Happy 4th Birthday Party Addison!

 Today was awesome!  I invite you to revisit the recap of Addy's 3rd birthday party...http://bethanywolf.blogspot.com/2009/12/happy-3rd-birthday-addison.html  Well, today was the polar opposite!  A great time was had by all, birthday girl included.  The theme was arts and crafts and there were 4 activities.  One was decorating luggage tags.  This was a bit random, but I printed the kid's names on little cards and they decorated them and we laminated them and attached them to little tote bags I had made.  I came up with this idea because I've found the few I have with Addy's name on them quite handy and I bought a laminating machine and wanted an excuse to use it.  Another project was decorating small pumpkins with these cute sticker faces I got.  Another was decorating picture frames with stickers.  And the last was assembling and decorating the kids choice of a car or a truck.  The car/truck project was completely designed and prepared by Michael - very proud of his creativeness and it was a huge success.

Addy's frame creation

Tote with luggage tag

Addy's car and some decorated pumpkins

So, the luggage tag project was kind of random, but the tote bags also served a purpose...while the theme of the party was arts and crafts, there was a Tinkerbell sub theme and we had a Tinkerbell pinata, so when all the craft projects were done we got the kids in line, gave them their bags and we went up front for pinata time.  If you haven't checked out a pinata in a while, the new trend is these pinatas with strings that you pull and one of them opens the hatch that lets the candy fall out.  No more swinging sticks! 

Ready to pull!

Scrambling for candy.

Tinkerbell was the theme of the cake.  My creativeness kicked in and fortunately the flexibility of fondant greatly compensated for my lack of cake decorating skills!

The arts and crafts theme wasn't just for fun - Addy LOVES "projects" so I used her masterpieces as decoration for the party.

More fun pictures from the day

Bubble fun

The princesses themselves

And yes, she wore the "Birthday Girl" headband the entire party!

SO excited to get a new ballerina Barbie!  Her old ballerina Babie's head fell off and is broken. 

"I love my pjs Granny"

Brand new Disney Princess bike.

Go Aggies!

 Aggie football was on TV for the first time this season and we had to celebrate.  In the 4th quarter as I type and game is tied...keeping our fingers crossed.  [UPDATE: Before I finished the blog, we lost by 3.  !@##@@#$]  At work I decided we were going to get the girls dressed up for the game, although skeptical that Addy would cooperate.  Much to my surprise she was all excited to put on her Aggie cheerleader outfit (she already has cheerleader aspirations!) and the Aggie onesie we have actually fit Ella perfectly (my goal is still to put together cute coordinating outfits for the girls that will likely involve maroon and white tutus, but that is a project for after Addy's birthday!)

5 Months

Baby girl turned 5 months old today! She is becoming quite a little person. I'd say one of her favorite activities these days is "shouting" - she isn't necessarily mad, she is just exercising her voice I guess.  But she has gotten pretty loud!  She is super interested in all that is going on and there is less and less sleeping when we are out and about because she wants to see what is going on. We went to a birthday party for one of Addy's friends this past weekend and I thought for sure that Ella would sleep through it, but she was awake and smiley the entire time. The best part is her smiles, unless she is hungry or tired she is the happiest kiddo and always has a huge grin on her face.

She still topples over when she is sitting, but I feel like we are getting closer to her sitting more independently which will be exciting - for us and for her. Unless she is really tired she must be sitting up straight or standing. Also feel like I need to start solids soon. She seems to be really interested in watching us eat and the other day I let her play with a spoon and she seemed to have a great time. She really seems to enjoy anything that she can put in her mouth these days. Between spit ups and drool, she is usually a big mess. A good day is school when she comes home in the same outfit she went to school in!

She still seems to be really happy at school too.  She always greets her teacher Mrs. Rosiland with a big smile in the morning and is quite a happy camper when I leave her hanging out in the bouncy seat.  It is hard to believe that next month the title of the blog will be 6 months old!  Baby girl is growing too fast!!  

Addy

Here are some pics of Addy "striking a pose"!

Silly Ella

Night Out

Michael and I had a big night out last weekend - not only a night away from the girls for the first time in a while, but we went to the Dave Matthews concert.  We can't remember exactly, but best we can recall the last concert we went to was the Dave Matthews concert years and years and years ago (well I think that I went to the Jessica Simpson concert after that but I went with Melissa to that one!)  Last Dave concert it poured down rain and we basically sat through a thunderstorm.  This time no rain but it was so hot we were somewhat hoping for a little rain!  Hot but fun.  Not the best pics, but here is proof that we were there!

FPD

Today we started a new tradition at the Wolf house.  Family photo day!  After numerous request from the school to send family photos, I realized we didn't really have any.  Especially recent ones with our newest member.  Also, we take tons of pics of the girls, but speaking from experience, one day they are going to cherish the pics with other people in them.  So, I am implementing a new tradition.  Each month we are going to take at least one family photo.  I know that they aren't all going to be pretty and we didn't make a point to get all fixed up for this one or anything, but I hope that we'll keep it up and we'll be able to look back and laugh at them over the years.  Here are the official results of our first family photo day (didn't really go that smooth, and my sanity was questioned a time or two, but I think we worked out some kinks this go round!)

