A little look at Cecilia

I am lucky enough to have the experience of having both sons and a daughter.  I love having sons, I think it is awesome.  I never really cared if I had a daughter.  I loved my boys.  I grew up as 1 of 5 girls and I got my full share of all things girl growing up.  That being said I love having a little girl.  She is a bit of a tomboy and loves everything from trains, cars, and tractors to dolls.   She will jump in and do anything her brothers are doing.  It is amazing!

Cecilia and Bristol laying on the garage floor.

The first time she ever had pigtails.  She liked looking at herself in the mirror.

She doesn't always wear pants.

She feels the need to swing on the big swings and lean way back.  Freaks me out!

Cecilia is smart, funny, beautiful, caring and tough!  She is the toughest kid I have ever seen!  For several months she has been talking nonstop in full sentences.  Some of it is just repeating what you say and lately there are a lot of opinions and attitude thrown in there too.  If she knows what she wants she will make sure you know and that you do it.  In August she threw a huge fit because I put a shirt on her she didn't like.  We are talking throwing her self to the ground, crying and trying to take off her shirt.  Unfortunately for her she doesn’t always get her way so we have a few tantrums along the way.  If she was my first I would probably give in to her, but tantrums (even in public) barely phase me anymore.

She loves her dogs.

Sometimes she even crawls in their dog beds with them.

Riding Alasan with Vincent.

Joel and Cecilia love playing with the umbrellas.

Cecilia loves to help.  It doesn’t matter if she is helping me, her brothers, or Daddy, she just likes to help.  The other day she was helping me with the laundry and she was throwing a fit when I tried to shut the dryer door.  We are talking yelling "no", jumping up and down and standing in front of the dryer so I couldn’t shut the door.  What was her problem?  I didn’t empty the lint trap, which we normally do.  She likes to pull the lint off.   If one of the boys drops something, she brings it to them.  If she sees their blanket or favorite toy laying around she brings it to them.  If I forgot to get a diaper to change Joel, she will run and get one for me.  She is very aware of how we do things in our house and where things are kept and how things are supposed to go and she likes things to be put in the right spot.  The boys throw their toothbrushes on the counter after they brush their teeth and Cecilia won’t leave the bathroom until she gets them all in the cup.

She loves trying on all my shoes, and her brother shoes.

Cecilia and Mommy.

Vincent and Joel helping Cecilia get to the car.

Ms. Berdene, as we call her, is hilarious!  Berdene is her middle name and about 1/3 of the time we call her only by her middle name, but she responds to it!  She will run and look in the mirror and say “I cute!”, she thinks it is fun to put tons of hair bows on her head, or walk around with her brother’s underwear on her head, or a pot she isn’t picky.  She just likes to be a little silly.  She loves music and to dance and jump around.  

Our little tomboy.

But she likes girly things too!

She loves dressing up and her face cracks me up in this picture.

Cecilia loves to do whatever her brothers do and if she can’t watch out because she will try to anyway!  They have taught her to climb, they have taught her to wrestle and she has learned how to aggrevate and love them beyond anything you can imagine.  She will randomly walk up and hug and kiss them.  Other times she will sneak up behind them and wrestle them to the ground while they are trying to get dressed.  If they aren’t paying attention to her she will race in take a toy they are playing with and run off or dive on top of it so they have to wrestle her off.  Cecilia can climb as high and as fast as both Joel and Vincent which is impressive.  The boys have always been very careful about their climbing and if they couldn’t safely get down they would yell for help.  Cecilia just jumps!  She stands on the coffee table and falls face first onto the couch.  She stands on the coffee table and will fall onto a bean bag below…face first and straight as a board!  She has stood on the fort in the backyard that came with our house (6ft tall) and just jump into my arms.  The problem is I wasn’t actually holding my arms out to catch her, she is just lucky that I am quick.  Brad and I have made the prediction that she will be the first one to land in the ER with an injury!  I don’t want it to be true, but I just feel it is in our future.

Sleepy Cecilia.

Silly Cecilia.

Cecilia and her baby.

Several nights a week we wrestle before bed.  It wears out the kids and it is a fun activity we can all participate.  Cecilia jumps right in, attempts to tackle her brothers and jumps on Brad hoping to tackle him down.  The other night all three kids were wrestling over the two bean bags.  Cecilia was bound and determined she was getting the blue one and Joel and Vincent had other ideas.  She was holding her own and giving them a run for their money.  She ended on the bottom of the pile several times with both her brothers on top of her, but there was not one cry from her and she ended up with the blue bean bag!

Cheese!

She loves her riding helmet and just wears it around the house sometimes.

Cecilia’s new thing is her collection of “friends”.  The collection started with a pink and brown blanket, a little yellow blanket, a blanket with a duck head, and a little puppy.  We have now expanded to also include two stuffed bears, a stuffed horse, a rubber duck, a kitty, 3 dolls, and a pink blanket.  They sleep in her crib, she spends a good portion of the day moving them from room to room and making sure they are all accounted for.  Recently she has tried to make Vincent’s penguin and Joel’s bunny part of her collection.  Once they find out we may have another wrestling match!  This past week she has begun lining them all up and staring at them.  When we go places she sometimes insist they come with, so we shove them all in a bag and bring them along.  We have a rule that they have to stay in the car and can’t always come in the stores, etc with us.  Silly girl, I am going to have to hide the rest of the stuffed animals before they become part of her traveling friends.

Cecilia and about 1/2 of her "friends".

Cecilia and her friends playing in the bathroom closet.

Brad loves that she is a Daddy's girl.  She gets SO excited at night when he gets home.  She is literally running all over and bouncing off the walls and wrestling Brad.  She loves her Daddy!  We are definitely blessed to have such special kids and so grateful to have such a fun little girl!

She was taking the super heroes and Barbie for a horse ride.