Ella Reading

I was making dinner one night and I heard Ella in the other room just babbling in a sing-song voice for the longest time and when I peeked at her I saw that she had plopped herself down on the bean bag with some of her books and was just reading away.

Maddi's Letters

Maddi has enjoyed "writing" for the past year and frequently carries her "journal" around the house with her pen but she hasn't taken an interest in actual letters or their names until recently. I always get the biggest thrill when I see the connections forming. She has started to recognize a few letters and will point them out when she sees them in different books, on signs etc. etc. and this past week she started writing her "M" and "A"
She was so excited to show me.

The Rest of July

While she still tries to stay within reach of the food Ella has decided that Sand isn't so bad!

It's amazing how entertaining a few shovels and sand can be for little kids.

Lance took the girls out for their first Surfboard ride. They both ended up in tears after their rides! :) I'm sure the water temperature didn't help much (notice that all the adults are wearing long wetsuits!) However Mia did ask to go back out again after she recovered.

A visit to the little Children's Museum.

Ella reading her books. I think she looks so old here.

4th of July

We are lucky enough to have a great view of the fireworks show that our city puts on at the high school right from our driveway, so we put Ella to bed on time let the girls stay up a little bit late and pulled our chairs onto the driveway for 20 minutes of
lights! It was perfect. :)

We spent the week leading up to the 4th talking about the significance of the holiday and the girls wanted me to sing the "Star Spangled Banner" over and over again and every time we pass by a flag since then they shout "There's the Star Spangled Banner!"

I've never seen so many melons in our house at one time. Our house smelled like the produce isle in a grocery store.

Lance had the fun privilege of being asked to head up the cooking for the 4th of July breakfast about 5 days before we actually had it. They were doing a full pancake, egg, sausage, and fruit breakfast for about 250 people. He did an awesome job, and I think it brought him back to the days when we worked as a Chef for a few years! :)

Someone from the picnic took this picture of Mia and a friend sent the link with some other pictures to me. I said..."Oh Mia when did someone take your picture?" and she said, "Oh yeah...I was lost and couldn't find you and someone asked if they could take my picture....Why did they want to take my pictures???"

Mia riding in the Bike Parade. So there is sad sad story behind the balloon you see in the pictures. Maddi had a matching one on her scooter and after getting a little overwhelmed by all the bike parade excitement she came to sit on the sidelines and I think she must have been playing with the string on the balloon because I turned around, heard heartbreaking crying and screaming and, saw Maddi pointing up at the sky while her balloon floated away! The tragedies in the life of a 3 year old. :( I think I had a least 10 people come up to me and say I should probably just stop by the store on the way home and buy her a new balloon...it was really a pretty pathetic sight. But thankfully she recovered fairly quickly. :)

The 4th (actually 5th) of July Breakfast.

Santa Monica

Some Radio Station had a wheel you could spin and win prizes Mia won these sunglasses and Maddi won..a couple packets of sunscreen. Thankfully she was pretty happy with her sunscreen packets b/c we weren't sure how that one would blow over!

It's hard to tell from these pictures but we were actually pretty high up on the Ferris Wheel. And another thing you won't see from these pictures is that although Ella was happy in this shot, she quickly got tired of being confined and basically screamed and thrashed around for the rest of the ride! :)

We had planned a temple trip 4th of July weekend. We were going to take the whole family and Lance would watch the girls outside while I went in and then we had planned to go see the Pier, however that morning after we had gotten everyone in the car and were just about to head off, Lance thought to check the temple schedule and we discovered that the temple was closed that day. We decided to go anyway (since everyone was literally buckled in their car seats) and we had a fun day. We rode the Famous Ferris Wheel on the Pier and then went and walked the Temple Grounds. Mia was very excited about this part and as you can see from all the pictures.

Ella 15 month update

I was trying to get a good shot her messiness.

Ella telling me her deep thoughts.

One of Ella's favorite things to do is pick dirt out of the garden and put it into the watering can.

Ella loves being included in the play of her older sisters...but that sometimes requires sacrifices on her part! She wasn't too happy in this picture but normally she actually really likes this particular game where she obviously plays the part of the "baby" in a game of "House". Whenever I see them wheeling her through the house in the "doll stroller", I'm first amazed that they can get her in it...and then more amazed that she actually doesn't seem to mind being in it. It makes my hips hurt just looking at it!

Ella and her little friend Brian

She was SO excited the day she figured out how to push this toy around and would just giggle the whole time.

Little update on Ella.

I don't have any stats b/c she won't have a check-up until 18 months but I am pretty sure she's finally hit the 20lb mark. It's funny because we still have her car seat rear-facing and should probably think about turning her around at some point! Well Ella's biggest news in the last couple of months is that she started walking! And this past week she started walking more than crawling and in the last couple of days she has started to have some more "toddlerish" moments. She definitely thinks she's older than she is at times and wants to do EVERYTHING the big girls do. We have stairs in our house and she very quickly learned how to crawl up and down them by herself which is nice in many ways because I worry a little less about her. She is quite the little babbler and while she don't understand most of what she says, she is quite serious about her conversations with us and talks with her hands for added emphasis. It's pretty cute. She has also learned to say "Uh-Oh" and that's about her only other word besides "Mom", "Momma", and an occasional "Da-da". Although Lance thinks she have been trying to say "Bye-Bye" the other day.

