Favorite Phrases

This addition of the blog is going to be narrated using some of the favorite phrases spoken by my big little sister, Heidi.  And my added commentary of course.  Life has been chalk full of fun.

No Way Jose.  This is by far her favorite thing to say.  ALL the time.  She thinks she is funny.  She wanted nothing to do with sledding, so daddy and I went to the big hill by our house and had a blast.  People were surprised I went down by myself.  As you can see we didn't get much snow here so the sleds wore it off fast, but it was still a fast hill!  Maybe next year will be better for snow.

Watch me.  Not too much more to say here.  Check us out.  We love going to Monkee Business.  We went when Nana and Papa were in town visiting (or should I say stuck)?  We did go out to dinner one night too.

I'm fine.  After a late night with our friends Ava & Henry (we ate Indian and played….hard)…we both slept in the next day - till like 9:30.  But this was Heidi for the next 2 hours.  She just slept on the floor. But her response when you ask her how she is all the time.  "I'm Fine"

Don't touch that, ok?  Mom says she learns that from me….  every time we are doing art she says it.  Ok, we may play well….but we are a bit possessive when it comes to our art skills.  Whether it being painting bread with colored milk, our bodies with colored whip cream, or painting a work of art on canvas.

example of one of my "don't touch" piece of art.  This was from church.  See that white board under the hay?  Yeah, so did I one night at dinner….so I had to go find a red marker to fill it in.  I'm not a perfectionist…I swear.

 You Doin'? Not a good picture of us, but anytime I see Abby outside I want to go see what she is doing.  She is so nice to play with us.  Yesterday mom looked out to find us playing ball in the middle of the golf course with them!  She also asked when she daddy and mommy drinking out of some cool looking cups.  Turns out it was their 7th anniversary and they gave each other the same gifts.  Copper mugs.  Wow, they are perfect for each other.  Bonus for us, because that meant we got to drink out of them too.  Our water was SO cold.

I Love you.  Not this much….THIS much. 

I Do That.  Heidi watches something and thinks that she wants and can do it.  Sometimes it is joining in on washing the car, but sometimes she thinks she can go in the TV…or go ice skate with the Disney people like when we went to Disney on Ice.  We dressed up in our princess clothes (I think Lucas was wishing he had one too!) and were set for the big day at Sprint Center.  Which by the way, was SO cool.  I loved Lion King the best.  I have since heard that Frozen is coming too.  I am pretty sure that is on my calendar!

some afternoon baseball in a princess dress.  Why not?

Why?  This one is all inclusive.  Why are we going out to eat with daddy?  Why do we bowl down the hall?  P.S. The answer to both of those….it is fun.

So happy to see her!

Why are we going to Lincoln?  Well….it was Boys State Basketball of course.  And that is a perfect time for us to see all of our family.  It was so awesome.  We first saw Elmo as we got to stay with her for THREE nights.  We then got our first trip to Valentino's, a Lincoln favorite.  I could see why.  Seriously any food you could imagine was there.  I may have only had a plate of cottage cheese and a slice of pizza, and ice cream…but don't worry, the rest of them made up for it.  Anyway, the best part of it was Papa McLain was there.  Yes!  Just what he wanted as his 75th birthday celebration dinner, right?  Not only did we get to eat with him, but he joined us to go watch our cousins Ryan and Jack play basketball.  Didn't we make some cute Cedar fans?  Unfortunately, they lost.  But turns out they played the best team…so that's something.

The next day we spent the morning seeing the rest of the Steffen clan.  Where?  At the hotel pool.  My favorite.  Heidi wasn't so sure about it at first, ok…either was I...but after Rhonda got in we both became great swimmers.  I went around all by myself.  I even jumped in the water!  And Heidi was floating on her back by the end of it.  We were starving after all that fun.  So what better place to go for lunch?  Sushi!!  Why? Why? Why?  (just kidding….they had chicken fingers for me….so I was all good)

The next day we had even more fun.  Elmo took us to the Circus!!!  I was so excited.  And I still keep asking mom when we are going to go again.  Mom talked about how it wasn't all that great of a venue, etc., but I thought it was full of awesome.  An elephant balanced on a ball, people were in hamster wheels, and my favorite were the tight rope walkers.  I liked the cotton candy.




We finished up that evening with a BBQ over at Abby and Ella's house.  Where I was left out of a secret watching of a movie in a dark room.  Per Lucy…only the 'big' girls were allowed.  When am I going to be big enough??


It was hard saying goodbye to Elmo, (whose birthday is tomorrow by the way.  Happy early birthday!) but once I got into the car, I realized I was so ready to be home.  And we had such a fun day.  Guess what else we got to do this week?  Well, it was St. Patrick's day…so along with eating and drinking lots of green things…mom took us to the St. Patty's day parade with Kellie and Lucas!  It was SO cool.  My favorite part was the dancing horses.  But I also liked all the 'marching' groups.  They could really get down, and I liked the drums.  I was just telling daddy the other day how I wanted to be a drummer.  I liked waving to people, these cars that drove on 2 wheels (yes that is part of a parade see for yourselves in the video!)…and my new necklace.  We did some dancing ourselves.  

