Crab Festival

We are having fun exploring new things in 2014.  Last visit to the beach, a flyer for the annual Texas Crab Festival caught my eye.  We'd been down at the beach house on the weekend of the crab festival before but I never thought of going.  For the sake of trying something new, we spend some time on Mother's Day at the festival.  Sunday was definitely a slow morning at the festival, not a lot of folks, but we got to enjoy some live music, there was a guy doing balloon animals for the kids, and we had some fried crab munchies for lunch.  I think we'll definitely give it another try next year.  Maybe visit on Saturday when it is a bit more lively.  Was a great end to a nice and relaxing weekend at the beach this time though!

These were some of the most elaborate balloon characters I'd ever seen.  The girls asked for mermaids and this is what they got - very fun and huge!

Happy 4th Birthday Ella

Our little girl is 4!!!  Birthday festivities started the Saturday before her birthday with a PJ Pump It Up party with all of her good friends from school.  Since Ella LOVES wearing pjs, there was no question that the attire for the party should be pjs.  Word on the street from the other parents was that this was a very popular idea and the kids loved it.  There is somewhat of a love/hate relationship with Pump It Up.  I can take Ella there during the week during Pop In Play and she loves it.  Then we'll go for a birthday party and she won't play unless one of us is jumping with her.  Well that was not the case at her party.  About 15 minutes into it, this is what she looked like...hot and sweaty.  She was running around non-stop for the whole party!

 

She looked like she was having so much fun that even Granddad wanted to get in on the fun!

And here is Michael and Ella after a run through the obstacle course.

Then we finished the party with snacks and cake in the party room. 

If there is cake or ice cream, odds are it will end up all over the face!

 

Ella Wolf was anxious to help her good friend Ella C. open her party favor, with Blair supervising it all.  These girls are just too cute!

Then on April 30th Ella went to school and celebrated with cupcakes with all of her friends in her class.  Then she came home and we opened presents (anything Frozen was at the top of her birthday wishlist, although she has thoroughly enjoyed everything that she got for her birthday).  We finished the night with dinner with Grandma and Grandpa, Granddad and Meme, and Jean and Tom at our favorite Mexican food restaurant.  By the end of the night Ella felt very celebrated and was very tired!  It was a great 4th birthday!

Hoppy Easter

If there is a potential for gifts - a letter is written so that the gift giver has a very clear idea of what the girls want!  I especially loved this one with the drawing.  To say the girls are obsessed with the movie Frozen may be an understatement.  It is a bit like Beatlemania!  We made it clear that Easter was not like Christmas but Addison felt it was important to capture their wishes in writing. 

We had a great visit to the beach over Easter weekend.  We dyed Easter eggs of course...

Easter morning was quite foggy at the beach, but they found all of the eggs.  The Easter Bunny did not deliver really anything on the wishlist (although mom and dad did give the girls the Frozen movie) but the list was quickly forgotten once they started finding candy and coins in their eggs.  Easter Bunny didn't forget the big egg with bathing suits which is always super popular.  And turns out the Easter Bunny was busy on Bolivar - there were at least 2 other houses we could see that had eggs in the yard.

Orange Visit

What a super fun visit we had with Granny!  We played at the park, took a driving tour of Orange, went shopping and ate at Casa Ole.  Not sure what else you could ask for.  The girls had a blast and on quite a regular basis now, Ella asks when we are going to go back.  I promise her we will seen Granny soon and will make it back to Orange as soon as we can.  We'll be a bit distracted with beach trips for a while, but we'll be back!  Love you Granny!