gathering below, so if you saw that side you would know).  It seems that her shirts are on backwards more than 50% of the time (just like with Caleb putting his shoes on the wrong feet).  If you tell her, she will inevitably tell you "That's okay.  I like it that way."

 Eliza's play dough face she made during family preschool.

  Going for a little walk (with another backwards shirt to top off the winning combination).

 Poor Josh gets some tough love from Eliza.  She is very "hands-on" to say the least.

  "Mom I made a number 4 tower.  Can you take a picture of it?"

 Eliza loves drawing on her "color board."  I think this one is Mike.

On a car trip, Eliza drew pictures of each member of our family along with their names.

 

 Then she drew, cousins (Hannah and Michael pictured above) and friends from Champaign (and insisted on a picture of each completed work).

We read some of the Bob phonics books the other day.  Eliza wrote: "MAT SAT ON ON SAM"  At first she left out the "A"s when she was sounding out the words, but then she added them in.