Marching Cobras

Ok, time to go to bed.  I like to help read now, and Heidi counts near everything on every page so needless to say bedtime takes a bit longer.  The 'rents love it.  We know.  Amelia OUT!

I'm a Big Girl

"I'm a big girl" ….that is all I hear anymore.  If Heidi isn't saying that she is asking "Why?".  I keep asking her why why is her favorite word, but I have got no responses.

Alright sissy, I AM a big girl, so why don't you let me do the talking?  Yes, it is true… I do ask why a lot.  But as mom tells me, it is because I am so smart and I am learning so much right now.  Because I am A BIG GIRL.  You heard me.  I will repeat it, I'm a big girl.  Therefore, I now want to do everything a big girl does.  This new found liberation is amazing.  Here are some of the big benefits:

big girls wear makeup mommy

1. I am now in a big girl bed.  While mom and dad left us to go on an airplane, I was told that if I was good for a whole week and didn't wake up at night that I would get a big girl bed.  Well of course I slept like a baby for grandparents so I was rewarded.  I am loving the new bed.  Even if I fall asleep while reading a book, I must wake up so I can get in bed myself.  I also enjoy taking all babies, books, etc. and putting them in my new bed.


I have got into a bit of trouble last night as apparently I am not suppose to get out in the middle of the night without permission.  Darn big sister for setting such a high standard.  I got a free pass since I have had a fever the last couple of days, but I am being threatened with my baby bed going back up.

2. I am now going on the big girl potty a majority of the time.  I told mommy that I want to start wearing pull ups and nana said she would get me Anna underwear.  Mommy doesn't seem so confident  in my skills.  I'll update you more on that progress next time I guess.

3. I proved I was a big girl at my trip to the dentist.  It is always Amelia that gets do something and not me, so this time I talked mommy into letting me go to the dentist with Amelia.  She didn't think I would do very good.  Well I showed her, I was awesome.  I opened my mouth wide and did everything they asked me to.  No complaints.  And get this, they give you toys and ice cream when you are done!  I am obsessed with my bouncy ball I got too! 

4. I can hang with my big sister at Gymnastics and other activities.  Check me out!

Ok, ok….I agree she is getting big, but let's move on.  I was pretty impressive myself at the gym last time.  Mom and Elmo looked away for a minute, so I got brave and this is how she found me.  That's right I scaled this wall on my own.  I'm a ROCK star (get it?).  That is, as long as no one is watching, I got to scared to recreate that big climb when mom actually went down below to spot me.

Legos with Elmo

I love owls!

As mentioned above, we have had some good time with grandparents.  As a matter of fact, we saw Elmo 3 weekends in a row.  She came and babysat when mom and dad went out to a work party (where he won a big award by the way!), we had lots of fun and finally celebrated Christmas!

looks like there was no snow!

The next weekend we road tripped to Lincoln for BJ's 40th Bday party.  Wow, I guess everyone is getting old like daddy!  Anyway, we had lots of fun playing with Elmo.  We also got to FINALLY go sledding, since I have been asking about it for months here.  They had enough snow in Lincoln for us to give it a shot with Ella and Dale.  Since then we have got an inch here or there here, so I have been making mommy go sledding on the golf course every day possible.  I only want to go if I see our neighbor, Abby, outside.  I really like her.  Before we headed out of town we also got a quick visit in with Papa McLain.  He wasn't feeling great, but we got to hang out long enough where we got to practice our gymnastic skills on his furniture (I know he loved that).  He also gave mom a bunch of old papers and pictures.  Flipping through a couple when she was little, we actually started realizing that maybe we are mom's kids after all!  What do you think?

Then, the day after we got back into town…we had to say goodbye to dad.  He got on an airplane!  We couldn't really see them at the airport so mom took us down some secret back road where we parked on the other side of the airport fence and watched the big planes land almost on top of us.  It was SO loud, but cool.  We fended ok, just us girls while dad was gone….but we missed him for sure.  Then Elmo came back again to spend some more time with us when mom left to get on an airplane to meet him in California.  Wait, Arizona… i keep mixing those up!  Anyway, we had a lot of fun playing with Elmo while they were gone.  The last couple of days we got another shot of fun when nana and pop pop showed up to spend the last couple days with us.  How lucky are we?  They even took us to the airport on Sunday so we could all go pick up daddy.  I was beyond excited when I saw him.  I know, I wouldn't let him put me down.  We had lots of hugs to catch up on after a whole week!  

Glad that we are all back together and enjoying some more quiet time.  Until next time…enjoy the pictures.  Heidi OUT!

Check me out from parent's watch night.  I can't show you the video of the preview from my recital…but I'm getting good!


I also am SO ready for some summer time tee ball!

Fun playing in the snow at home

And some fun with mom's wedding dress.

Being silly!

Mommy and her girls!!

We had fun with our valentines this year