Sam & Ella

Yesterday (Thursday) we had a playdate at Northeast Mall with Kristin, Sam & Miles, & Melissa, Joshua and Gabe and our good friend Becky.

Amanda, Sunni and I had MANY playdates at this park when our precious babies were just crawling. As well, as Kristin & I.

Ella & I haven't been back to this mall in several months and I was shocked as I watched Ella play yesterday that she was no longer one of the smallest but she was in fact one of the bigger kids! It did not do my soul good as I am already struggling with her turning 3!

But despite my emotional instability...the kids had a great time playing together.

My favorite part of the day was when we were leaving the play area to head to the food court for lunch. Kristin was holding Miles. So Ella decided she needed to ride in Miles' carseat in the double stroller. This is what occurred...

It was precious! Ella loves those two babies.

I Want a Pink Pony

Ella's 3rd BIRTHDAY..3rd...THREE...TRES...SON...DEUX...is in 20 days! Oh, I can't believe it! I am going to have a 3 year old. Deep breath.

Birthday themes are so fun to do. Her first birthday was an "E" theme. Everything was E, from the invitations, to the cake to the decorations. It was so fun to put together.










Last year, was the Pablo themed party with Jackson. It was really Backyardigans, but the main star of it was Pablo because that is Ella and Jackson's favorite. Ella actually had two Pablo themed parties last year. The other one was a combined party with Ella's cousin Zach.




This year, I had not yet decided what the theme would be. It didn't hit me until last week that Ella might actually be old enough and have enough of a grasp on it to decide her own theme. What a concept I'm not used to.

So last week, Heath and I were telling Ella that she has a birthday coming up. We asked her what kind of birthday cake she wanted this year.

She thought for a moment. She does this really cute thing when she's thinking where she puts her finger up to her chin and goes, "hmmmmm".

Then she said, "A horsie!" I said, like your Little Ponies. She said, "yes". So it looks like we are having a My Little Pony themed party.

I called my mother-in-law right away to tell her so she could be preparing for a horsie cake because she always makes the fabulously themed cakes for her parties every year. She asked me which My Little Pony would Ella like. I didn't even think about a specific one, me being the most uncreative person on the face of the earth. So tonight I plan on getting online with Ella so she can decide specifically which one she would like.

A couple of days later, my mom told me that Ella had told her she wants a pony for her birthday. Not a My Little Pony, but an actual pony. My mom asked what color pony and of course her reply was, "PINK!"

Good luck Daddy trying to find a real pink pony for your precious little girl. hehe

My little Ella could not be more fun right now. I am so thankful for our sweet relationship!

Funny Video

For some reason I was thinking about this video today. It was taken a few months ago. She just randomly started making these hilarious noises while eating dinner. I was cracking up.

My favorite part is the end when she fake burps and then says, "What was that? I BURRPPED."


Ella Making Funny Noises in her High Chair 9-17-08 from Janelle on Vimeo.

*Disclaimer: As always ignore the annoying voice coming out of ME! I need to remember how close my mouth is to the video camera and how LOUD I always sound.

Titus and Ella

Today, Ella and I got to go over to the Burger's house for a lunch play date. Amber made us this AMAZING turkey wrap. I'm still thinking about it.

Y'all know how much Ella & Titus love each other. We love getting to hang out with our friends!

They had so much fun...
eating together!






Drawing with side walk chalk. (I love how they are both sitting exactly the same.)


Sliding.


Swinging.


And playing in leaves.

Weekend Update

I have not posted in almost a week, which I hate, but I told myself that I wouldn't post again until I got my "look back at '08" post done. Well, it isn't quite done and I couldn't resist posting.

We've had a fun few days. The most exciting part of my weekend is that on Thursday my good friend Sunni had her 2nd baby girl!! I got to visit them on Friday and she is the sweetest baby. And Sunni looked amazing! They are doing so well. I'm so happy for my friend!!!





*Also on Friday, I got to spend some time with Kristin and her precious twinsies. And of course, Ella always loves spending time with Laney! That night Ella and I had dinner with my mom, Grandma and Tim who are in town from Kansas visiting.

