Summer Week 5 - Freedom & Bravery

One of my favorite things about teaching was the that I always learned so much more about what I was teaching in preparing my lessons, explaining the content in various ways, and answering questions.  I've found the same thing to be true this summer!  I mean, I had NO idea how clouds were formed and what caused the sound of lightning until Sophia and learned about it last week!

This week, which teaching and learning with the girls, I discovered a completely new appreciation for the 4th of July.

I started the week by asking them about their favorite parts of the 4th.  Naturally, they both said fireworks.  When I asked them if they knew why we set off fireworks, they were pretty clueless of course.  As we drove home from swim school on Monday, I told them the story of Independence Day with a fairytale tone.  "Once a upon a time, in a kingdom far away..."  After that 15 minute long drive and many questions about the king, about freedom and what it means to have your freedoms taken away, and about the whether or not people today still have their freedoms taken, I felt a sense of patriotism and pride that I hadn't felt before.  This holiday is truly remarkable.

A few weeks ago, Sophia was running the track.  She totally loves to run and she's pretty fast.  She can run a mile in less than 9 minutes!  After that run, she told us that while she was running, there were times she wanted to give up but she kept telling herself "Keep on going, no matter what."  I was so proud to hear her say those words.  In a world where most people think that when the going gets tough, it's time to quit, it's refreshing to hear that some people still have the innate desire to persevere, work hard, and never give up.  Since that day, we've referenced those words so many times.  For example, while we were in Albuquerque last month, we saw a few homeless men on a corner asking for donations.  She asked us what they were doing.  After we explained it to her, she asked us why they didn't have any money or a home.  Of course there are countless reasons why someone ends up in that position but we told her that sometimes people make mistakes or have some bad luck and life doesn't go their way.  We also told her that everyone encounters bad things from time to time and if/when those things happen to her, she has to remember her own words "Keep on going, no matter what."  This week when we got to the part of the story where the people in the colonies had to be brave and fight for their freedom, I explained to her that they knew how important their decision to fight was.  They knew that by being brave and strong, they could change their lives and lives of their future generations forever.  They knew that they had to keep on going, no matter what.

We also spent a lot of time talking about some of the meanings of Freedom.  Between Sophia and I, we use the term "bossy" a LOT.  I'm bossy and so is she! So used that lightened version of what it sometimes means to loose your freedom - that someone else is bossing you around for your whole life, making decisions for you, telling you what you can and cannot do, and making choices and decisions for you.  I wanted to let her know that even though that story happened a long time ago, there are still people all around the world that are fighting for their freedom and for the freedom of other people. She seemed a little concerned about that part and asked me if we still have to fight for our freedom.  I told her that there will always be people that want to "rule the world" as we talked about in the story, and that it's so important that she is brave and stands up for what she believes is right.

We continued our talk about all of this throughout the week but we also did some fun with 4th of July traditions.  We used these 4th of July themed printables to practice our addition and subtraction skills.  Color by number math is awesome!  Although, we decided that we didn't really like the colors they chose for some of the sections so we did a little improve there ;)  For Ellie, there was a version that just had the numbers, no math.  I explained it to her and we went section by section letting her determine what color that part should be.  She got them all, the understood what she was supposed to do, then decided to color the whole thing red. Aye, Ellie.  We're going to keep working on that one.  Mostly because she's so super stubborn and thinks the rules don't apply to her.  Yep, total threenager.

 We found some more activities on Teachers Pay Teachers.  There are are a bunch of free downloads for every holiday.

 This one stumped us in a few spots!  Something you wear that starts with an "A".  We couldn't think of anything until Ken got home and said "ascot". Ok sure that works.  

 Sophia LOVES wordsearches!  

Thursday we started working on our big projects.  We decided to create a book about the 4th of July story.  I told her that we would start out with the illustrations and we'll go back and add the words in later.  So we broke up the story into 9 sections and she drew/colored a picture to represent each section.

