Help! The princess is driving me nuts!

At first, the pretend play was cute.  But now, after several months of princess play everyday, it's getting old.  Seriously, it's driving me crazy!  The first thing Eliana wants to do when she wakes up is watch Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella.  Then when she's done, she wants to color a picture of Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella.  After that, she dresses up like Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella and immediately assigns parts to carry out exact scenes from the movie (don't even think about skipping a line).  If I deny playing the assigned part, she throws an incredible princess fit which is what usually happens.  I'm so sick of princesses it's not even funny!  What happened to my little girl who loved learning new things, reading books and playing outside?  Now she'll do those things only if she's wearing a tiara.  C'mon!  Seriously!?  What can a mother do?  Is this just a phase or should I expect this to continue into the school years?   Mothers of little girls, please help!!!

Halloween

Eliana has been saying she wants to be Cinderella for Halloween for months now.  She finally got her wish and was she ever excited!

Our ward put on a "trunk or treat" Friday night.  Eliana had a lot of fun going around from car to car for candy.  Oh, and she wouldn't let go of that bag for anything!

She's smiling up at daddy because she's so dang excited about her treats!  Downtown Flagstaff had a little Halloween carnival going on Saturday evening so we checked that out.  Overall, she had TONS of fun trick or treating and seeing all the costumes but she still says hers was her favorite!

It's been a while...

I haven't been keeping the blog up to date very well so this is my "catching up" post.  In a nutshell, I...

...enrolled in college and will start taking classes in January
...shared a wonderful anniversary with my awesome hubby
...went with Brandon and Eliana to Thatcher for his 10-year high school reunion
...spent a lot of extra time in Thatcher and Mesa just being lazy
...took Eliana to the state fair in Phoenix (SO MUCH FUN!)
...had a best friend fly in for a visit for a few days
...got a new cell phone; the previous one won't let me pull up the address book so please send me your #!

A few pics:

Eliana playing with Nana's new puppy "Muffin" in Thatcher

My brother Paul and the new friend he met at the petting zoo at the state fair

Mama wallaby and her joey in the pouch

Eliana petting a wallaby

Eliana's first roller coaster... She was quite eager to get off this ride!

Carving pumpkins

It's Autumn Time!

We took a few family pictures today... Nothing good enough to go out in Christmas cards or anything but it was a lot of fun going out and seeing the changing leaves!

My sister and her family came up for the day as well.  It was great having them here and I'm now realizing how quiet it is!  Ha ha!  I'm glad they were able to come up and visit.

New Blog

I decided to take the suggestion in this month's Ensign and create a blog about the church. I'm not quite sure where to start blogging so I'm open to any suggestions. Please become a "Follower" so that you can see when it is updated. The blog address is http://fireoffaith.blogspot.com/. I hope everyone makes comments! :-)

Eliana's Potty Progress

At what point can you say your child is "potty trained"? Is it a week without diapers during the day? Two weeks? Whatever it is, Eliana is getting close. She has gone 3 days (just during the day) without diapers now and NO ACCIDENTS! I haven't had to nag her even once. She completely stops what she's doing, shouts "I need to go potty!" and hurries to the toilet where she totally does it all herself. When it comes to potty training, I never wanted it to be a fight or struggle. I just figure that when she's ready I'll help encourage her but never make her feel bad for having "accidents" since that's completely normal. I haven't had the courage to take her out in public without diapers yet but I'm thinking that might be the next thing. So far, this whole "waiting until she's ready" thing is working wonderfully!Eliana was only 10 months old in this picture. Guess she's always been a toilet enthusiast... Way to be, Babe!