St. George

This past weekend we went to St. George to visit some friends. We had a blast. First we went to the Sand hollow Aquatic Center. It has a little froggy water slide and a big water slide that I was pretty scared at first to go down. It also has fun water toys that dump water on you and spray water up into the air. It was so fun and Ella didn't want to leave. Here are some pictures...
Here are the girls. Ella was so excited to go swimming she really didn't want to take a picture but she was a pretty good sport about it.


This is the froggy slide. It was so cute and Ella loved it. The first time she went on it she started climbing up and I went to the end of the slide to cheer for her. At one moment I saw her smiling excited face, the next I didn't see her at all. She had slipped and fell backward down the stairs. Poor thing, but she was so excited she didn't care and just jumped back up and got back on the slide.



Here are the party poopers. Joseph didn't bring his swim suite and Carly fell asleep. They sure missed out. But I was glad to have Joseph willing enough to stay with Carly so I got the privilege of watching Ella have so much fun and getting to have just as much fun with her.

Here's Ella at the bottom of the big water slide. I think we went up and down that slide about 20 times. She LOVED it. I was a little scared at first b/c I'm afraid of heights but I did it for Ella. After about 3 times going down I decided it was actually pretty fun.


Mommy and Ella.

We also got to have a bbq with a lot of our old friends from when we used to live there. It was so much fun and we all had babies around the same time so it was the first time we got to meet all the new babies. Ella got to play with Gavin again and he has such an enormous "wonderland" of playground toys outside. She LOVED being able to play outside in a backyard. Thanks to the Cox family for showing us a good time and putting us up for a few nights. We sure had a lot of fun.

Easter

Today started off with Ella looking for her Easter basket. It was pretty cute and no, sorry, I didn't have pictures. I was thinking I should've recorded it but it was while she was looking for her basket. I was helping her, holding her hand and pointing to different places that it could be..."is it behind your door? Is it in the bathroom? Is it behind the couch?..." then she runs over to a pair of my shoes on the floor picks on up and looks under one shoe and says, "Under shoe? Nooo." Picks the other one up and says, "dis shoe? Noooo." I just started laughing. It was pretty funny. She finally came right to it (way out in the open) and she was standing right in front of it and still didn't notice that it was right there. She finally found it and was SO excited. She got some dress up hats and gloves, a toy boat for the tub and a little candy. There was also a dress and shoes each waiting on the couch for Ella and Carly. We got a dress for Carly but decided we should get it in size 9 mo since we don't have to many clothes for her in that size and she's got a million dresses for right now. She's wearing Ella's 1st Easter dress. We went to church and Ella brought cupcakes to her nursery class. When we came home Ella was kind of running a low grade fever so we gave her some Motrin and put her to bed. We had Easter dinner with some friends and an Easter egg hunt afterward that. I didn't want Ella to get anyone else sick so I thought that if the fever went away we'd go, if it didn't, we'd stay home. The fever went away so we went and had lots of fun. I think that after the last Easter egg hunt Ella knew there was no dilly dallying around and she cleaned up pretty well. She had a lot of fun seeing her friends also. We have pictures of that hunt to follow (if you could e-mail them to me please Monica. :) ) Here are the girl's dresses:
Ella insisted on wearing her dress up hat for the picture.(and don't worry about the boo boo on Ella's chin. She had a wipe out Friday night.)



Carly turned 3 months yesterday!

Oh Happy Day!

Carly started sleeping through the night at about 6 or 7 weeks. Then about a week ago she stopped sleeping through the night and wanted to start eating at 3 am! Ahhh. NOOOOO! I think maybe she started to go through a growth spurt or something. Last night, I kept waking up in the middle of the night thinking Carly was going to wake up but she never did! She slept through the night till 7am! Hallelujah! Then something else amazing happened! At about 6am I heard Ella's door open and I thought "Great, she's waking up at 6 am. You've got to be kidding me." But she didn't come straight to our room as usual to wake us up. I heard her clicking and clacking in the bathroom so I got up to see what she was getting into and low and behold....there she was, butt naked from the waist down, stool in hand putting it up to the toilet so that she could go potty! When she saw me you could tell that she was pretty groggy and said to me, "my potty mommy." After she went, she pulled up her panties and got back in bed, under her covers and fell back asleep! Wahoo! Joseph and I have been putting her in panties (as opposed to diapers) at night right before she turned 2 years old b/c her diapers were always dry in the mornings. She's had about 3 night accidents at first and none for the past 2 months! We had been getting her up to go potty right before we went to bed every night and now it seems she knows the routine. YESSSSSS! Pretty good considering the fact that her mommy didn't stop wetting the bed till she was 12! --What??? Who said that?

