4th of July Weekend

3rd weekend straight of traveling, but another great weekend!

 Another big hole in the sand.  My favorite part of this pic though is Addy's big, natural smile!! 

Have cooler, will climb!

 So fun - Granddad and Meme joined us for the weekend!  

 Ella is currently obsessed with her toothbrush.  Took a while before she had enough teeth to make brushing worthwhile, but now she is a huge fan!

Fun times in the pool on the deck.  

 Sisters playin' around in their fun new chairs. 

 Super Star!!

 "Being at the beach is SO fun!"

 We caught a squid!  So, Addy has been a bit bummed about fishing after a number of unsuccessful attempts with the fishing rod.  So Michael got a cast net for his b-day and oh goodness did they have success.  They caught fish, shrimp, crabs and squid.  Kind of makes me scared to get back in the water.  Wow! 

 This pretty much sums up how we all felt by the end of the weekend!  Addy was asleep probably 5 minutes after pulling out of the driveway at the beach and slept until we pulled into our driveway in Houston.

Austin Weekend

June 24th - 26th we made a trip to Austin.  Michael had to go for work over the weekend and the girls and I tagged along.  Traveling with 2 kids solo was a bit tricky, so I totally flaked and didn't take pics, but there were a lot of 1st over the weekend that I wanted to capture. 

• Ella's 1st road trip that wasn't beach related.  She did great, slept nearly the entire drive both to and from Austin.
• The 1st weekend we slept in a hotel room as a family of 4.  Addy loved it, had a big huge bed to herself.  I'd say Ella was luke warm.  Once she got settled at night she was OK, but Saturday night there was a long period of screaming that I thought would never end.  Turns out both girls were completely fascinated just standing and looking out the window in the hotel room.  We were in downtown Austin, so there were tall buildings and all kinds of neat things to look at.  
• 1st time Ella met the Tilson family.  We had a fabulous time hanging out with Gabe, Sawyer, Lexie and Lyndon.  The girls had a blast playing in the pool together and just playing together in general.  And catching up with Gabe was great.  Always makes me sad though that we don't live closer and can't hang out more often!  
• 1st time both Addy and Ella met my friend Lauren.  Not sure how exactly it has been 4 years and Addy and Lauren haven't met.  Guess Lauren and I tend to hang out on girls weekends and adults only weekends. Very glad to be able to hang out with Lauren!
• 1st time I took both girls to the Children's Museum alone, and actually it was Ella's first time to a Children's Museum ever.  Fortunately the Austin museum isn't huge, so it wasn't too hard to chase after Ella and still keep an eye on Addy.  Pretty sure that I don't want to try the Houston museum with 2 of them and just me anytime soon though!  
• Michael might have a somewhat different version of this story, but I think that after this weekend I can say that Ella officially said her first word.  There has been discussion about how "da" was her first word (interpreted as "dad"), but there are a lot of things that are "da".  In my opinion (this is where we might differ a bit!) But this weekend, I'm claiming she officially said "dog" and was actually talking about a dog.  Good ol' Austin, there are dogs everywhere, walking along the street, hanging out at restaurants, you name it.  Every time we'd see a dog, Ella would say "dog" and point and get very excited.  The dog obsession has continued too and she of course gets a lot of practice with Star in the house.  I also learned that I need to keep a watchful eye on her when we are around dogs, especially small ones, because she is not gentle.  One of her favorite activities at Gabe's house was going to lay on the dog bed, with the dog in it.  Ella is a lot bigger than Pudge and he was not real happy to have a toddler plopping on top of him.  I don't blame him!

It was somewhat of a tiring weekend because Michael was working most if it, except Sat night when he got to join us at Gabe's for dinner, but it was also loads of fun.  When we were leaving, Addy told me she wanted us to move to Austin.  (Gabe - don't get your hopes up!!)

Ella's Antenna

Ella's teacher Ms. Maria apparently plays beauty shop at school sometimes and has started "styling" Ella's hair.  Ella doesn't sit still for much, but she LOVES to have her hair brushed so I think that she really likes this.  There isn't much hair there to work with, but Maria does the best she can.  Some of her other teachers refer to her "pig tails" as her antenna, which I have to agree is a pretty appropriate description.  But it is still super cute!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANNY!

