Ella's Favorites

Playing with the tuppperware while I make dinner. * And on a side note this a great picture of our awesome kitchen floor that I've mentioned to a few of you *

Food food and more food....and feeding it all to herself.

She has really started enjoying being "one of the girls" and loves to be included (even though at times she's probably used more as a prop in some game of pretend then as a fellow player!) She also has taken a real interest in books and loves to play with them, eat them, and turn the pages.

She recently had her first ride in a swing at the park. And even with all these layers she had on, we still had to stuff some blankets behind her to hold her up.

Scooting around the table while the rest of us finish dinner.

This is Mommy's favorite...just after a bath...with an awesome Mowhawk!

Visit with Grandma

A fun Valentines treat was having Grandma come to stay with us.

Playing library. My mom set books up all around the living room and the girls thought it was the greatest game ever. They had library cards and a checkout system. Very Fun.

I was trying to finish sewing a blanket I had started last year before I had Ella and Mia got very interested in the sewing experience. Grandma was kind enough to indulge her, despite the fact that her attention span didn't last very long while making a Barbie skirt. We did have some good luck with this little project you see above. A Knitting needle (not pokey and not small) and mesh fabric in an embroidery hoop, she could stitch away all she wanted!

Ella our sweet sweet little baby we've discovered is JUST like I was as baby. I was an easy easy baby.....for my Mom.....but once Mom was out of sight we had some problems! Thankfully Ella
warmed up really fast to Grandma and I was able to escape here and there to run errands and go on date with Lance and we thought....well mabye having Grandma here cured her stranger anxiety....not so much! We left her with a babysitter again the other night and it was not a happy time. Good thing it was close to bedtime. Poor Ella.....POOR babysitter. :) Our other girls never had a major issue being left with babysitters...further proof that they all come with their own little personalities AND what goes around comes around! :)

Plungers...Plumbers....and Prayers

This was our theme one lovely Thursdsay in February, when our toilet got clogged (a bad combination of switching to the really thick toilet paper, and independant but small children!), then malfunctioned in two different ways which resulted in the water NOT turning off and overflowing/flooding the upstairs bathroom, and leaking through the ceiling of the downstairs bathroom which in turn flooded, and leaked through to a small portion of the carpet! Not Good!

Well I wouldn't normally care to remember this day when I spent WAY too much time in unsanitary conditions and mopped my floors too many times to count, but admidst all the "fun" I had one of those rare moments where you feel like when it comes to your kids..."They Get it...they're catching on!"

I had water Spraying out the toilet in all directions and was not able to turn it off, it was continuting to rise really fast and I had already baracaded the entrance with towels to prevent it from leaking out of the bathroom, and was calling the management company to see about getting a plumber sent out and to see where the water turn off was (really terrible that I don't know this....but THEY didn't either) these old houses have things in really funny spots, and I had just run back upstairs to see if I could somehow catch the water in a bowl and start pouring it down the bathtub and as soon as I ran into the bathroom, I lifted the lid off the toilet and pulled on something (I still don't know what it was or why it worked...neither did the plumber) and the water just shut off.

I could finally catch my breath and Mia who had disappeared after I told her that she needed to stay far away from the bathroom, peeked her head around the corner to ask me if the water had stopped and I said, "Oh yes I pulled on something and I got it to stop" and she said, "Well when you told me to go to the living room I went by myself to a corner and I said a prayer to help you" Thankfully I was coherent enough to hear what she said and realize what a big deal this was. I thanked her for saying a prayer and told her that she had had more faith then Mommy because I hadn't even thought to pray and that her prayer must have worked because I had no idea what I was doing and right after her prayer the water just stopped!

Even though you hate when things like this happen it's always nice to look back and see how you were blessed amidst the crazy. A few other blessings I realized after this incident: 1. I THANKFULLY only had 1 child awake during the entire 3 hour ordeal. I didn't think about it at the time but the younger two took really awesome naps that day. 2. We have a great management company and thank heavens we don't own our house, because they were able to send a plumber out that day, as well as carpet people to suck out all the water from the carpet, santize everything under the carpet and clean not just the spot it had leaked on but the whole downstairs. 3. The weather was uncharacteristically nice the 2 days following this incident which allowed me to open every window in the house and air things out without running up our heating bill.

