For Your Viewing Pleasure

Changes

Since Ella Ann is on her way to being potty trained we no longer need our changing table. The awesome thing about her furniture is that it is all convertible! Spencer simply inverted the drawers last night and flipped it over and now it is a dresser. It's so pretty that way and I'm glad to be done with the changing station and have more space to put up Ella Ann's pretty pictures!

I changed some of the pictures after this and replaced one of her newborn ones with one of Ella Ann and Mara Kate at the park.

Of course I had to take a picture of Ella Ann during all my reorganization because this is what she looked like!! A very kind woman I work for gave Ella Ann the red boots because they were too small for her granddaughter. They are a little too big right now, but Ella Ann insists on wearing them at least once every day around the house! She is also wearing her new training underwear that keeps her from going all over the floor! I bribed her with new stickers today and she peed on the potty! We have still been having success with her pooping too! Yeay! Please take a look at Elmo in this picture because she put her favorite hat on him and began reading to him in the chair! She is a nut for sure!

I also wanted to post this cute picture of them that I took last night. Ella Ann loves the pockets on those pjs! Spencer is obviously sporting a new look, much to my dismay, and wants the world to see his beard before he shaves it off...which won't be soon enough for me! :)

Yeay! Grandpa & Mimi!

This weekend my parents came down for a short visit. Ella Ann was really looking forward to them coming, as were Spencer and I, and when she woke up Saturday morning and I told her they were coming over she was thrilled! Unfortunately, my Dad came down with an awful cold so he wasn't able to spend as much time with Ella Ann on Saturday. Poor Dad couldn't even join us for lunch or dinner!

We went to Trader Joe's on Saturday morning because my parents like to stock up on their $2.50 bottles of wine and unique foods. Ella Ann loves going too because she always gets a balloon and sometimes some drive-by samples and I get free coffee! My Mom, Ella Ann, and I went to our favorite Mexican restaurant, once again, for lunch on Saturday. We housed our usual entrees and Ella Ann even stuffed herself silly with black beans, rice, and chips!! We hit the mall for some fast shopping during her nap, came back and played at our house (thankfully my Dad felt a little better and was able to join us), and went to a yummy Thai restaurant for dinner. Ella Ann had such a good time with her grandparents and Spencer and I loved the company.

Thanks again, Mom and Dad, for the visit! Hope you are feeling better now, Dad!

Ella Ann loves her Mimi, and vice versa!

Playing with some stickers with Grandpa.

Showing Mimi and Grandpa her new dance moves from The Music Class!

Showing off a new outfit for the spring that Mimi and Grandpa brought her. She wanted to wear it to dinner! She's also sporting some oven mitts, obviously, because her and Mimi were playing in her kitchen!

On Friday we attended a birthday party for Ella Ann's friend, Diego, who turned 2. We had so much fun at the party! Ella Ann got to eat lots of yummy treats, and since she won't eat pizza or cake, I got to eat her share of that! Diego loves Thomas, so there were Thomas decorations everywhere, which the kids really enjoyed. Ella Ann even got a Thomas tattoo on her hand, which she has yet to let me wash off! She loves it! She also got a goodie bag filled with fun toys and it has gone with us everywhere we have been this weekend!

Enjoying some good food at the party!

Sticking stickers on Thomas.

All the party-goers - Luke, Ella Ann, Alex, and Diego! Yup, Ella Ann was the only girl, besides the two babies there that were a little too young to play!

Showing off their Thomas tattoos!

Family Weekend

This weekend we traveled to Tennessee to visit our family. We always hate that our time is so short with everyone, but we make the most of every minute while we are there. Ella Ann talked about everyone while we were in the car and was so excited that she barely took a nap! Next time we are not telling her where we are going! We arrived on Friday afternoon and Ella Ann and Carter picked up where they left off....running around the house screaming, giggling, and playing! Since Seth is crawling all over the place now, he tries his best to keep up with Carter and Ella Ann, but they end up just running over him or have left the room by the time he gets there! Poor thing!

We just hung out all day Saturday, which was what we all want to do anyway, so that was fun! My friend, Emily, and her husband, Paul, live in Nashville so they came over Saturday afternoon to visit us. I hadn't seen Emily in a year and three months, so we were long over due for a visit! Plus she hadn't seen Ella Ann since she was 9 months old! It was so great to see them, but unfortunately Ella Ann was in a terrible mood because she was so sleepy that she wasn't her jolly old self around them. She did warm up to Emily (no surprise at all there!!), and gave her a big hug before she left! I totally forgot to take a picture of them with us while they were visiting, so I snapped a picture of Ella Ann and Seth looking out the window as Emily and Paul pulled away! I'll have to get one next time!

We ordered in P.F. Chang's for dinner (a crowd favorite!) and some friends of ours came over to watch UK lose to Florida. It was a busy weekend and we are excited that we will get to see everyone again in 2 weeks when we are headed back for Seth's first birthday!

Thanks again, Mandy and Zach, for your hospitality!

I took this picture about 10 minutes after we arrived on Friday! They were in Carter's bed playing already! Look how happy Ella Ann is to be there!

Ella Ann loved being pulled around the house by Carter on the Gator! She has always loved the John Deer Gator!

Helping Nana feed Seth a bottle.

Reading with Papa.

She thought it would be nice to get down and crawl around with Seth and see the world from his angle! :)

Two peas in a pod!