A special blog happy birthday seemed fitting for one of my biggest blog fans!  Happy Birthday Granny, we love you - Bethany, Michael, Addison and Ella

Father's Day Beach Weekend

I found these adorable adirondack chairs for kids at the Big Store and couldn't pass them up.  They are low to the ground and Ella can't tump them over.  The chairs were a hit...

except when Ella sits in it properly she sometimes has a bit of trouble getting out!

Addy has been talking about smores for ages, so we took the fixin's to the beach this weekend.  Maybe not the best to roast marshmallows over charcoal, but not a lot of wood down at the beach!  I think that the melty chocolate was the most exciting part of it all. 

Ella was super tired on Sunday and just wanted to go take a nap, but nope, we were headed to the beach for one last dip in the ocean.  At first Ella just laid her head down on Michael's tool bag like it was a pillow and then she decided it looked like a comfy seat.  She looked like a little birdie in a nest, even laid back onto another tool box behind her and just sat there forever while we got ready for the beach. 

Ms. Ella woke up once we got to the beach though.  She LOVES the water now.  She doesn't even get upset when the waves knock her over.  She isn't a fan once you get too deep, but she will play around in the shallow water for ages. 

Cute sisters!

Instead of packing up and heading back to the house for lunch, we just took lunch with us and had a picnic.  Little sandy, but lots of fun! 

Addy still loves digging holes (as does mommy) and now Ella likes coming and sitting in the holes as we are trying to dig them out.  

HAPPY DADDY'S DAY!  Michael and his girls at the beach.

(I waited too long to take this - Ella was done with the beach at this point, way, way past nap time!)

The New Mommy, Addy, Ella Days

This summer Addy is going to camp 5 days a week again and she will continue with 5 days in the fall.  I am so fortunate to only work 3 days a week that I have always loved having Mondays and Fridays to be a stay at home mom.  It is a change having Addy gone part of the day on Monday and Fridays (she is only at camp from 9-3 and will only be in school in the fall from 9-12) but it is also fun to have some one-on-one time with Ella.  It has been an adjustment going back to being the one dictating the schedule and activities, as opposed to when Addy is around when I just ask her what she wants to do and we go from there. 

Ella is a ball of energy and always going non-stop unless there are good books around.  We did a trial gymnastics class on Friday and she LOVED it, so we are going to start doing that every Friday.  Here are some funny pics of Ella goofing around on Monday

Butterfly Kisses

Our little butterfly did an awesome job at her dance recital today.  Her dance was called Butterfly Kisses and and as you can see she had a great purple costume, she got to wear makeup.  It was very exciting (mainly the makeup part, specifically the red lipstick).

We weren't allowed to take pics during the actual show, but here are some from the dress rehearsal on Thursday.  I have video from dress rehearsal too that I'll try to post, but haven't done a video post yet, so not sure how timely I'll get that done!

Rehearsing the big finale

Happy 8th Birthday Star!

Super Star turned 8 today and we had a mini celebration after Addy picked out some gifts for Star.  Star of course had no clue what was going on, but I know she appreciated the attention!

 For the 1st time in 8 years, Star finally has a collar with pink on it.  There was a remarkably large number of collars with pink on them, but Addy picked this one.  

And it wouldn't be a birthday celebration without rawhide treats.  Addy had to help Star a bit with the unwrapping. 

Summer Days

I think that the goal this summer is to either spend our weekends at the beach, or in the pool.  It is HOT!  Today was our first big swim day, mainly because the water was finally warm enough for me to be willing to get in (I'm a wimp!).  Also was Ella's first official swim.  She's been in the pool before, but not for more than a couple minutes.  Probably was a good hour today.  She wasn't a fan at first, but we got her in a float and I think that she realized it was just like a big tub and she was hooked.  She was even putting her face in the water before it was all over. 