She just LOVES being outside. We kind of discovered this in Spokane. Anytime the girls open the back door she makes a beeline for it. Now that she's walking more she stays a bit more clean but up until now she would get SO SO dirty outside because she was just crawling over everything. At the end of the day it's straight to the bathtub for Ella because she is covered from head to toe in dirt...but she's happy!
She waves bye-bye to us,can blow kisses, and has started nodding yes when we ask her questions which has been really fun. And she continues to be really Mommy attached when it comes to bedtime and being left with babysitters. The highlight of her day is when Lance gets home and she never fails to give him a great welcome even if the rest of the house is in cranky mode!
She is quickly taking after her sisters and becoming a little "water baby" at the pool. She doesn't like sitting in a floaty but she likes to stand on the steps and climb in and out. This is great exercise for Mommy as well. :)

The other Girls:

Mia

Has been enjoying life in California. She loves swimming and just learned how to do it on her own. And as she watches older kids around her, she continues to be motivated to keep up with whatever they are doing. The other day the kids at the pool were diving for toys and Mia became determined to figure it out so she could do it too. She kept asking them to push her down so that she could get to the bottom and after working that whole afternoon she finally figured it out. She is so excited to start Kindergarten this fall and still just loves to learn new things and ask questions. She has deemed herself "The Question Girl" and its funny remembering back to when she was going through the "why" stage and how LONG it lasted for her. She loves primary, books, friends, riding her bike, singing, dancing, playing pretend and as always is just Happy to Be Alive! She takes her role as the "Big Sister" very seriously and usually introduces herself to people by saying "I'm the oldest in the family". The other day she came home from primary and told me that because she is the oldest she gets the "birthright" :) We told her it needed to be earned by good behavior. :)

Maddi

Still keeps us on our toes and surprises us daily with her funny little personality. And she never ceases to amaze us by how smart she is and how quickly she just figures this world out, nor how quickly she sees through our "parenting techniques". She has just stopped taking naps and enjoys the opportunity to play with Mia during quiet time but can still just barely make it through the day and quite frequently falls asleep while we are reading books at bedtime. She just recently started recognizing some of the letters in her name and was so excited the day she learned how to write an "M" and an "A". I think it's always so exciting to see them make these connections. She is excited to start preschool this fall with Mommy. And she continues to be the bravest person in our family. A life jacket for Maddi has become my best friend at the pool these days as she has absolutely no fear of the water (even though she can't quite swim yet). The first day we went to the pool her she jumped right in without any floaties or any adult around and when I pulled her out she caught her breath and was ready to go right back in with no hesitation! When Daddy is able to go with us to the pool she gets a chance to actually practice her skills and last week she was able to swim (in a doggy paddle fashion) a small distance. So who knows maybe by the end of the summer she'll have it all figured out. She also loves her sisters and has recently taken an added interest (for better or for worse) in "mothering" Ella and "trying" to pick her up. Unfortunately for Maddi, Ella is less than appreciative of these gestures of kindness! :)

Father's Day

Father's Day...the girls had fun making cards, and ties for him to wear to church and Ella gave the best present by taking her first steps for Lance.

Here are couple videos of Ella's walking performances. The first one is when she figured out how to walk while pushing a push-toy. She was so funny because would get SO excited but as soon as she would run into something she would immediately start screaming, basically demanding that we all come to her beck-and-call and turn her around....which Mia and Maddi were Happy to do.

The second one is on Father's Day when she actually started walking. At the time we were so focused on her new skill that we had tuned out the little side-show that was going on in the background but after watching the video back Lance and I were cracking up as we listened to the little "Taylor Swift" impersonator providing background music for Ella's big day!

Square Foot Garden

This was a few weeks after we planted...they grew quite a bit!

The Girls came rushing up to my room the morning that they discovered that our onion seeds had sprouted!

For a few years now I have been wanting to have a garden but for many different reasons it was never good timing...until now! A couple of my family members have done the square foot garden method and now having a small backyard and living somewhere, where you can harvest stuff almost year round this was the perfect option for us. It was simple, it's easy to maintain, and it's been fun so far. Now we need to see if anything will grow!

For those interested there is a book written by the guy who came up with this idea:

"Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work"by Mel Bartholomew

He also has a website: www.squarefootgardening.com

Art Project

I had some canvases leftover from an old Young Women's activity we did back in Indiana and they already had a border painted on them so I let the girls do their own painting on them one day and then we hung them up in their room. They had a blast with it and I loved how they turned out. Maddi's was the perfect example of how for little kids "Art is about the Process not the Product" she started off painting like she saw Mia painting and then decided to just put her hands in the paint and try it out that way. You could tell that she was just loving the feel of the paint on her hands and the effect it had on her canvas. When Mia saw this and realized that this was okay to do (as in...Mommy wouldn't be mad if you put your hands in the paint) she kind of wanted to try it out too and it was hilarious to see her hesitantly put her hands in the paint and then start to really enjoy herself. I think paint is great and love doing paint projects with my kids as long as we have nice BIG paint smocks, we use WASHABLE paint, and I like it best when we can do it OUTSIDE. Oh and one more thing...when the 15 month old is taking a NAP! :)