So Elia’s birthday party was in the beginning of January instead of December mostly because of scheduling around that time. Elia originally wanted her birthday to be at Busy Bees again because she has had her birthday there a couple of times before, but even though Curie was at the minimum cut off at 46 inches, none of Curie’s friends would be able to make it if we held it there. We had a few discussions about where to have the party, but Elia was pretty adamant. Then one day after going to Jumpin’ Joeys for a friend’s party. Elia came to us and said that she wanted to have her party at Jumpin’ Joey’s because otherwise Curie’s friends couldn’t come. What an amazing little girl!
So we had 24 kids at the party, plus since Derek and Alice were driving down, they came to the party as well. Jumpin’ Joey’s is a more expensive party than Busy Bee’s or Flight, but the kids had a great time. More importantly, Elia and Curie had a great time. And when it came time to give away gift bags, we had siblings arrive that had not RSVP’ed and we were short two bags, so what did our daughters do? Give away their bags. First Curie, then Elia without prodding. Once home, we had a little family get together and let the kids open presents; Elia did not hoard her presents and opened them with Curie. We separated the presents into two big bags and hid one so that they could open them later. However, our kids are very smart and after the first bag, they asked where the second bag was. We did stretch it out for a few days, but they definitely knew.
So the birthday party was in the beginning of January, her actual birthday we went to her class with cupcakes and a photo printer to tell our family tradition for the holidays. We told the kids that our family tradition was Elia’s birthday. We then proceeded to tell them about NICU and how we go back every year to give chocolate or a basket even though we don’t know many of the nurses there any more. Later when we did go to NICU, Elia said that she remembered the “hopisal” when we visited to give chocolate. Erin said Elia was born early. Elia corrected her and said she was born at just the right time.
For her birthday she wanted a horse like Curie’s so Albert’s Mother and Father got her one. Erin’s parents got her a Descendant’s dress that she wore over the next few days. From us, she also likes bad guys and wanted a Blackfire doll, sister to Starfire. They only come in a two pack, so we made the Starfire Curie’s mini-present. Elia wanted to pack her horse on our trip, but it was too big. After crying for a while, Albert printed her a picture of her horse so that she could take it with her on the trip and remember her. When we asked her what she wanted she said: “my brain is telling me I want an LOL.” On the trip we had our stockings and the girls found LOLs in their stockings (LOLs are these little collectible dolls).
We went to Montreal the day after Elia’s birthday, and when planning on going we showed them pictures of the area including a video game place. When we got there she kept asking for the game place, and even though it was a tiny arcade, she was thrilled that we took her there. Montreal was cold and we bundled them with hiking socks and vests and even brought snow pants. We got Kinder eggs for them for Christmas, ate a lot and had a great time. We drove home on Christmas, and when we got there, the girls got their Hatchimals from Santa, remarked on how Santa only ate some of the cookies and Elia pointed out that he did not drink all of his Sunny D. The next morning we had Christmas morning for the kids and they got to open all of their presents from their cousins.
The other day it snowed with a big snow storm and we picked up Elia early in advance of the storm. She was so happy to be picked up before nap time. When we went out in the snow, Elia wanted to shovel more than anything else, she didn’t want gloves and wanted to shovel over sledding, though she did throw a mean snowball that hit Albert on the side of the head.
So Elia is amazing, she says she is the bossiest in the family. When asked why, she said it’s because she bosses Curie around. She is insightful and funny; when we got our flu shots, Elia was too little to get them in the supermarket so Erin had to take her after to get them. She told Erin: “Mommy, flu shots make you don’t have flus.” Elia and Albert have been working on a story for her comic book, the story is about Elisa because a teacher calls her Elisa instead of Elia. So the story is about Elisa, and Carrie, Robert and Karen, who are in secret, Flower girl, Diamond girl, Ow-bert the fat man, and Wind girl. She even has a catch phrase, where Curie has “Boom” and the double mic drop, Elia’s is “Yeah, baby! And BOOM go the cannons. (the latter of which is from James in Sophia the First)”