Addy is starting to remember everything that she learned in swimming class last year and today we introduced her to diving and by the end of the swim she was diving/jumping in (still perfecting the dive) by herself in the shallow end.  Ready for her to start her swim lessons and I told her that she is going to be swimming the length of the pool by the end of the summer and diving off the diving rock - we'll see!!

And of course some fun pics from the day

Memorial Day 2011

Had a busy and fun weekend at the beach.  Michael and I are on mission "finish the beach house", so I spent some quality hours with a roller, priming the bedrooms so we are one step closer to getting those done!  Still tons of beach time.  I think we counted that Addy and Michael went down 4 times, which may be a record!  Ella went 3 of the times, and the one time she didn't go, Star went.

Addy's favorite beach activity is still playing in the water, whether it is just sitting in the surf collecting shells or jumping waves.  Another fun thing we like to do is dig really deep holes until the water starts filling in from the bottom.  And of course sand castles.  There was still plenty of seaweed around and it made lovely plants around the castle grounds. 

Ella's favorite activities are anything to do with sand and climbing on our beach chairs.  I'm not going to lie, there was sand consumed this weekend.  We just did our best to make sure that there were no shells consumed too.  Michael said at one point this morning Ella was picking up sand and rubbing it in her hair.  It was cute this trip, she got noticeably excited when we got her swimsuit out - she was ready to go! 

 Ella is definitely our climber.  She climbs on everything and turns out these chairs are great because they don't tump over and if she falls it isn't far to the ground.  She spent a significant amount of time climbing all over these, going from one chair to the other.   Notice all the seaweed?  It was pretty gross.

This is gross and hilarious at the same time.  Mainly gross, but she didn't seem to care.  Her whole face would get covered so we'd go into the water to rinse it off - she'd get fussy when we were cleaning her up, not when she was covered in sand!

Lounging on the porch.

Addy loves popsicles for dessert at the beach.  Her new game this weekend was picking the colors that we got to eat.  I tried putting in a request and it got denied - her response was "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit".  Wonder where she got that one from?

Granny, Ella LOVES her new chair!  Remember the comment about her climbing up above?  I think less than 2 minutes after we first set the chairs on the ground, she was standing up in hers and fell over.  She is sitting nicely in these pics, but most of the time she was standing up or getting one leg stuck in the hole on the side, or rocking in it.  So needless to say, the chairs weren't out too much b/c they made Ella kind of crazy! 

This was our 1st successful kite weekend.  I can't tell you how many I have bought and finally found one that flies.  So Addy and Michael got one going really good and next thing we know it is wrapped up in the powerline in front of the neighbors house.  But we happen to find another one in the dried up lagoon next to the house.  That one was great and Addy got really good at kite flyin'!

"Thanks Granddad and Meme for having a 2 story house so that I could learn how to climb stairs.  It is really fun at the beach house too."

Outside Time

We spent nearly all weekend outside.  Michael was working on the shed project and the girls love to be outside, so outside we were.  Given how hot it is, it made sense to play in the water.  We got nearly every water toy out and Addy had fun playing in everything.  Ella still not a fan.  There were also lots of wagon rides which is probably Ella's #1 outside activity (other than eating sand and these sea shells that we have from the beach - seriously can't keep them out of her mouth).  Michael and Ella also went on a super long bike ride to visit Granddad and Meme.  Here are some pics from the weekend...

 Ella is watching Addy playing on the splash pad - you can see the skepticism in her face!  

 No skepticism here.  If it is water related, Addy loves it! 

 Safe from the water, Ella had fun climbing in and out of the chairs.  I'm not sure I'd ever seen her climb up in these chairs before, so she was extra proud of herself.  Love the fun smile in the top one and the one below captures the scrunchy nose thing that she does that is so cute! 

 Fun times with the crazy flower.  She is aiming the flower towards Dad in this pic! 

 These were obviously not at our house, but today Addison was talking about going swimming all morning, and she got to go with Granddad this afternoon.  She has grown so much over the past year and can easily touch the bottom in the shallow end.  She is super excited about camp starting so that she can start swim lessons.  She is claiming to have forgotten some of the stuff she learned last summer, but fortunately she didn't forget how fun it was to be in the pool.  It was just this time last year that she wouldn't leave the steps!