*Saturday morning, Heath, Ella and I went to Karoline's breakfast birthday party!! It was SO cute and so much fun. They had a bounce house in their house, which is Ella's dream. I wish I had pictures, but half way through our drive to their home I realized I had forgotten my camera. I was so mad at myself I almost let it ruin my day, but I had to get over it. It was a pajama party and I wish so badly I had pictures of Ella and the rest of the babies in their cutie pie jammies! Krystal did let me borrow her camera so I will have some eventually.

*After the party, we came home and had family nap time. We let Ella sleep in our bed with us, which we have never done (since she was a baby). It was really sweet. At one point I woke up and was laying on my back and Ella had her head on my shoulder and her arm on my chest. It was precious! I might need family nap time to happen again soon.

*Saturday tonight, the 3 of us went and ate at Rio Mambo! We don't get to have family night very often, so it was such a blessing! It was an excellent place to eat! Heath wanted to go somewhere we had never been to, which makes me nervous. I don't like trying new things. Well, this was amazing!! I'm so glad we went and I recommend it to everyone. The service was great and the food was delicious. Laura, have you reviewed this one? I thought of you. The restaurant must be owned by Christians because they had verses on the bottom of their menu and their website says something about how they give some of their profits to churches.

*After dinner, we went to blockbuster to rent a couple of movies and Heath bought Ella and I each a movie. So sweet. He bought Ella Kung Fu Panda because she loves it! And he bought me Baby Mama which I LOVE! After we put Ella to bed we watched The Dark Knight. Very entertaining.

*Sunday morning, I had to be at church at 7:45 a.m. which has become the norm because Jared asked me to play the keyboard on a regular basis!! This was my 5th week to play and I LOVE every second of it! It has been so much fun and a HUGE blessing. I feel such joy from getting to do this. Thanks Jared!!

*After church, we had lunch with the team going to Honduras in March because I have decided to go again this year! I'm very pumped about it. It will certainly be different without Curtis this year, but we have a great group going. I didn't think I was supposed to go, but some doors opened a few weeks ago and now I'm in. It's going to be a great week.

*At 2:00, we had a Honduras meeting and then I got to go home.

*Sunday night, we headed over to Melissa and Peter's to have an impromptu 1st birthday party for Gabe!! He turned one yesterday. They rented a bounce house which made 3 times this week Ella got to enjoy a bounce house. Heaven!

Gabe, the birthday boy!


Karoline enjoying her cupcake!


Ella too!

Lunch w/Sunni & Ava

It had been way too long since Ava and Ella and me and Sunni have been together. With crazy schedules, we were finally able to meet up for a lunch playdate last Thursday. The girls picked up where they left off and had so much fun, and so did Sunni and I. I loved getting to catch up with each other's lives. AND she's 38 weeks pregnant!!! Any day now that sweet little girl will be joining us!

They spent the majority of their time playing peek-a-boo with us from under the table! They were SO CUTE! And they are both talking SO MUCH since the last time we were together. They were able to have full on conversations in the cutest little girly voices ever. I wish I could bottle up that little voice and listen to it everyday for the rest of my life.

My New BFF

Ella has been potty trained for a few months now and when she has to go potty, either myself or her Daddy will take her. Usually she tells us which one she wants to have the honor to go with her to set her on the potty and wipe her bottom when she's done.

The other night she said, "I need to go potty." Heath started to get up and said, "I'll take you".

Ella replied, "No Dada, I want Mama to take me because she's my best friend."

We looked at each other with teary eyes and I skipped to the bathroom happily with my best friend.

Ella

I'm working on a "Look Back at '08" post, but SO much happened (good and bad) that it is taking me a while. And I start daydreaming about what I'm recapping about and that adds to the delay of getting it done.

So, in my effort to procrastinate even further, I just thought I would post some pics I took of Ella the other day. I think I fall more and more in love with my camera everyday.







Yes, that is a piece of chocolate in her mouth, thus why she is smiling so big.


Notice how she is in a tank top. That's because it was 82 degrees on Saturday and 30 degrees on Sunday! And sleeting this morning as I drove to work. Crazy!

Also, I hope this doesn't distract you from the cuteness above, but I think I got bit by a spider Christmas Day because my arm swelled up, was hurting like crazy and was overall just gross. See for yourself.

And I'll be leaving you with that image.