Bye-Bye Baby

So sad! Yesterday we decided to convert Ella Ann's crib into a toddler bed. I thought I would cry when I saw her in her new bed, but I realized that she is growing fast and I have to prepare myself for all the changes that will always be occurring. I asked her on Friday if she wanted to sleep in a big girl bed after I showed her a picture of Mara Kate sleeping in her twin bed on Jana's blog and she wouldn't stop talking about it after that! When I was singing to her before her nap yesterday, she stopped me in the middle of it and said, "Get in da big girl bed!" She was lovin' the new bed! We told her she would be punished if she got out of it without us coming to get her and so far she has obeyed and not tried to escape! I can just picture her standing over me in the middle of the night!

We also reached another big milestone this past week when we weened Ella Ann off of her bobbie-horsey. It had become such a crutch, in that she was constantly holding it (which meant she was constantly sucking her thumb) and stopped playing with her toys because she'd rather roll around on the floor with her bobbie-horsey. It started getting bad before the holidays, but after we got home and she refused to play with any of her new toys, we cut her off! At first she whined for it constantly, but after a few days she would put it back in her bed herself (she still sleeps with it) and would say "nite-nite" to it. I had told her that it needed to stay in her bed so it could nap all day...the bobbie-horsey was tired of being carried around! She amazed Spencer and I both by how well she adjusted to being without it.....even in the car! The downside is that now that her thumb is not plugged in she talks nonstop all the time!! Ella Ann has always been chatty, but now it's to the point of insanity on my behalf! hahahahaa!

One more big thing that Ella Ann accomplished this week was pooping on the potty! Yes, I'm blogging about poop! Today she told me her belly button was hurting so I told her she needed to go sit on the potty. Well, you know the rest! Hopefully it wasn't a one-time thing!

Here are some more pictures from our week!!

Mara Kate and Jana came over last week and Mara Kate laid claim to her chair at Ella Ann's table! Since she can't have the bobbie-horsey outside of being in her bed, Ella Ann finds solace now in Sam's whiskers!!

My friend, Sara, gave Ella Ann these adorable monkey pjs for her birthday. She loves wearing them and looks all grown up!

She decided early in the week that she wanted to be Minnie Mouse after seeing her Halloween costume hanging in the closet. She wore it several days this week, luckily though, she agreed to take it off when it was time to leave the house! (Note the sweatband around her neck!!!)

We made key lime pie cupcakes (Dad you would love them) on Saturday for a lunch at our church on Sunday. Because we turned the sound off on our microwave, I didn't pay attention to the fact that they had been done for over five minutes. I ended up having to go back to the grocery and buy the ingredients again because all 24 cupcakes were charred! Ella Ann didn't mind...she was ready for round 2! Spencer gave her the lime I used in the recipe for her to try and she actually liked it.....though her face doesn't show it!

New Stuff

Since we arrived home last weekend from our Christmas trip, Ella Ann has been enjoying several of her new toys, clothes, shoes, etc. Our usual weekly activities/commitments haven't resumed yet so we have just been hanging out around the house and braving the Arctic temperatures we had last week! Thankfully the weather will be extremely nice this week so we are going to go to the park a few times since we didn't get to go much last week. We did manage to walk down to Centennial Park on Saturday so that Ella Ann could play and see the Christmas decorations one more time before they are put up. A makeshift ice skating rink now sits in the Park and it's always full of people skating to the blaring music. Ella Ann LOVES going to watch the skaters and shake her hips to the music! When we get home she always runs to Spencer and says, "I went ice skating!!"

I hope everyone is sitting down as they read this because Ella Ann has done something extraordinary..... she ate chicken!!! hahahahahahahaaaa! She is obsessed with watching the "Veggie Tales" DVD that her Aunt Kasey and Uncle Craig gave her for Christmas, so when she was helping me prepare chicken earlier this week and asked to watch it, Spencer told her she could watch "Veggie Tales" if she took a bite of chicken. Well lo and behold the child shoved a piece of chicken down her throat and swallowed! She has eaten it once more since then so everyone keep their fingers crossed that it continues! :)

I also attempted to potty train her on Thursday because she showed a few signs of being ready so I thought I would see what happens. Well, we went to the store and she picked out her own underwear which she had out of the package trying to put on while in her car seat on the way home! I just let her go with underwear on Thursday afternoon, all day Friday, and Saturday morning. By nap time on Saturday she was back in a diaper! She kept wanting to sit on the potty but would never make it to the potty before going all over the floor. I just don't think she is physically ready, so we'll try again later. It was a messy weekend, to say the least! But I did get some cute pictures out of it!

Sporting her Dora backpack that Carter gave her. He has the Diego one!

Snug as a bug in a rug in her towel from Nana and Papa!

Before church last Sunday in her new outfit from Grandpa and Mimi. The pockets were very entertaining!

She loves to touch the lights on the gigantic tree at Centennial Park. Ella Ann would find the one light that didn't work and would say, "It doesn't work!! Mommy, you fix it!"

Dreaming of being on the ice with those kids!

Here she is in her underwear...along with the boots and mittens! Don't ask! She wants to wear the boots her Nana and Papa gave her 24/7! She had them on with her pjs this morning before breakfast!

This is the best picture ever! We will be sure to have it on display at her wedding reception! :) She somehow managed to put my boots on by herself and stand up! She fell over backwards trying to get them off!