Category: Ellie

Ellie had been complaining that the vision in one of her eyes was fuzzy, so we took her to the eye doctor yesterday. Turns out she has amblyopia, which means that one eye is lazy and makes the other eye do all the work. The doctor is hoping that with glasses, she will start using that eye and it will get stronger, but there is a possibility that she might have to get a patch to force the issue. Fun.

But, for now, she got to pick out her stylish new glasses.

Trying on the first pair, not bad.

A little too funky.

Not too bad, we liked these.

The runner up pair. She liked them and didn’t want to choose, but we thought the next ones looked better.

The winner! It’s going to take some getting used to for everyone, our little girl wearing glasses. But she seems excited about it, and hopefully we can avoid any extreme treatments and she’ll start seeing better. Oh yeah, and here you can see the Coke bottle effect in action:

Would you believe she danced on Saturday night, and I already have the video uploaded and ready to go? Here it is. They actually danced twice. The music cut out halfway through the first take, so they came back out for a second try. They did pretty darn well both times, really. Ellie starts out in the back along the curtain, second from the right.

About a week ago, Ellie managed to chip one of her molars, and needed to go to the dentist. What great timing, since the dentist wasn’t open all last week! Sigh. But, she wasn’t complaining about the tooth hurting, even though it sure looked awful.
Yesterday, they were finally able to get her in for a look, and she did awesome! Lisa had to stay up front to take care of Evan, and Ellie went back all by herself. They figured the tooth had a cavity near the back of the tooth, and that was why it had chipped. They patched her up, and the new tooth looks great. And she did it all by herself! Way to go, Ellie!

Last year when Ellie started Kindergarten, the teacher asked the kids what they wanted to do in Kindergarten. A lot of the kids said things like “I want to play in the classroom’s kitchen,” or “I want to color.” Stuff like that. Ellie, on the other hand, said that she wanted to learn how to read (specifically, she wanted to learn how to read “Brown Bear, Brown Bear). She did, obviously, and this year, she got picked as one of the first students to participate in the first grade “Junior Great Books” program. It’s something that’s supposed to challenge her more than the usual one sentence per page books she usually brings home to practice reading. Yesterday she brought home the first story for the program: Mother of the Waters, a Haitian folktale. Definitely more challenging material.
We’re very proud of our smart girl!

It is truly unbelievable that our little girl is now six years old.  Nearly as unbelievable as the fact that it took me nearly three weeks to get these pictures up.  So without further ado….

The fairy for the “Pin the wings on the Fairy” game.

The wings on the fairy. Once the first kids got one close, the others just felt around and put theirs right on top!

Ellie’s example of how to decorate fairy wings.

The rest of the wings, drying out from the extreme overapplication of glitter glue. Shocking, I know.

Another fine cake creation by Lisa.

The happy six-year-old blows out the candles!!!

Ellie turned six years old on Saturday, and the plan was to celebrate with a pool party with her friends from school and the neighborhood. Unfortunately, the forecast for that day was looking grim all week. First it was a 60% chance of thunderstorms, then there was a possibility of a tropical storm. Saturday morning came and Lisa was freaking out about the chances of rain. She was running around trying to clean up the house in the event we had to move the party. But as the day wore on, the chances of rain diminished.
We pulled up to the pool at 1pm to unload our stuff, and the temperature was getting nice and warm. There were only a few clouds, but they didn’t seem threatening at all. By the time most of the kids had arrived, we were actually pulling umbrellas up onto the deck to provide shade from the sun!
Ellie and the kids had a great time playing “Pin the Wings on the Fairy” and decorating their fairy wings. Thanks to everyone for all the gifts. Hopefully Ellie doesn’t get over her fairy phase for a while, because she’s got a lot of fairy stuff now. And happy birthday to our little girl, about to start first grade!

Ellie just got her latest report card, which doesn’t have grades, but “progress updates,” showing how far along she is with each skill compared with where they want her to be at the end of kindergarten.  She’s doing very well in all aspects, but she’s already at end-of-kindergarten level in writing!  Of course, we’re not surprised, since this is the girl who, contrary to her classmates whose goals were to play and color, wanted to learn to read since the beginning of the year.  Smart kid!

Ellie really wanted to share this picture of her snowlady which we made in Michigan. Unfortunately, they only got a dusting while we were there, so we had to shovel the sidewalk and use all of that snow, plus some of the neighbors’ sidewalk snow, in order to make this little snowlady.

From Christmas 2008

This morning, Ellie was singing, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” (We heard it last night at the Vienna Holiday Stroll.)  She stopped and asked Lisa why the other reindeer wouldn’t let Rudolph play any reindeer games.  She said that not letting him play was mean and that they were bullies.  Right on, kiddo!

Lisa belongs to one of those survey panels where you fill out surveys and they give you points you can redeem for valuable prizes. Or something.
So the other day she gets a survey about toys, and it asks her to have a child come and help answer the questions. The very first question was: “What is your favorite toy?” Ellie’s answer? “Daddy’s Wii.”
She definitely likes doing the Wii Play cow racing game. And I already pre-ordered Guitar Hero World Tour, which has a new beginner mode, described here by the creators:

Why did you add a beginner level?

KH: Our whole objective with “Guitar Hero” is to make it as broadly accessible as possible. By adding this beginner mode, we can get even young kids, who are 5, 6, 7 and who maybe can’t coordinate pressing a button on the guitar and strumming at the same time. . .to make it really easy for them. All they have to do is strum.

CH: My 7- and 9-year-old daughters play. And there are times when my 70-year-old dad plays. You want to give people of all ages and all sizes the ability to play “Guitar Hero” and have fun.

We are SO going to be rocking out to “Livin on a Prayer!”