Final Christmas Post

The Saturday after Christmas, we went back over to my Uncle's house for "Christmas morning". We have a tradition on my dad's side of the family that goes back to when my dad and his siblings were young. My Grandma always makes Sugar Plum ring for breakfast. I'm not sure the history of why that, but it's always been that way. It's delicious. It's kind of like that monkey bread but better. Anyway, my grandma was diagnosed with Alzheimer's a few years ago. In many ways, she is doing great, but there are some things that are just impossible now for her to do. One of those is making the sugar plum ring. My Aunt Sandy bravely took on the task this year. I'm sure that felt very intimidating and I'm glad it wasn't me that had to do it. So as you can imagine, it was VERY emotional for our family as we at sugar plum ring for the first time in decades made by other hands besides my sweet Grandma's!

After we recovered, we had a great breakfast and time opening presents. Ella gave my Grandma a framed picture with one of her Christmas pictures.




Ella and I have had so much fun playing these games!


Okay, this is AWESOME to me! My aunt gave Ella her first ball glove. I could not have been more excited. I started playing t-ball when I was 5 and played softball through high school. It's so near and dear to my heart. Ella and I have already been playing catch. I've showed her how to catch the ball, cover it with her right hand and then throw. She's actually caught on pretty quickly. I see t-ball in our near future.




This side of my family does Secret Santa every year and they are strict about keeping it Secret. The fun in that is that we go all out in creativity in giving our gifts. It's highly entertaining every year. This year my sister had Heath and she actually hid his Lowe's gift card in one of the floaties. She cut a hole, put it in and then taped it up. But you couldn't even tell.


Heath had to rip it open, after he finally figured out it was in there, to get it. I love how my sister is in the background of these pics acting so coolly.




This is Heath's Secret Santa to my Aunt Natasha. He stuck it outside the front door as if it was actually just delivered. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of the present because it's a poster of Dale Earnhardt Jr. from the Dollar Tree. He cut a little slit in the bottom of it and slipped the gift card between the poster and the card board backing.


This year we all chipped in and got back my Grandparents and flat screen HDTV.


They were very surprised.




Thank you hugs! He's so cute.


These are some more pictures of how my cousin Ethan had Ella cracking up for 2 days straight. Seriously, I don't think they ever stopped laughing until...






...they finally crashed!




My Grandparents every year, give the girls in the family jewelry or other things that were my Great Grandma's or Grandma's. It's always VERY emotional as my Grandad tells the story of what he has given us. Last year, I got my Great Grandma's manicure set. My mom got my Great Grandma's curling iron. It's SO neat to get this stuff and so much more treasured than any other "thing" I could get. This year my Grandad gave us granddaughter's some of my Grandma's jewelry, one of her very delicate handkerchiefs and then one of her books. My Grandma is actually a published other. She wrote 2 books. One is called The Practical Woman and the other is called Those Sensational Soaps, which we actually discovered was being sold on Amazon. She hasn't done anything with these books in years, but it was so neat for them to give us one with a very sweet note that she wrote to each of us. I will treasure it forever.

Well, that's finally the last of my Christmas pictures and stories. Ella got some great stuff, but much more than that, we had an amazing time with family! For that, I am so grateful.

More Christmases

The day after Christmas was filled with our 3rd Christmas. My sister and her husband came in town so we had lunch and opened our presents with them.

Ella helping Uncle Bradley open one of his presents.


Helping Grandad open a present.




Ella got this very cool book from my mom. Every page is like a white board, so you can use the markers on it and then erase what you've done. Each page has lines to practice writing your letters, activities and places to color. It's really neat. And she LOVES it.


A new watch.


One of her favorite presents was from my parents and it's a treasure chest full of dress up gowns and all the accessories to go with them. Laney and Karoline need to come over soon to play dress up!






Dress up gown #1.


Dress up gown #2.




Dress up gown #3.


Aunt Michelle reading one of Ella's new books!


After we finished, we all loaded up and headed over to my Uncle's house for "Christmas Eve Dinner" with my dad's side of the family. We were pretending like Friday and Saturday were Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Ella has two boy cousins on this side of the family and they always wear themselves out playing so hard and loving every second of it.

We did a lot of Karaoke Revolution!


And bowling & tennis. Am I the only one whose body was ridiculously sore after a weekend full of Wii?


And even more games.






They are great cousins!! They play so well together.




I am so thankful for family! One more Christmas to go.