Sunday, August 30, 2009

Clothing, zoo, and dinner.

Nothing exciting has really gone on recently around here. Kinda same ol' same ol'. Which, in a way, I don't mind. Boring is kinda nice!! :) The weather has been unseasonably cool and has gotten me thinking it's fall around here! I've started getting out some of Ella's fall/winter clothes and putting a few of the "smaller" summer ones away. It's always been hard for me to put away clothes I know she'll never wear again. I always think, "she wore that when...." Will I always remember those moments, or will they fade just like so many other things? Getting out newer, aka "hand me downs" or "clearance items" or "garage sale finds" always makes it a little easier. The anticipation of how cute she'll look helps!! :) Now I understand, "only through a mother's eyes"..... ha!

We have made several trips to the zoo this year with our pass. We love it because we never feel pressured to stay too long. We go for an hour or so sometimes just to get out and see a few of our favorite animals. With the pass is included half-off admission at a lot of other zoo's in the US. In a few weeks we are heading to the Columbus zoo, which we hear is great. Should be a nice, cheap getaway for a day! :)
Here's a pic of Ella at our last zoo trip, just a week or so ago:



This last Thursday we had perfect weather for eating dinner out on the patio. We grilled out pork chops and it was great. growing up, I ate out on the patio a lot. In fact, it was the same table! It was handed down to me when I moved out on my own and needed one, and I've just painted it a few times and it's good to go! It's gotta be at least 20+ years old. Ugh! I'm old!!! Hopefully I age as gracefully as that table...ha!
When Brad and I came back outside after taking dishes in to the sink, this is how we found Ella. Her belly was full and she was propping her feet up!



That's all the updating for now. Ella's snug in her crib and Brad's into a movie, I think I'm gonna go to bed and catch up on some reading! G'night!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Cutest baby

Just wanted to let everyone know that Ella is entered in the cutest baby contest through the Fort Wayne newspapers. The Entries should be in this Friday's paper if you would like to take the time to vote! We are using the picture above, it's one of my favorites of her! You can also vote on-line here.

The voting doesn't start until Friday, so make sure you come back to vote!! The rules said something about credit card voting, so I'm not quite sure what that entails. I can't imagine it would cost money to vote, but what do I know?? They did say this was to raise money for newspaper education through the schools, but we had to pay money to enter, so I would think that's how they make they money for it. Not quite sure, guess we'll have to wait and see! :)

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Got sand?

Do we have the wierdest kid or what? Do anyone else's children do this??





YUCK!!!

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Ella's Birthday Luau!

I cannot believe our baby is 2 already! The saying "time flies" really takes affect after you have children. It seems like just yesterday that we were bringing her home from the hospital and she was keeping us up screaming all night! It has been honestly 2 years of wonderful blessing for us. Sure, there's times we want to ring her neck, but can any parent honestly say that's not true?? :)
We (I) decided to do a Hawaiian-type theme this year, mostly because I found TONS of decorations at the Dollar Tree! Gotta love it!! We had some really cool decorations, including a light up palm tree we borrowed from a friend, and I found on-line one of those pictures with the faces cut out of a Hawaiian couple that you could have your picture taken in. I am bummed I didn't get pics of the decorations, atleast on my camera. I guess I was a little busy and forgot to designate that job to someone! Ella wore a Hawaiian dress I scored off of eBay; she looked so precious.



Brad and I got Ella a Cozy Car Coupe... what I like to call the Flintstones car! It's so cute and she just LOVES it! She got lots of nice gifts from family and friends, now we have to go through and get rid of some old toys! She's luckily still at the age where I can do that rather painlessly. I'm hoping in the future to teach her to willingly give some to other children in need. I hope it's that easy!
Now you see why we need to get rid of some toys??



She was excited to open the first few gifts, but then got completely sidetracked. There were quite a few kids there and she was more worried about what they were doing; she didn't want to miss out on the fun! So, I opened the last half of the gifts on her behalf. :)
See her in the background while I'm doing her job??



