New Favorite

This is my new favorite sister pic!

First Day of School

Big Day!  Addy's first day in the 3 year old class, Ella's first day ever at school and my first day back from maternity leave.  All went great.  Addy had a blast at school and was very excited when she got home.  She is in a class with pretty much all of her good friends at school, so she was happy to be back with some of the kiddos that she missed this summer.  Seems to like her new teachers and the new toys in her classroom.  There is apparently a jewelry bucket (not a jewelry box per Addy) and she played dress up and fashion show today apparently.  The note home today from her teachers said that she did a really good job following directions today.  We were happy to see that comment!  Here is a pic of her before school today

Ella had a great day too!  When I dropped her off, her teacher said I was welcome to call as much as I wanted during the day to check in on her.  I had convinced myself not to call because I didn't want to know if things weren't going well, but after I got back from lunch I couldn't help it I had to call - fortunately her teacher said she was having a great day.  Slept and ate well.  I asked if she had been fussy and her response was "Oh no, she is a good baby."  Ella was happy when she got home, lots of smiles and that made me happy.  Here is a pic of Ella before school today (when I uploaded the pic I realized it kind of looks like she is crying in this pic...it is actually a smile.  I finally got Addy looking at the camera and smiling but still working on getting smiles on cue from Ella!)

I should also add that we had 2 kids in bed by 9:00.  That is a record.  Now we are cleaning and getting ready to do it again tomorrow! 

Last Week of Summer

Last week school was closed and we had 5 whole mommy, Addy, Ella days!  Knowing that it was going to be a long week if we just hung out at home all week I made sure to have a bunch of play dates for Addy and Ella got to come along for the ride.  Ella got to spend some time at both of the grandparent's houses, Addy got to go to the Children's Museum with Grandma and Grandpa.  It was a busy fun week!  Here are some pics to commemorate the last week of summer before school and work started

Ballerina bike ride

Can't get enough swimming with Granddad!

Ella is rockin' in her saucer these days.  And here is pic #1 of Ella modeling Addy's headbands.  Addy had a blast dressing Ella up.  Ella tolerated it well for a while!

"Not so sure about this one ma"

OK, no more! 

Addy put this outfit together - I think that she walks better in my heels than I do! 

Ella resting in the shade outside. 

Have you ever seen anything so pitiful?!  I don't remember why she was upset - think it was because she wanted to come inside and I was trying to get her to play in the pool more since it had taken longer to get it set up than she played in it! 

More Beach Fun

We had another great weekend at the beach this past weekend.  Just so nice to get away from the distractions at the house and hang out and relax. 

Made in the shade.  It was HOT this weekend - thank goodness for he beach umbrella and tent!

Addy making "snow" angels in the sand. 

Not sure where this pool came from but we've loved having it to play with on the deck. 

Popsicle time on the stairs. 

Ella is becoming quite the beach bum.  Her favorite thing is to sit on the deck and rock.

Cute Sister Pics

"Fish" Wolf

At the beginning of summer we couldn't get Addy to leave the steps long enough to even make it towards the deep end of the pool - now she swims over by herself (well, with the help of a noodle) and swings around on the rope. 

When the pool isn't super full she can easily stand by herself in the shallow end.

Old Friends and New Friends

Last weekend we had an amazing night catching up with old friends and Ella and Addison made some new ones.  The Wardells and Weavers were in town and we met up at Ralph and Sandra's for a pizza party.  There were a whole bunch of little girls running around - kind of funny that we all have 2 little girls (the little boy you see in some of the pics is David's sister's son).  There must have been something in the water at Bellaire High School!

Rolly-Polly

We try to do tummy time, but have trouble sometimes because Ella flips to her back so fast.  She really has that move mastered! 

Great tummy time!

Roll in motion

And Ella is on her back! 

Growing Like A Weed

Ella is officially 3 months old now!  Everyone says that it gets easier after the first 3 months - I thought that the first 3 months went super smooth, so who knows what we have in store.  I start back to work on the 24th, so that should be interesting.  Not sure how I'll get me and 2 kids ready and out the door before 10:00, but I guess we'll have to figure it out.  Ella has still been sleeping through the night, so I haven't been getting up until 7-7:30ish.  She gets baby of the year in my book for her sleeping habits so far!  There will obviously be some alarm setting required come the 24th.

Addy definitely gets the big sister of the year award!  I keep expecting her to get tired of having a baby around, but I haven't seen a minute of jealousy and she absolutely loves playing with Ella.  We spend more time playing in Ella's room than we do in Addy's room these days.  I imagine our troubles will come once Ella is old enough to get into Addy's stuff and mess it up! 

I got all of Ella's 3-6 month clothes washed and they actually fit really well.  I am excited to have some new outfits for pics :)

Freddie the Firefly is probably Ella's favorite toy.  Every day she is trying to get more and more things in her mouth.  Freddie's wing was a hit this day! 