Two Weeks In Review

Lately I can never find time to get online long enough to write a blog post, e-mail, comment or whatever. Kind of like now.... Carly just woke up and wants to eat. Riiiight...so I guess I'll pick this up later. Ok, I'm back. That only took about an hour. I'm looking around at my apt. right now. There's trash to be taken out, laundry to be folded that I should've done last night but I was way too tired so I left it for the morning. Everything from my diaper bag is dumped out all over the floor from Ella going through it and about 1/4 of Ella's room dragged into the living room. This is just a part of what my day consists of. So please forgive me on no blogs for two weeks. :) I still don't have much time to write but I've got pictures and those say a thousand words right? So I've got about a million words for you....
This was at the UNLV basket ball game. This was Ella's (and Carly's) first time at a basket ball game. She had the time of her life.



It was an edge of your seat game.



I think her favorite part was the "dancing ladies" (cheerleaders and pom girls) and the fact that she got to yell and scream and clap and nobody told her to try and be quieter. It was pretty sad at the end of the game b/c everyone stood up to leave and Ella bawled her eyes out b/c she wasn't done having fun. She kept crying, "my bakit ball?? my bakit ball!!! My dis kind" and point in back to the game. We kept telling her that it was over and look at all the people leaving. But she wasn't having it.


Afterward we went to the mall b/c we didn't want our fun day to end. I got some make up and while the lady was showing me her product she let Ella play in the make up to keep her happy so she could have my undivided attention. I told her I didn't know how happy she'd be with that idea but she said it was ok. Here's Ella after her make over. (check out her shirt!) You can't tell that much in the picture because it was just powder and blush, but it was literally ALL over her face. She had fun though.



EASTER EGG HUNT

This past weekend we went to an Easter carnival put on by the community. It was great b/c it was free and there was a lot of fun stuff to do. First they had an Easter egg hunt for each age group. They had the 1 and 2 year olds go together. It was sooo cute. All of these 1 and 2 yr olds lined up at the starting line waiting till they blew the whistle so they can go pick up all of these eggs all over the ground. Parents weren't aloud to go in the field with them for the safety of the kids. So they blow the whistle and OF COURSE all these parents go running out with their kids. So I lose Ella and it scared her. I was a little upset. What a great example to set by not following the rules. Then, they said that the parents could go out after all so I went out with Ella and would show her where some eggs were. She'd start running to them and then a parent would go and scoop them up by the arm full and run away. Pretty annoying but Ella had a lot of fun and I don't think she noticed.


Ella hunting for eggs.


Here are all of Ella's eggs.



They also had one of those jumpy blow up tent things.



...and face painting.




Ella asked the lady if she could have a puppy face. I think she did a pretty good job. I would've had no clue how to do it. Ella loved it. When we got home she grabbed her stool and went and looked at herself in the mirror for about 20 min. She was making different faces and just giggling at her fun painted face. It was pretty cute.


RANDOM PICTURES THROUGH OUT THE WEEK

Smily girl. I love these smiles!



Nap time. I fell sleep with Ella and Carly. When I woke up this is what I saw so I took a picture.


Dress up.




Rumba-Bumbas. Who can resist those little chubber thighs. I kind of want to bite her.

So there you have it...last two weeks in review.

