Girls Weekend

Daddy left early Friday morning for a weekend of racing with Uncle Matt and some of their friends. Not being the racing type, Ella and I stayed home for a girls weekend. We had so much fun doing what girls do best...shopping!! We also spent a little time outdoors playing and gardening. We went shopping on Friday to cash in our "Gym Bucks" at Gymboree. We found lots of cute clothes and found Ella a Christmas dress (can you believe that in less than 2.5 months it will be Christmas?). They give you a little incentive to come back to the store and then they have lots of cute things that are hard to resist! They definately got me this time!

On Saturday, we left out early for The Little Gym. Ella enjoyed class and showed off her flip to everyone. Ella also learned to walk on the balance beam. She wasn't so sure of herself at first but quickly figured out how to balance herself. She did much better than I could on the beam! After class, we spent the rest of the day planting flowers and decorating for fall. Ella likes picking flowers so I had to work fast to keep her from plucking off all of my blooms :) I lost one mum because she got to it before I did! I confirmed that Ella is definately a prissy girl because when she got dirt on her hands she immediately wanted it off. Just like her Mommy!! I will take pictures of our flowers we planted and post those later in the week.

Here are some pictures I took this weekend of Ella with some of our fall decorations...

More Weekend Pictures...

After our busy day at the fire department, we rested up Saturday night to get ready for another busy day on Sunday. Sunday afternoon, we took Ella to the Wilson's Farm to pick out a pumpkin and see the animals. They had a ton of cute little pumpkins for the kids to pick from. Ella pointed at them and called them "apples." She then started picking up as many as she could and carried them over to me. We finally narrowed it down to one pumpkin :) They had pigs, a baby calf that was only weeks old, goats, sheep, and a minature horse. The horse's name was "Cracker Jack" and Ella loved him. Ella kept trying to stick her finger in his mouth. We've been teaching Ella to identify body parts so she wanted to show me Cracker Jack's teeth. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed going to the farm! After we got back, we headed to Maw-Maw's house to celebrate her birthday! We had spaghetti, chicken lasagna, and regular lasagna for dinner and Aunt Cindy's famous Hershey Cake! YUMMY!!!! Ella hasn't been eating well the last couple of days because she's cutting molars, but she had no problem piggin' out on some spaghetti! She had it everywhere!! After dinner and cleaning Ella up, it was Wiggle Time! The girls (and Paw-Paw) wanted to watch The Wiggles. So, the whole gang watched the girls wiggle...even Aunt Candy, Mommy, and Nana wiggled :) It was a fun weekend and we're so happy that Maw-Maw had a Happy Birthday!!

Our Visit to the Farm...

Look...Cracker Jack has teeth!

Pigs piggin' out :)

Sunday Dinner at Maw-Maw & Paw-Paw's House

Happy Birthday Maw-Maw!!!

Mommy's girl

The Girls (Madalyn, Ella, Brittney, Gracie)

Starting at an early age

Ella matches her hairbow!

It's Wiggle Time! Everybody get ready to WIGGLE :)

NCFR 50th Anniversary Celebration

Today we spent the day with Daddy at the fire department for North Catawba's 50th anniversary celebration. We got to play on the fire trucks, watch the fire fighters cut up a car, and watch the helicopter land and take off. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed getting to see what Daddy does when he's helping people on a fire call. Ella also got to eat her first sno-cone. She loved it so much that she insisted on sharing it with me and Cory. She spilled it all over my legs and I had blue stains running down my legs for the rest of the day. It was a fun day! Ella was so tired by the end of the day because with all the excitement she wouldn't take a nap.

Ella loves playing with the fire trucks

Ella & Daddy

Mommy & Ella

Ella's first Sno-Cone! She looked like a Smurf when she was finished because she had blue all over her mouth and cheeks.

Sharing with Daddy

Ella loves balloons and thought she needed all of them! If she had anymore she would have floated away!

15 Months Old

It's so hard to believe that it's been 3 months since Ella's first birthday! Time continues to fly by since we've been busy keeping up with Miss Priss! She is so full of words and funny expressions. She is such a little showboat for people! She is happy most of the time with an occassional attitude :) Daddy says she gets that from her Mommy?! Ella is growing up so fast and learning so many new things everyday! It's amazing to watch her discover new things, learn new words, and develop personality traits. She's changed so much over the last year and is now an independent toddler!