She got this great little patio set from her Uncle Brian and fam. I really like it..she insisted on eating her dinner there with her cousin Addie!



This is after she suckered her cousin into opening a few things for her. She's a happy little mother!



And the best part...cupcakes! (Thanks Aunt Denise!) Ella actually blew out her own candles this year! She must have a lot of hot air like her dad. ;)



Lastly, here's a pic of her in her "new car" when the party was winding down. The dress came off and she was cruising!





All in all, it was a very HOT, but fun day. It was nice to have all the family over and celebrate our greatest blessing with them. Until next year!!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Movin' out!

As the last to have children on both of our sides, Brad and I are the lucky recipients of quite a few hand-me-downs. We are not complaining, sure has been a lot less expensive on us, and I think they enjoy getting the stuff out of their hair and letting us deal with it! :)
The latest gift was a "playhouse" for the yard from my sister. Ella's at the perfect age for it and I knew she would just love to have it. Brad set it up for her last night, and when she went outside she ran straight to it. Over and over again, she would run in and out opening and closing all the windows. It was funny to watch, she must've spent a good half hour doing just that. She's had a lot of fun with it already, I can just imagine the little "tea parties" we'll have in there in the next few years!

Thanks Aunt Denise!


Can you see me???


And this is the master bedroom....

Already practicing climbing in and out of windows. Great.


Too fun! I don't remember having these when I was a kid....hope that doesn't mean I'm getting old!!

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Dad's birthday weekend

My brother recently got a camper and boat and has been staying at a campground up in Michigan on the weekends. My dad's 60th birthday was last Sunday so we all went up to hang out and be together for the weekend. When we were kids my parents had a speedboat so getting to do it together again was so much fun and brought back a lot of memories. Ella had a great time and discovered she loves boating as well. She prefers to "go fast," none of that slow stuff for our daredevil! My brother's gf, Lisa, and I rode with her to go "tubing," and she thought it was ok, but we went too slow for her liking. She wanted back in the boat and preferred to watch everyone else tube. Back at the camper, we spent time around the fire and made some great meals together. I think we ate better around a campfire than most nights at home! We all had so much fun together, it was a great weekend! I'll leave you with some pics.

Ella on the ride up. Think she's sick of us??

We had just gotten there, she's checking out the digs.

Our mansion for the weekend.

Brad and I with Lisa's son and cousin.

Ella with DJ's two dogs, Toby and Lilly. She loved their dog bed, and loved to torment them, not necessarily in that order.

Lisa and I.(her son in the background)

My brother, Brad, and I

The morning of dad's birthday, making breakfast.


She feels the need for speed!

Taking Ella tubing.


Miss Hollywood is ready for some boatin'. :)


Taking over the wheel.


So much fun! Pooped out.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Buskerfest

Last Friday night we all went downtown to a new festival. It celebrated street performers, and I thought it was a really cool concept. Everything from belly-dancers to mimes were there. There was a main act going on the whole time that constantly switched about every 10 minutes or so. There was even trapeze acts!
We walked around quite a bit and there were quite a few "side acts" such as this giraffe on stilts. Ella was so cute craning her neck to look up as high as she could at him. There was also a "living statue" there which we all enjoyed. He was very good at standing very still but yet still engaging with the crowd. He was holding a boot that was constantly pouring water out as a prop. All the kids there were enjoying that. At one point he even bent down and blew Ella a kiss. Too cute.

There is a pizza place right downtown that we have always wanted to try called "Toscani's." We decided to go try it out since we were so close. Of course we had to wait longer than normal due to the crowd from the festival, but it was worth the wait!! We tried the pizza and a sausage roll, and they were excellent. I would definitely recommend trying it out if you've never been there. And, they're kid-friendly too. They give you crayons to color on the table cloth and if you ask, they give the kids pizza dough to play with! How cool is that? I think I was more infatuated with that than Ella. I know that's hard to believe......:) All in all, it was a great night. Pretty cool to do things like that in your own town.