Arizona and Everything Else

I've FINALLY found some time to blog. I swear, I never used to be this busy. I used to find time to catch up on all my blogger friend's and comment on them, catch up on e-mails, family websites, etc. with still time to feed Ella and Carly and play with Ella, just one on one time, then play with Carly, just one on one time. But on our way to AZ last week, Joseph and I had a good long 5 hours to talk over somethings. We've decided that we don't look like we used too and really need to do something about it so that we don't get so far in the pit of weight gain that there seems to be no way out. We've set some achievable weight loss goals and all week have really been sticking to them. We decided that with 2 kids (one of being a new born and the other a time demanding two year old) we probably shouldn't be going to bed at midnight anymore and making Ella drag us out of bed to get her some breakfast any more. It is hard b/c, yeah, at night we're wicked tired but I don't want to go to bed because that's time taken away from me and my wonderful hubbins AND (in my mind) the sooner I go to bed at night means the sooner I have to wake up and start all over being "just a mom" again. (don't get me wrong, I love being a mom, but when kids go to bed and I get to sit with Joseph and just chill, that makes me feel like a wife too.) Anyway, Joseph and I decided that since it gets so hot in the Vegas Springs/Summers we should work out in the mornings. We started going to bed at 9:00 pm (lights out at 9:30). Joseph wakes up at 5 am to run 2 miles and I wake up at 5:30 or 6:00am, feed Carly and then run 1 3/4 miles. (May not see like a lot to some of you but when you are just starting back it's a lot.) :) We are eating better and making sure we're getting the calories needed to boost our metabolism....the same metabolism we used to have when we first got married. So in doing this, after all the exercising and feedings are done we still get to be together another hour before Ella wakes up. Then, not only are we getting a better sleep regimen, we're sitting down to breakfast as a family and I'm actually sitting down with Ella to eat lunch. (as opposed to taking a bite of my sandwich, running and doing something, then something else and after about 2 hours realizing my sandwich is still on the counter with only a bite out of it, then tossing it and grabbing a cookie.) I've also been having play dates for Ella. It's soooooo much better than me being so exhausted that I just turn on cartoons for her and fall asleep on the couch. I've also been more aware of my home. I feel the WANT to clean up the house before it gets too messy (as opposed to waiting 3 days to finally give in and do the dishes). This is why I've been so busy. I've been getting things done for my family and for me, but that means I haven't had time to e-mail or blog. Sorry. :)

Anyway, Here is what happened last weekend.....
We went to the big rodeo/petting zoo/carnival/pony rides, etc and it was so much fun. I was so glad we went but wish we could've stayed longer. We first went to ride the ponies but after standing in line and finally getting up to the pony, Ella was sooo freaked out by it that she started bawling her eyes out before we even put her on. I figured maybe that wasn't the best activity to start out with and we went off to watch little kids try and catch baby chicks. It was so cute, they started with the two year olds. All of these cute little two year olds (with their moms) we out into this corral and they let all these baby chicks loose. The kids had to try and catch one and if they did they got to keep it. (for this reason, we didn't have Ella register to do it, what the heck am I going to do with a baby chick??) Then they did a greased piglet chase. And yes, it is just what it sounds like. They greased these little piglets and let these kids (again, starting with the two year olds) chase them around for like 5 min. and whoever caught one got to keep it. We weren't able to stay and watch but I bet it would've been so dang funny.
Checking out the baby cows....


Ella was so excited to see cows for the first time.


The had the cutest baby bunnies. They were only a week old.



Here some semi-baby chicks. She was too scared to pick them up like all the other little kids but she liked to touch them.


This is the tail end of a goat. Ella was a little too nervous to touch him up by his face so she petted his behind. ha.


These are the tractors that Ella HAD to sit on. She had so much fun just sitting there. (as you can see, the first picture was taken with all of us at the tractors.)

After all was said and done Ella decided that she was ready to try the ponies again. As I stood in line with her I talked to her all about how they are baby ponies and she can ride on the very smallest. She was a little timid but sat on the pony and went for a ride. As you can see, she insisted on putting one arm around me and hold the saddle with the other hand. I had to be pretty careful not to trip and fall because those little ponies walk a lot faster than you think. lol






Finishing off the fun day with some yummy ice cream

We had so much fun and Ella did really well. This was her first time seeing these kinds of animals up close or not in a book. She was pretty excited, very interested, and at times pretty timid, but did great. I was really happy she decided to ride the pony after all because I didn't know when she'd get another chance to experience it. It was also fun for my parents to see Ella and Carly again...especially Car-Car b/c they hadn't seen her since Jan. and she sure has changed since then.