Ella Pics

I've been trying to get pics of her smiling.  This is the best I could do this weekend...

Park

Going Organic

Kind of!  First there is our garden - remember those little seeds we planted back at the beginning of the year?  Well, they didn't all make it, but it is probably a good thing b/c we clearly underestimated the space we'd need and our garden looks like this

Yes, mad chaos!  Fortunately for us, everything we planted seems to thrive on neglect.  We have a tomatillo plant that has taken over, but currently has tons of tomatillos on it, so I'm excited to make some salsa.  We have jalapeno peppers and Anaheim peppers for a family of 12.  Pesto anyone?  Seriously just come and get some of our basil.  Few tomatoes in there.   Michael is already working on a revised garden area for next year - clearly some better spatial planning is needed! 

Part 2 of going organic is the organic co-op we've started getting fruits and veggies from.  It is super fun and is definitely making us eat more fruit.  We were pretty good at veggies, but not real creative when it came to fruit, but it is always a surprise what you are going to get and we've had fun cooking with veggies we normally wouldn't buy.  You can just order whenever you want, not a mandatory weekly deal, so we place an order online and go pick it up on Saturday.  Only done it twice, but we'll definitely continue.  Here is our loot from this past Saturday.

We are trying to eat healthier, but Michael and I laughed because after picking up all of our organic fruits and veggie we stopped at Wendy's for lunch.  Pretty sure not a single component of our bacon cheeseburger was organic!

More Sister Time

I love taking sister pics!

If you look back to my post on May 15th, it is fun to see how much Ella has grown and changed. 

Addy said they were making silly faces in this pic. Addy is of course being silly and if you look close enough, Ella kind of looks like she is sticking out her tongue too!

So sweet.

Line Leader

Addy is doing great.  On Monday we went to play with her friends Brooke and Emily at Brooke's house and it is just amazing that we can send the girls up to Brooke's room and they play forever by themselves.  We've been doing play dates since Addy was 3 months old but just this year the kids are actually playing together - nice for the moms and also fun to see that development.   

She seems to be fine with the change from "Mommy, Addy days" on Mon and Fri to "Mommy, Addy, Ella days".  She can be completely inpatient and irrational over the silliest thing, resulting in the previously mentioned tantrums, but fortunately when it comes to me taking time to feed or change Ella or something, she is completely patient.  We are so luck!

Addy had another fun week at school.  She got to be the line leader one day which she was very excited about.  When I asked her what she did as the line leader the only thing she'd tell me was that she stood on the orange line and held the line leader sign up.  She was very proud though!  They also started going to the splash park which is of course a hit.  Wearing a swimsuit to school is always a treat!  Next week she starts dance class again which she is super excited about.  I got her a new leotard and tights yesterday and she was giddy, she wore them all day today. 

4 Months Old!

When a blanket isn't handy a new favorite is to pull up her dress and chew on it or put it over her head!

Our baby girl turned 4 months old on Monday!  Seems like I was still pregnant just yesterday, yet can't remember what our world was like before Ms. Ella.  Tonight I realized that Addy probably cries more than Ella (3 year old tantrums - ugh!)  Ella continues to sleep like a champ.  I think that she was asleep in bed by 9, maybe 9:30 last night and I had to wake her up at 8:00 this morning because I figured she need to eat.  She had even woken up earlier with a super wet diaper and Michael had changed her and put her back to sleep.  The sleeper in me loves it! She is also sleeping in her bed now.  I think that she is much more comfy because she can spread out more and the transition was seamless.  There is the occasional trek down the hall in the wee hours to give her a pacifier, but they seem to be getting less and less. 

We had Ella's 4 month checkup on Monday and she is doing great.  Well, when we went to the doc she had a rash all over her from what we can only guess is an allergic reaction to something but it has since gone away.  We had a red spotted kids for a while though and no clue what she was reacting too, just glad it is gone.  Her weight was 12 lbs. 12 oz. and height is 24.75 inches.  As I've mentioned before, the height measurement is quite sketchy due to their measuring technique, but it is in the ballpark.  I can tell she is taller because her feet are getting closer and closer to the edge of her swing and her carrier.

Another change this week, at the doctor I mentioned that Ella spit up a whole bunch and now that she is spitting up all on her teachers at school we'd like to see what we can do about it (and we both have the fear of her spitting up on us in our work clothes as we are rushing to get out of the house in the morning!).  Fortunately the spitting up never bothered her but she is now on a formula made for healthy babies that spit up and she is doing SO much better.  There is still the occasional spit up, but nothing like it was! 

Ella is still enjoying her class I think.  The other day when I dropped her off she got a big smile on her face when her teacher said good morning to her and one day she came home and one of her teachers had written "Mommy I had an AWESOME day today".  Still not really sure why it was awesome, but it was nice to see.  She still comes home really happy and has yet to cry when I drop her off.  Happy baby, happy mommy!