It's My Favorite!

I cannot say or think that phrase now without making my eyes go wide and slightly crazy like Buddy the Elf….and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, where have you been? You must go see “Elf” tonight. It will put you in the Christmas spirit! But I digress…

Some of my favorite (or fravrite, as Nola would say) moments are those not captured by the camera.

Like last night, when the girls set up a magic show for us in the dining room. Emmerly used a big Target box that had just been delivered as her prop table, and set up 3 seats for us – a tall chair for me, a kid chair for Nola, and the fishy bean bag for Scott (fishy as in it is a fish, not suspicious or anything). Emmerly has shown us these tricks dozens upon dozens of times, and yet we still applauded like crazy and acted as if we had no idea how she’d done any of it! It was so cute to watch Nola’s face light up with admiration for her sister, and wonderment at the tricks she was seeing. She clapped the loudest and often said “Good job Emmerly!” Then would whisper to us, “I think that was really magic!”

Or like when an infomercial is on for the Chef Basket – you can use it for a colander or a deep fryer or a steamer, and wait, if you buy it now….you know the drill….and Emmerly says she wants one for Christmas. To which Nola replies “I want one for Christmas too!” And then Emmerly responds, straight face, no joke, “Now WHAT would a 3-year-old do with a Chef Basket?” I chuckle every time I think of it….

Or like the daily, yes daily, dress-up/dance parties....although some of those are captured on film...

Or when Nola says she thinks she’d just like to ‘adoct’ a baby when she gets older because she doesn’t want her belly to be cut open, and she “do(es) NOT want that doctor to pull that baby out of my BUM!”

Or like when Emmerly and Nola make me a special breakfast, which they’ve been doing a lot lately, and I have to pretend to still be asleep, and then they walk down the hall singing “Choo choo here comes the food! Choo choo here comes the food!” (Don’t ask me where we got that….I think Scott may have started it years ago, but now, whenever we bring breakfast in bed to a member of our family, that’s what we do!) And I “groggily wake up” and am so surprised to be getting breakfast in bed! Half the time, they end up eating most of whatever it is they made for me, but it’s one of my favorite times of all.

Or like tonight, snuggling in bed with them for just a few minutes, and Scott and Em start giggling uncontrollably….and then Nola, who had just been talking with me says “Excuse me! Can you please stop, I’m trying to sleep!” Which makes Scott and Em laugh even harder.

So many of these moments happen without warning, and in the midst of them, or afterward I think, “I wish I had been recording that!”

These are the times I want to bottle up. These are the times I’m trying to soak in as I approach the last days of having only my two girls. Our life is about to change! I’m so excited about that, and look forward to seeing exactly HOW it will change. But change it will, and we will never again be just a family of four. And while I am so excited about that, and so truly blessed to have been given the gift of this new life, it does bring a tear (or two….or a hundred…) to my eye.

But I'm excited about the new memories to be made; about the new moments to soak up. If we have this much fun with four, I can only imagine what fun will be had with five!