Happy 1st Birthday Ella

 The birthday hat lasted about 5 seconds.

 Ella was initially not a huge fan of the cake.  She got some icing on her hand and started crying.  There was no diving into the cake or any of that.  She is not afraid to get her hands dirty usually, so I'm not exactly sure what set her off.  She was a great sport during the entire party, but I think that she was a bit confused as to what all the fuss was about and why she was sitting in her chair outside with 12 people standing around staring at her.  Between that, the bib and the strange looking cake, she wasn't really having it! 

 Things got better once she was sitting on my lap and we started feeding her cake on a spoon.

Ella wasn't completely into opening presents.  A couple caught her attention but she was up 2 seconds later walking around.  Seriously, there is no sitting still!

Ella showing Granny one of her cards.

Ella had a super special guest at her party - Aunt Amy!  We were so excited that it worked out that she'd be in town this weekend and could come to the party. 

Story Time

Ella is really into books right now.  Her favorites are the little board books and she'll just pick one up and bring it over to you to read, it is very cute!  Just so happens that Addy has some of these books memorized, so she insisted on reading Ella a nighttime story the other day.  It was precious! 

Shoes

Since Ella is really walking now and going outside a lot, I thought she needed some proper shoes, especially for the beach weekend.  She was not a fan at all!  At first she just reverted back to crawling because she disliked them so much.  And she'd just sit and try to kick them off.  She eventually got to where she'd walk in them, but still wasn't a fan.  She is really going to be mad when I go by her proper everyday shoes and there are no more of the Robeez that she likes! 

Happy Easter

The Easter Bunny managed to find us at the beach.  Unfortunately he forgot to put candy or money in the eggs, so the hunt wasn't as exciting as in years past.   And he hid Addy's Easter basket, which was not appreciated by Ms. Wolf.  But he did remember to hide the big egg and leave swimsuits for both Addy and Ella, so I think that kind of made up for some of the other mistakes! 

Ella wasn't really into egg hunting, but she ended up with a couple in her basket.

Not your typically Easter picture all dressed up in our best dresses.  It was fun to just throw on a tank top and shorts!  Right now it is impossible to get both kids looking at the camera, so this was the best we could get. 

Bunny Ella

Bunny Addy -- once the eggs were collected, I think that she had more fun picking flowers.  She ended up taking them over to our neighbors.  Such as sweet girl, the neighbors loved the flowers.

Bunny Star

Beach Time

We decided that we were way past due for a trip to the beach and headed down for a long Easter weekend. Had lots of fun and this was Ella's first official trip to the beach where she could actually play in the sand and water. Not 100% sure she liked the water, but in her defense, it was still pretty chilly. Sand was fun. Trying to eat the sand was the best part.

 Not so sure about this.

Addy teaching Ella how fun it is to bury your feet in the sand.

Digging holes was the beach activity of the day.

4 and a Half

On April 11th, Addy turned 4 and a half.  We had a mini celebration, just because!  And of course you can't have a half birthday celebration without cupcakes.

I asked Addy what a few of her favorites were at four and a half and here they are...
color: pink and purple
book: Berenstain Bears and The Dinosaurs
song: Old MacDonald
tv show: Clifford
princess: Belle
school activity: play
food: chocolate Hersey kisses
thing to do at home: paint
flower: rose
thing to do outside: play on new swing

Crawfish Boil

We've been seeing a commercial on TV for crawfish at Fiesta and today we caved...you can just buy as much or as little as you want, so Michael got crawfish and fixin's for 2 (well maybe 2 with leftovers).  But it was fun and yummy.  It was Ella's first crawfish boil and she was not a fan of the noise coming from the burner that heated the boiling pot, but was generally interested in the whole process.  Addy was super interested in it all until it came to eating them - wasn't happening.

2 Feet

With the exception of Star, everyone in the family is getting around on 2 feet, no more crawling here at the Wolf house.  Unless it is needed for dramatic effect!  Ella is on the go and going non-stop

She still takes tumbles now and again.  And I can't capture it in picture, but she is sporting a bruise on some spot on her face at all times these days.  She does a pretty good catching herself, but tends to bang into furniture.  Here is a pic of her not catching herself...you can see Star in the pic.  A number of her tumbles are due to Star not being considerate to an early-walker.  It is apparently really fun to run up and lick Ella in the face.  The other majority is due to the fact that Ella thinks she can run and gets to going way too fast!

Never a dull moment at our house, unless both girls are asleep in bed!

Addy Just Being Addy

 Working in her "field journal"

 Kicking back with a catalog waiting for me to get things together so she can go to Aunt Jean's.

Always excited to use the rain boots and umbrella.  In fact, we felt about 2 drops of rain when we were outside not too long ago and next thing I know she is inside getting her umbrella. 

Little Gardeners

Lots of playing outside these days and Addy is really into digging.  Here are the girls playing in the garden.  Ella did some digging too, and turns out she prefers to try and eat rocks over dirt.  Never noticed her going to her mouth with just dirt in her hand, but a couple little rocks almost made it in.  She keeps us on our toes!

 Addy (a.k.a. Cousin It)

Just Like Elida

The other night Addy decided she wanted to make her bed just like Elida does.  Elida is the housekeeper and poor lady has to deal with the 500 stuffed animals on Addy's bed when changing the sheets and she always puts the stuffed animals back in a cute way, different every time, and Addy loves to come home and see what her bed looks like after Elida has been here. 

 The big pile in front of this pic is the stuffed animals, dolls and pillows.

Here it is when Addy was done.  Not quite like the way Elida does it, but 4 year old style I guess.  We were just happy everything made it back on before bedtime. 

Tupperware

We introduced Ella to the tupperware drawer the other day.  As expected, it was a big hit!

Tree Trimmin'

As Michael is trimming limbs on the tree..."Dad, don't forget that you have to say timber"

 Addy was very helpful when it came to moving the branches out of the way and piling them up! 

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.