"I Decorated Her"

Some days morning chores go quickly and smoothly but most days the girls come up with at least one interesting activity to distract themselves from the task at hand. This particular day, I guess you could call it beauty salon gone wild, but when Mia called me in to show me something all she said (with a HUGE smile on her face) was..."I decorated her"! I honestly didn't know Maddi had enough hair to hold THAT many clips in....Wow. :)

Hello Spring...almost

Maddi Always the "Mommy" pulling her baby in the sled.

Ella is mesmerized by what "fresh air" feels like. :)

I love the first few days when you feel like you can attempt to go outside again! We've had a couple of 60 degree days here and there and you forget how refreshing it is to be able to hangout outside on a Saturday or send the kids out to play every day. One of our first days where there was a hint of Spring in the air, we attempted to teach Mia how to ride her bike without training wheels. After a few attempts she was able to ride by herself for a short distance and it didn't take too much longer before she was able to get started on her own. I swear this took SO much longer for me as a kid!

Doing Chores and Saving Money....Disneyland Here We Come!

Ever since taking a trip to Seattle in September and seeing My Brother and his family after they had just gotten back from a Disneyland trip my girls have been talking about going to Disneyland. I remember going to Disneyland one time growing up and it WAS one of the most magical experiences. So we told our girls (partly to teach them about money and responsibility but probably just as much to give US a chance to save OUR money) that we would come up with a few chores around the house that we would pay money for and that when they have saved up $100 dollars we would pay the rest to go to Disneyland. It has been some great motivation for them and we've seen a lot of good come out of it. They have about 3 chores they can do right now (outside of the ones they DON'T get paid for like making bed, cleaning room, and toys) to earn money. It's really cute to see how good they have gotten at taking the trash out, especially Maddi. The other job they have is to pick up pinecones from our front yard (the joys of having a pine tree). We thought charging 5 cents a pinecone seemed reasonable until they picked up 195 pinecones! Wow those little pinecones add up fast. We made this little deal with them BEFORE we knew that we would be moving to California so Lance and I are feeling pretty happy about not having to worry about the travel expense on our part anymore!

V-Day Fun

Fun Valentines Party at our house for our Ward's Playgroup.

Feeling Inspired and an Eye update

I love when Mia gets inspired with an idea for a project. This particular day near Valentines Day, she was reading a library book and it had instructions in the back for making your own Valentines box. It had pictures of all the required materials and so she gathered everything she could get on her own and then told me she needed a shoe box. She worked so hard on her little box and was so excited to be doing it all on her own. These pictures remind me that I never finished an update on her eye stuff. In November the doctor said that she would need to start patching her strong eye to get her other eye seeing better. Thankfully she only has to patch for a couple of hours a day and they have made many advancements since Lance had to have one and she got to pick out a cool ballerina patch that just slides on and off her glasses. She's been really good about wearing it every day and when we had her last appointment the doctor said that her eye sight has improved and that by the next time we come back she may be able to stop patching altogether. So yeah!

Ella 11 Months old

Oh the rare moments when we're all dressed AND ready at the same time!

Well here goes my monthly LONG update on life. As I update this Ella will be 12 months in a week but here is the 11 month update anyway.

Stats

17 lbs now and doing just great.

Is completely mobile and fairly fast although she is not crawling OR walking. Instead (thanks to our hard wood floors) she SLITHERS on her tummy all around the house wherever she wants to go. I wouldn't say it's even an army crawl because she just sticks both arms out in front of her and pulls her whole body forward while kicking her little legs as fast as they can go. It's pretty funny and surprisingly effective.

We've now had to start baby proofing again, gating the stairs, sweeping more often then we'd like to (haha), and be on the watch for when she inevitably still manages to get something in her mouth. Although I have to say I am pretty well staffed with the "Choking Hazard Police" around my house who are more then happy to RUSH over whenever Ella gets something foreign into her mouth and be of "service" whether Ella appreciates it or not. :)

Great Website for Children's Clothing

My friend Amy just started her own Children's Clothing line called Polka Dot Canary. Everything is just adorable and high quality. I love that the dresses don't require a shirt to be worn underneath! Go here to see her stuff. She has cute bags, aprons, and a few other things!
polkadotcanary.etsy.com