Zoo Time

It has been ages since I've been to the zoo, so now that the weather is nice, I'm on a mission to make it out there more often.  Before it gets blistering hot and unbearable.  Although, turns out that pushing 2 kiddos all over the zoo in our bus of a stroller is a major workout, even when it is only in the 80's and overcast.  

 Ella outside a hut in the Africa exhibit.  Tried to get a pic of both of them in the hut together, but that was just not going to happen.

Baby Ella, baby rhino.  Don't you love Ella's hair blowing in the wind!

 Addy in the groundhog exhibit and I was actually able to get a groundhog in the pic with her.  They are hardly ever out it seems. 

Playin' around at the children's zoo

Livestock Show 2011

Another great year at the livestock show.  This was Ella's first time to see the farm animals.  And this was Addy's first time to go on carnival rides. 

As always we had "Fun On The Farm"

Addy planting a tomato seed

Farm girl Ella.  Ella seemed to have a fun time, but we went during her normal nap time, so she spent most of the time sitting in her stroller just looking around. 

 Farm girl Addy

 Another required activity - pony ride.  She even chose a pony ride over going to the petting zoo. 

 She'd seen the ferris wheel from the freeway for weeks and talked about riding it every time we drove by.  Turns out there are about 4 ferris wheels and she ended up choosing this one.  Had a great time and didn't seem to be scared at all. 

As they were going around on the ferris wheel they were checking out the other ride options.  Flying pink elephants won!  One thing I think we learned was that you should do the rides 1st thing because the lines started getting long.  We only did 2 rides, but imagine there will be many more next year. 

Ella Update

Ella is full of energy and full of personality!  Ever since she started crawling she has been non-stop.  Getting into everything, pulling up on everything.  She still knows her name is Ella, but may soon start thinking her name is "no" since she hears that a lot.  I've been trying to mix it up with other words, but she still hears "no" more often than not.  Granted it does no good, she just continues on.  So her favorite mischievous acts these days include splashing in Star's water bowl, crawling into the bathroom and grabbing the shampoo bottle off the ledge and sucking on it, playing with her nightlight when it is plugged into the wall, plugs in general, grabbing Addy's markers or anything from Addy's craft table that she shouldn't have.  That is all I can remember off the top of my head, but there is more!  But then she looks at you with one of her super big smiles and you forget what she just did.

Here is one of those cute grins and this photo is capturing the first time she drank her milk out of a sippy cup and held the cup herself, no mom help at all.  We were both very proud!  Prior to this we'd put milk in a sippy and she'd scream, because milk came from a bottle.  Or we'd try to get her to hold her own bottle and she'd scream, because she's a baby and supposed to be fed her bottle.  Not anymore, she is drinking out of sippys, holding her own bottle.  Such a big girl! 

On the food topic, the  girl is the best eater ever.  She still loves her baby food, even the stage 3 stuff which is a weird mixture of mush and chunky foods.  But in ten and a half months I think that she has tried more foods than her 4 year old sister.  And that is with only 2 teeth!  We do have a new one on top, but it is a newbie and just barely showing.  She'll literally eat anything you give her, but just some examples - guacamole, mexican rice, refried beans, kiwi, tortilla chips, tortillas, a variety of crackers and cookies, peas, carrots, mango, chicken salad, chicken, french fries, tiny bit of cupcake (have to save the first official cupcake experience for her birthday!), strawberries, grapes, ham, cheese.  OK, you get the picture.  #1 finger food is still Cheerios. 

 Ella is starting to have fun playing in some of the bigger kid toys.  She LOVES to be pushed around the house in the little car.  In the pic below she is honking the horn. 

I think that we can say she is walking now.  She only really gets about 4 steps in before she plops down and crawling is still the preferred method to get around, but she is working on it and I imagine she will be really walking super soon.  She likes to stand at the back windows and look out. 

In this pic I think that Ella and Star were checking out a squirrel or bird or something in the back yard.

Hard to believe that a month from now we'll really be gearing up for the big 1st birthday!

Addy Update

Addy is getting older and wiser each day.  She is a super big sister and now that Ella is moving around, she is a huge help when my hands are full and Ella is getting into trouble (more details on my mischievous monkey in the Ella update!)   She is also super cooperative now that Ella is getting into all of her stuff.  She'll start screaming for Ella to stop, but she doesn't have melt-downs when Ella starts chewing on her art or something.  The other day I walked down the hall and realized Addy's bedroom door was closed and when I peeked in and asked what she was doing she said she was playing with her little legos and closed the door so that Ella wouldn't get them because she knows Ella can't play with little toys she can put in her mouth.  Ella is also attracted to the nightlight in her room, so if we are playing in Ella's room, Addy will just go unplug it and set it on the cabinet without me even asking her to.  She isn't changing diapers yet, but if she was a bit bigger I think that she would! 

Addy is always offering to feed Ella 

It is scary, but I'm starting to see a lot of me in Addy.  For one, she is always working on craft projects, mainly drawing pics and her favorite things to draw right now are fairies and Clifford.  We have mountains of her drawings around.  Our neighbor gave her an old diary that her daughter had never used and Addy fell in love with it, and it quickly became her "field journal" (if you watch the Tinkerbell movie, The Great Fairy Rescue you'll know where she picked up this term).  Realized it was great because it kept everything together in a nice little book.  It was great until she locked the lock and then lost the key that is.  Here are a couple of her recent masterpieces.  

Another recognizable trait she seems to have inherited from me is the need to clean/organize things but make a huge mess in the process.  Here she is reorganizing her craft supplies.  Seriously every drawer was emptied, paper and stuff everywhere, but she did end up cleaning it all up somehow. 

Addy still likes to make her own lunch now and again and is quite creative in her menu selection.  The other day she had cashews, an orange and grated cheese - all things that she could locate and do herself.  My favorite new chore she likes is cleaning up the dog poop in the backyard.  She just got the scooper one day and went at it.  I was expecting chaos, but she does a really good job.  I imagine she'll be completely mortified by this picture when she is in high school! 

She also likes to decorate the house for the holidays.  Christmas really kicked it off and we've been going holiday to holiday ever since.  Recently when she found out that Easter was the next holiday coming up, there was a very pressing need to get the house decorate as soon as possible.   I was able to get her to wait until I was done hosting a wedding shower here at the house, but the next day the Easter decorations came out.  Never mind it was still a month and a half until Easter!  There were lots of bunny ears and egg hunts for a while.  Think she's over it now, so hopefully egg dying will get her back in the holiday spirit when Easter actually gets here. 

Other big activities at the house are picking weed-flowers in the yard and generally just enjoying being outside again. 

I'm back!

Went on a bit of a blog hiatus, keeping super busy with projects that kept me away from the computer!  I'm back and hopefully it won't be another month before I have time to post something.  Starting with an update of the girls...