Happy Birthday Party Ella!

Ella's 3rd birthday kicked-off with a Doc McStuffin's inspired birthday bash with all of her buddies from school.  A fun time seemed to be had by all!  Ella has a lot of boys in her class, so the little bounce house was probably the biggest hit - a couple of times the girls were brave enough to get in and play, but it was a little Wrestlemania-like. 

 Me and Ella in the "Clinic"

Bounce house and bubbles - what more could a 3 yr. old ask for!

 Mid-morning party = lots of snack eating.

Ella turned shy when it was time to sing "Happy Birthday".  She didn't even want to blow out her candles, but luckily her friends were around her to help, so we counted to 3 and all her friends helped blow!

 Ella loves icing

Happy cupcake time!

Birthday girl!!

 Lots of Ella's friends have sisters that were in the same preschool class as Addy - so there was a mini reunion for the big girls. 

Silly birthday girl was totally not into unwrapping presents, but fortunately Addison was there to help out.  

Leave it to a new purse to get the girl excited!

Maroon and White Game

On many levels we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into today - we'd never been to the Maroon and White game and we had no idea what the girls would be like in Kyle Field at a football game.  The Maroon and White game is a scrimmage between the offense and defense at the close of spring practice.  Pretty sure they'd been doing it for years, but we'd never been.  After a little research we figured out that tickets would be $12 for the 4 of us to go, which is WAY cheaper than what it would cost for the 4 of us to go to a real game in the fall.  So off we went! Had a tasty lunch at Wings and More then headed to the stadium.  Girls got to experience the amount of walking required when going to an Aggie football game, and there were certainly comments about it although Ella got lucky and got carried some.  Got to the stadium, it was general admission so we finally found some seats and we were set. 

I feel like I maybe watched 2 minutes of the game.  I made 4 trips to the bathroom for potty breaks (thank goodness we had zero accidents, so it was worth it), we did the best we could to keep Ella from bumping or kicking the people in front of us (I'm not sure about bumps, but I did have to brush popcorn crumbs off the back of the guy in front of us only once), Ella and the stadium steps are a recipe for disaster (on at least 2 of the potty breaks she tripped in the same place on the way up the steps).  So moral of this paragraph is that Ella is not ready for a real Aggie game day.  Addison was good to go though!

 Addy was decked out in her Aggie dress and pink Aggie hat.  

 Ella got a little restless and we had to break out the iPad for a short while.  

 Ella was very anti-photography today.

 Biggest bucket of popcorn in history!  The girls LOVED it.

Cuteness!

Easter 2013

 Addy made a mad dash for the big egg in hopes that it was full of swimsuits!

 I realized that I didn't get any pics from Easter when the girls were out of pjs!  Ella had been awake for a bit when this pic was taken, but Addy had hopped out of bed maybe 4 minutes before.  

I kind of lost count of how many pieces of chocolate that Ella ate Easter morning.  It was probably way too may considering it wasn't even 9:00 yet. 

Auntie Amy Visit

We were SO excited when we found out that Amy and David were coming in town Easter weekend!  We went down to the Klein's on Friday to hang out and went over to the Kemah Boardwalk for lunch.  Was very fun catching up!  The girls were super shy when we first got to the Klein's but then Murray pulled out all of the toys and Andee had cupcakes, so the girls warmed up super fast!

Was a gorgeous day on the boardwalk, Amy and David were enjoying the warmer weather after lots of snow and cold in Chicago.  We made the mistake of taking the group pic with the sun in our eyes and Ella was about done for the day and wouldn't look at the camera, but the moment was captured!

Denson - Schroeder Weekend

We had a super fun weekend with Dottie, Fred, Dave and Vicki!  I think that we determined that Dave and Vicki hadn't seen Ella since she was maybe 7 months old, and it had been a couple of years for the Schroeders too.  We had a great weekend eating, drinking and just hanging out.  Uncle Fred won uncle of the weekend award.  We still aren't 100% sure what they were talking about, but at one point he was sitting with Addy on the swing in the backyard and they talked for a good hour it seemed.  Apparently at one point someone overhead Fred discussing the national debt and Addy loved every minute of it - that is our Uncle Fred!

I should have taken more pics, but here is one of the silly kids on the swing!

Kolter Spring Performance

Addy had her first school performance today.  K, 2nd and 4th kids all put on performances.  The bigger kids had different skits and dances they did in the foreign languages they are taking.  The kindergarteners all sang "Its A Small World" at the end of the show.  They sang it in English, Spanish, Chinese and French. 

The kids were supposed to wear an outfit that represented their heritage.  I was a bit puzzled at what in the world Addy could wear until I remembered this random yellow shirt that has Germany on it...not sure what else it says or where it came from exactly, but it worked I think! 

Spring Break At The Beach

 Just like I remember it when I had spring break, bright and sunny and surprisingly chilly.  We still had a great time and the girls were very excited to be running around in bathing suits and digging holes in the sand again!  Other than pjs at night, Ella pretty much had a swimsuit on the entire time.  Girls and Michael were even brave enough to get their feet in the water, which was very cold.  Addy managed to fall and get more wet than planned, but didn't seem to mind too much. 

And there were even ducks in the lagoon!  The lagoon is still pretty nasty, but apparently the ducks can find what they need.  Maybe the turtles will make an appearance before the summer is over!