Those glasses? Yeah, those were her 3D glasses from Finding Dory.  She wanted to keep them and I really don't know if the lenses were bad for her eyes so we popped them out and she's been having fun with her "glasses" ever since.

We did a few crafts too!

 I gave Ellie the paper and a flag and asked her to recreate it.  She did an awesome job!  Let me tell you, there is like half a glue stick on each piece of paper! Ha!

For Fun Friday, I knew I had a bunch of work to get done in the next few days and I REALLY wanted to be able to take of the weekend so I sucked it up and got everything done in the morning.  Phone calls, deliveries, post office, finishing up a party box for my BFF's daughter's 4th birthday party, etc.

Once I was done, we all went to a late lunch.  Ken has a 5 day weekend and we are super excited to have Daddy home with us!  We went to lunch at Outback then came home to wrap up our activities.

These two are so in love.  They hardly leave each other's side.

Over the holiday weekend, we have a few more things to do for our theme.  We've got plans to play 4th of July Bingo (they even made prizes) and we're ready to go on the hunt with this 4th of July Scavenger Hunt

I don't know if it's just the time we live in where everything is recorded through photos and videos or if Sophia really just loves the camera, but she asked me if I could record her telling the story and using her book.  Of course I agreed and the next thing I know she's got her "glasses" on and she's ready to go!

We finished the day with ice cream sundaes on the porch while the rain fell on the yard.  Perfection.

We would like to say that we are eternally grateful for all of the men and women in the past, present, and future for having the bravery to fight for our freedom.  Thank you!

Olivia Fest 2012! (aka Sophia's Second Birthday Party)

The first cartoon Sophia and I ever watched together was an episode of Olivia.  Olivia was on a soccer team and was upset because she was going to have to wear a green uniform as opposed to the red uniform that the goalie got to wear.  She said, "Green just isn't my color." And as for Francine (the girl that got to be goalie and wear the red uniform) she said, "Not everyone can wear red, especially when you're pink."  I thought she was hilarious!  So full of sass and creativity.  And so that became our first go-to cartoon.  Sophia became familiar with the theme song - Olivia! Olivia! Olivia! Olivia! Oliviaaa!  Olivia! Olivia! Olivia! Olivia!  Oliviaaaaah!  O-LIV-I-AAAAHHHH!!!  When she was still crawling she would shake her head and and move her hands around dancing.  Now, she sings along with it and attempts to spell Olivia (A - O - A - Q - B - A - C...)


And so, when it came time to pick a theme for Sophia's second birthday party (WHAT?!! 2nd Birthday??!! More about my disbelief that my daughter is about to be 2 in my next post, this is just a party post)  Olivia was an obvious choice.


For those who don't know, 2012 started off more than rocky for the Elfleins and for me in particular.  In need of a distraction, I dove head first into party planning.  I had seen many Olivia themed parties online and borrowed ideas from them.  I made all of the decorations and attire except for the invitations and Sophia's embroidered t-shirt, which I ordered from Etsy.

So, the party was obviously in 2012, not 2011 but it totally slipped my mind when I ordered these in December.  Oops.


I went with entirely Red, White, and Black decorations.  There were some Olivia party goodies available online but they had a lot of blue in them.  What does Olivia have to do with blue?  I incorporated themes from episodes, some Valentine's Day decor, and of course...Olivia's Rules of Life.  Sophia owns many many books and dolls so I placed them around the house.

Cherry M&Ms, Cherry Twizzlers, Red & White Kisses

I made the banner, it's much cuter up close...

Olivia book for guests to sign.  We did this last year too and think it will be cool for her to see who came to her parties.

The favors consisted of several cute girly things like mirrors, combs, tiny purses, mini-tiaras, and (the best part)  a bag of seeds for a "Surprise Garden" a-la Olivia's surprise garden in which she grows a venus fly trap.  No traps included, only an assortment of lovely flower seeds.

Food table and one of two photo banners with pics of our girl from the last year.  I bought the circle banners at Hobby Lobby, then printed various sizes of photos from 1-2 years old.  I also embellished the banner with some red bows.