Ella really likes to sit up these days.  She hadn't been a fan of the Bumbo chair (the purple thing) but now she can sit in it for a while before she gets mad.  Only problem is that she spits up a lot when she sits up.  She is still a bit small to use Boppy (the pillow looking thing...not sure who came up with all these strange names for baby gear) to help her sit up, makes her kind of slouchy, but she loves it. 

Sister Time

Last night Addy asked if she could give Ella her bottle - she fed her the entire bottle and even burped her (with a little help from me!)

Circus

Michael got tickets for him and Addy to go to the circus again this year.  We figured she'd be really excited about it this year since she seemed to enjoy it last year.  Well, she wasn't super excited and they left at intermission, but she spotted the pink "spinning wands" about 5 minutes after they arrived and while Michael did try I think, there was no leaving the stadium without one in hand.  I think that one of the reasons why she wanted to leave was because he wouldn't let her turn it on while they were sitting in their seats -- she does get a little out of control with it and it very well might have ended up tangled in the hair of someone in front of them!  Addy named it the spinning wand.  Just what every household needs. 

Memory

I sure wish I had the memory of a 3 year old!  Today Addy puts on her cowgirl hat we got at the rodeo last year and says "take my picture".  Not sure I've ever heard her say that, these days she runs from the camera.  Then she disappears into the laundry room and comes out with the swiffer sweeper and says she needs to take a picture with it like the other picture she took.  Took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about, but after putting the pieces together, we recreated this picture from March 2009 - all her idea.

She's grown so much!

Beach Fun

Another great beach weekend!

Ella is made in the shade and much more comfortable than being stuck in her carrier in back of the Expedition

Michael taught Addy a new trick - body surfing!  It is kind of hard to see her face, but if you click on the pic and make it big you can see her to the left of Michael.  She loved it!

Weeks 11 and 12

Ella is about to grow out of some of her 0-3 month clothes - her little feet were nearly busting out of her footy pajamas last night.  Still eating and sleeping like a champ.  This past week there were two mornings where she didn't wake up until 7/7:30 after going to bed around 10.  She can do that anytime she wants!  Her are some pics from the past couple weeks.  We head to the beach house tomorrow!

We pulled out the booster seat the other day so Ella could sit with us at the table while we ate. She is awake more now and while we are all at the table eating it feels funny to have her stuck over in her swing just staring at us. A lot of time she'll end up on a lap and we eat one handed but this gives us 2 hands to eat with for a while! As with the exersaucer, she not really big enough, but she does a pretty good job in it for short periods. These pics make me laugh because she looks like such a big girl sitting up in the chair. I especially like the 2nd one where she has her bib on, the expression kinds of looks like she is saying "where is my food?"

This is obviously a picture of how a baby should NOT sleep, but I had to take it because Ella LOVES to pull blankets up over her head when she is sleeping. We of course pull them down and they are never tight on her face or anything, but if she has a blanket with her when she goes down she ends up looking like this.  Another funny thing, we've been trying to get Ella to sleep in her crib more during the day so that when she moves to her bed at night it will be less of a transition.  She isn't a huge fan of it and I thought that it was because she is laying flat and isn't inclined like in her swing or cradle.  I think that myth is busted b/c she can still sleep like a champ on the couch, completely flat.  Now trying to recreate the couch experience in her crib!

P.S. Doesn't it look like her hair is coming in on top? There is a lot more fuzz we think. Even Addison made a comment about Ella's hair getting longer.

Big E!

So technically she is still pretty small for this, but since Ella loves to stand up I figured we'd try out the exersaucer. I was pretty surprised that it only takes a small telephone book and she can put her feet down and "stand up". I wouldn't say it is her favorite toy, but she does enjoy looking around at all the colorful toys for a while. We were making all kinds of noise to try and get her to look towards the camera and she was just kind of mesmerized by the bright colors I think!

Thanks Aunt Susan

The new umbrella worked great!  Addy was made in the shade.  Can't wait to really test it back at the zoo.  When it cools off of course!

What A Difference Two Weeks Makes

I'm definitely learning the lesson that most of the time your kids are going to do the complete opposite of what you expect them to do.  Case in point this time is Addy and swimming.  Two weeks ago we are swimming at Dad's house and you can hardly get her to leave the steps.  Then the past 2 weeks we've received glowing progress reports from her swim teacher and I blogged about her not demonstrating her skills for her parents.  We'll I guess I should have actually gone swimming with her before I made that comment because we went to Dad's house today for some swimming and she was a total fish!  It was amazing the difference.  She was gliding, face in the water, blowing bubbles, early phases of swimming using her arms...she'd pop under water and then come up away from the stairs and grab the side of the pool.  Seriously it was a total 180.  Go Addy! 

My Little Girl Can Write Her Name

She is growing up too fast!