Addy's 1st Official Spring Break

It was a bit hard to get back to the old routine today, but I think that Addy had a fun Spring Break last week.

Things started with a trip to the zoo with her friends...

Then her first official trip to the rodeo...

A few days with Granddad and Meme and then a weekend relaxing at the beach...

Livestock Show Field Trip

I was super excited to get the e-mail from Addy's teacher last week that was telling us about a last minute field trip - the livestock show, on a Monday morning.  Perfect!  It was lots of fun and we got to do all of the kiddie livestock show activities, including the petting zoo. 

 Howdy came in for a visit with the kids.  Ella was terrified, but Addy ran right up and gave him a hug.  

 In past years, Ella has been semi-terrified of the animals in the petting zoo, but she wandered around on her own this time and had a nice visit with all of them.  There really are super cute animals in there, and so much better than the petting zoo at the real zoo where they really only have scrubby looking goats - although not a huge fan of the deer that was trying to eat my shirt today.     

 Ella was a big fan of Fun On The Farm  

 Here is Ella showing Meme how to milk a cow.  Mary had mentioned that it had a been a while since she'd been to the livestock show, so when this came up I invited her to join us.  She got the true livestock experience with the Wolf girls, plus 22 other kindergarteners.

I think that Addy needs a bunny!

Zoo Trip

I felt like we'd just been at the zoo, so when we asked the girls what they wanted to do one weekend morning and Addy shouted "the zoo", I was about to suggest a plan B.  But then realized that she rarely gets to go now that she is in real school and Ella and I tend to go weekday mornings.  So, the zoo it was!  And unlike most days, the girls were actually asking to have their picture taken and were more or less looking at the camera!

Go Texan Day!

What a fun day!  Addy was super excited to wear her rodeo gear to school today.  She even let me put her hair up in pig tails. 

Ella doesn't normally go to school on Fridays, but it was a Purim/Go Texan Day celebration at school so we went up for a while to play with her class.  On Purim they celebrate by dressing up in costumes and there was a parade through the main JCC building.  Then there was a bunch of carnival like activities in the classes.  The activities were topped off with a pony ride, definitely a highlight of the day.  It was a bit chilly, so she had a jacket on, but she is sporting her Tinkerbell costume underneath.  

We got home and I was able to convince her to put on her Go Texan Gear.  Pretty cute little Texan here! 

She May Look Like a Wolf...

but she eats like a Denson!  Love my girl asking for pickles for lunch!

PJ Day

Valentines Day at Addy's school was pj day.  The kids made Valentines at school for all of their friends in the class and I think that they had a fun casual day in their pjs.  We were talking about what Addy was going to wear and she said she wanted to wear her red nightgown.  I thought that she was taking about her red princess nightgown from Christmas.  Nope, she was talking about the nightgown Granny got her a few years ago, she LOVES it still.  Here she is on Valentines, headed to school. 

Mardi Gras 2013

Another fun year, with much better weather. 

 There were no weather delays this year, but we tend to park near the end of the parade route, so it takes a while before we actually see any action.  Fortunately the Expedition doubles as a jungle gym, both inside and out, so the wait wasn't too bad.

 This would be an example of an elaborate float for the parade.  You have this and next to them is a group of people on their golf cart!  Good ol' Bolivar!

 I'm pretty sure we got more beads this year than last.  Towards the end I think that the beads were close to tumping Ella over she had so many on her.

 Here is Ms. A with some of her beads.  

And here is the after the parade shot with all of the beads piled up.  Seriously need to think of some craft projects or something to use up some of our beads!  

 And we even managed to make it to the beach each day!  Here are the girls acting as queens of the dunes. 

Kindergarten Field Trip

Ella and I got to join Addy and the rest of the Kolter kindergarteners at the Children's Museum on Friday.  It was a fun field trip that I was impressed was very well organized, I'm not a huge fan of the museum because it is so big, it is hard to keep multiple kids corralled.  But we were there for a few hours and didn't lose any of the 24 in our group, or Ella! 

 I've never been to the bottom level of the museum, but they have all kind of supplies to make rockets, parachutes and other things, then they have a wind tunnel to launch the parachute type things and a place where you can launch your rockets.

And this is Doctor Ella.  Pretty sure Ella could have spent the whole time here in the "vet", giving the kitties checkups.  She was certainly not a fan when we needed to leave!

Zoo Time

A bit of warm weather and no immediate need to clean the house or work on projects  = zoo time on Mommy - Ella Day. 

Ella the Fashionista

About 3 years ago, Addy was our little fashionista, always coming up with super creative outfits to make us laugh.  Well, it is Ella's turn now and fortunately she is a little better (for now) when it comes to school outfits - she'll accept our comment about things not matching and not insist on wearing plaid and polka dots, for example.  Her favorite these days is putting on leotards when we are hanging out around the house.  Here are some of my recent favorites...

 She left her shirt on, has 2 legs in the same hole and is sporting black socks and black tap shoes.  

Again, shirt is still on, got one leg in each hole and she has her socks and crocs on.  Plus a birthday cake headband.  And you'll see Addy has not changed too much, with her sun hat and rain boots!

Little Artists

 Addy spent quite a lot of time drawing all of the characters in the girls' favorite tv show Doc McStuffins.  

And here is Ella's version of the same characters!