Loved this!  Giant Olivia holding balloons!  Printed a picture of Olivia, had it enlarged, then attached it to a foam board and cut it out with an exacto knife.  Of course I had to add real bows to her ears.  Sophia  LOVES this.  She shouts "Lihhh-Yeeee-Yahhhh!"  every time she sees it.

Daddy's idea to put the roses on the fireplace.

Some of the many books and Rules of Life we had around the house.

For food we mainly served finger foods.  I have two vegan friends and wanted to incorporate foods they could eat yet no one else would realize they were purposely vegan.  I marked the food cards with a red heart if the item was vegan.

And of course the cupcakes.  I go a little cupcake crazy for parties.  Typically I have my friends up with me until the wee hours of the morning making, stuffing, and frosting cupcakes the night before a party.  This year I was very efficient and had all of the cupcakes (about 4 dozen) done (by myself) by about 6 on Friday.

 Pre-Frosting

 How cute are these!  I got the recipe from the Nick Jr. Olivia website.  The ears and nose are melted candies drawn onto wax paper using a template underneath.  The rest is frosting.

I made half vegan red velvet (which were pretty awesome & definitely didn't stand out as vegan) and Cherry/Vanilla filled with Cherry/Vanilla creme.  Both frosted with homemade almond "butter cream" frosting.  

And now for the fun...

Sophia had a BLAST!!  She was dressed up so cute with a shirt I ordered from Etsy and a tutu that was actually my tutu that Sharla made me last year for Sophia's first birthday party (she made one for each of us since I put on the invites that girls were encouraged to wear tutus...lol).  I just shortened and scrunched it a little.  

She had many of her friends join her for the celebration, as well as many of Mommy and Daddy's friends and family of course.  We are always so thrilled and overjoyed to see so many people turn out to show our girl some love.  Nothing is better than seeing your daughter surrounded with love.

 Stella

 Cindy

Drue

Unfortunately we didn't catch any pictures of Taytum but we were so happy she made it :)

I made coloring books for the kids to color.

And Uncle Greggy and Aunt Shauna brought a bounce house, which was of course a huge hit with the kiddos.

 She tried to bounce herself, but mainly enjoyed the ride as others bounced.

 We kept it up the next day and did some private Elflein Family Bouncing :)

For some reason, the singing of the birthday song makes me cry.  Both years as we were singing my feelings about her birthday culminated in overwhelming emotion.  Sophia also cried during the birthday song.  We've been practicing sing it so that she would be used to it (and maybe sing along with us) but each time she would yell "No!" and cry.  The real deal was just the same.  She's crazy I tell ya.  So funny.  

Just like last year, since my dad was unable to attend the party we had him on Skype right in front of her to sing.  Obviously we wish he could be there but since he can't, this is an amazing substitute.  He sat and watched her eat her cupcake too :)

All in all it was a truly wonderful day.  Sophia was showered with love and had a great time with her friends and family.  I have to give special thanks to my mom, Sharla, Mason, Uncle Bob (aka Tom) for helping out with the set up (I can be (ahem) a bit bossy when it's go-time before my parties and they are angels for not only putting up with me but continuing to come/help party after party).  Also thanks to Greg and Shauna for bringing the bounce house.  

We brought the party to a close in the same way we did last year, by showing her video for the year.  Both years I have used iMovie to make a compilation of videos and pictures from the year set to music.  Sort of a slideshow...but better.  It always makes me cry.  I'm still working on a way to share it.  It's pretty long and contains downloaded music so YouTube is giving me a hard time.

After everyone left, Soph was tuckered out.  She had a great day.  

A few people have made the remark that "She won't even remember this."  To me, that's not what this is about.  Whether she remembers it or not, I'll always know that put something wonderful together for her.  She'll have pictures, videos, and her signed birthday books to look back at and see all the people that love her.  The way I see it, she will have so many imperfections in her life so if I can give her this one perfect day, why not?

Tune in next time for a complete update of what Sophia is all about at 2 years old...including details of my utter disbelief that another year has gone by :)