Ella's Ritual

Well, the "stall tactics" are in full swing at bedtime now. We have to make sure the dog is kissed and hugged, the last drink of milk is taken, mom and dad are hugged & kissed, but not before the dog!! She always comes first.... I just love the secondhand dog kisses. And this is all before going into her room. Then, the real fun begins. She has to have several animals and "babies" with her each night. And, the special blankie, of course. If any of them are missing, we have to hunt them down. Then on to bed...almost. The next step is to turn on her music, get her into bed, and try to cover her up while she plays a "game" of putting her legs in the air so even that is hard to do. (That's comedy to a 2 year old.) ;) Finally, the animals are placed in their positions; every night it's different. And, here's the final product:



The funniest part is her trying to bring her hands together to pray after all that!

Sweet Dreams!!

Labor Day weekend

We traveled to see family up in Michigan near Grand Rapids over the holiday weekend. My cousin, Megan, and her husband Josh had just bought a house and we were their first official "houseguests". :) They have a beautiful home and we enjoyed our time there. When we got there Saturday late afternoon, my aunt, uncle, and cousin Kalee were there also for a cookout. Ella had a great time running around and being the center of attention as the only child there.

Here's Ella winding down at the end of the night with my Uncle.

The girls chatting around the table.

The next day the girls decided to head to Lake Michigan around Grand Haven/Muskegon to walk around and just enjoy the day. The guys headed up north to the hunting cabin to work on a few things. I don't know what all they did, probably boring Guy stuff. We just walked along the shoreline mostly. Ella loved the big boats and all the ducks, as well as the dogs being walked. She was very entertained! We walked for miles! There was even a naval museum we came across that had a submarine parked for us to see. That stuff usually doesn't excite me much but to see it up close and to know it fought in a war (don't ask me what one, I HATED history!) was pretty cool. On the walk back, Ella spotted a playground on the beach and had to check it out. Man, the older they get the smarter and more aware of things they get.....;) I can't hide ANYTHING from her anymore!

A view of the beach



My Aunt Bec and cousin Kalee.



Ella and I in front of the submarine.



See??? I'm actually learning something!! :)



She belongs on the beach!!



Here she is on the playground with Megan.



Remember a few posts ago how I said she likes to lay in the sand??? Everytime!



Back at the house that evening we got a little Wii tournament going. I had the most fun taking "action" shots of everyone playing. It was cracking me up!!
Here's Brad and his nice bowling form.



Kalee...



Meg....



And....Moi!! I need LOTS of room to play this stuff! haha and I was not being dramatic, I didn't even know the pic was being taken!!



Cute pic of the girls watching the action.



We had a great time being with family, and hope to do it again sometime soon! Here's a few more pics of Ella being her goofy self. What's new??

She discovered the kitchen counter island is the perfect height for "swinging"!



She loved playing in the bathroom, especially the shower. Her eye is swollen from a bug bite. :( It was pretty nasty for a few days.



Hope everyone had a great Holiday!!

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!

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! :)

Got sand?

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





YUCK!!!

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!!

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!!