Here's some of the many things that Ella's up to at 15 months...

~Wants to do everything herself! LITTLE MISS INDEPENDENT!!!! From feeding herself to dressing herself, she thinks she can do it all by herself :)

~Puckers her lips and gives big kisses! Sweet kisses that we all love!

~Loves to dance. She will shake her arms and little bottom when you tell her to "shake it girl"

~Loves to sing and clap!

~LOVES watching the Wiggles with her Paw-Paw's. Paw-Paw Sanford knows all the words and moves :)

~Smiles with her whole face. Her smile is contagious and brings smiles to lots of faces!

~Holds 1 little finger up when you ask her how old she is

~Learning sign language. It's amazing how quickly she's catching on and actually uses signs she's learned

~Shakes her head for yes and no...but mostly no

~Loves asking "what's that?"

~Loves playing with her Bee Bop Band instruments and blocks

~Loves looking at books especially the scrapbook I made her with all her favorite things in it. She also loves the book about ducks from Maw-Maw :)

~Has a little temper and stomps her feet when she doesn't get her way. We're working on this :)

~Some of Ella's new words: apple, elephant, more, cup, bite

Long time...no posts!

Wow, it's been almost 3 weeks since my last post! We've been extremely busy, but we're still having FUN! I hope to get back on track this week and start posting more on what we've got going on. Ella is so full of herself these days. She's talking up a storm and is such a little showboat!

Here are some pictures from the last 3 weeks...

Lovin' my horse! Thanks Uncle Matt & Aunt Ashley!

To play or climb? CLIMB!!

I love corn on the cob!

Thinking about it...

Thirsty?

Some of Mommy's pictures & new PhotoShop skills

Chalk for lunch?

Laughs are abundant at our house these days! Ella keeps us laughing! Cory and I were both off work today so we spent the day cleaning up the garage getting ready for a much dreaded but necessary yard sale. Ella tried her best to help us. We tried to occupy her with toys and side walk chalk but she was more interested in dragging out the items we put in the yard sale pile. She liked playing with the chalk but we ended up having to take it from her when she decided to make a meal out of it. She had chalk all over her hands and face! Thank goodness it was labeled on the container as being non-toxic! We had to take bath #2 of the day after the chalk incident. This afternoon we went to Denise's, for yet, another attempt to get Ella's picture made. I am SOOO happy to report that Ella was such a little ham and smiled the whole time today! Denise got some really great shots!!! I was so happy considering last time I left in tears. For those of you that haven't heard my photography nightmare story...here goes. A couple of weeks ago, Cory and I took Ella to get her 1 year pictures made. Denise takes really cute shots of the little ones with cake and balloons. I decided that I would bake and decorate the cake to match Ella's outfit. I never realized how time consuming this task could be. 5 hours after starting, I finally finished the cake! We went the morning of the photo shoot and got balloons to help get the perfect birthday shot. To make a long story short, Ella didn't cooperate at all! She cried the whole time we were trying to get family shots. We thought the cake and balloons would do the trick and we could get some good pictures. But NO!....when we set the cake (5 hours of hard work) in front of her, she KICKED it!! I looked at Cory and wanted to cry! She wouldn't have anything to do with it! All I can say is that Denise is the most patient person I know! She told us we could come back later and try again. Ella has been going to Denise for photos every 3 months since she was 5 days old and has always cooperated and allowed Denise to get GREAT shots!! But not that day! We realized later that Ella was getting sick and wasn't feeling good so she just wasn't in the mood for pictures. But today was a different story and she did FABULOUS!

This is a picture of the cake before Ella put her foot through it! I was so proud of it especially the fondant bow on top! I ended up making another cake for today's photo session but instead of the bow I put a big "E" on top--less work in case it too got the foot!

Here are some pictures from our day...

Snackin' on some chalk

Our driveway art work

More Fun at the Gym

Here are some pictures from this week's class at The Little Gym...

All this exercise can really wear a girl out!!