I hate it when I have to check one of my friend's blogs like a thousand times to hear updates on their families all to just find the same post 3 weeks in a row. :) So sorry to whomever cares about my blog enough to check it that many times. I don't have much time right now b/c Carly is whining and needs to go down for her first nap of the day, I've got Christmas cards to get ready (by the way, if you'd like one e-mail me your address Jmkillian@hotmail.com... otherwise, I'm not responsible if you don't get one. :) Birthday invitations to make, cakes to make, e-mails to catch up on, birthday's to plan, Christmas gifts to buy and make....I've got so much to do....and I've lost our cord to put pictures on our computer and what's a blog entry with out a visual to get you interested? So here is an older one from a few weeks ago. Ella wanting to hold Carly-- a daily occurrence. I don't think Ella realizes that Carly is almost as tall as her and only weighs about 5 pounds less than her.

....Hold on, Carly's not going to wait for this blog to post.....

...back. That girls goes down to sleep faster than any other child I've seen. Anyway...

You see, this is what my days have been filled with. Just craziness. The second I get something started I've got to stop and do something else. Then I forget about the first thing I'm doing, start something else, get interrupted and yeah... kinda like this blog post... Where was I? Oh yeah, very busy... So Joseph started working graveyard shift at Walmart Neighborhood market (10pm to 7am) and going to school full time. He's really working hard and doing well in school. He's totally nuts I tell ya. We really don't see each other much. It's been hard to get our schedule working for us again. I haven't been to the gym in almost a month! Needless to say I feel disgusting. For all you non gym go-ers it's totally fine to not go to the gym, but when you're going to the gym 5 days a week and running 3 miles every other day with crazy weight lifting on your off days you kinda feel a little off when you don't go. Joseph and I just went to see the movie Twilight. We hadn't read the books yet but we love to go to midnight showings of movies (plus, it's what works well with our schedules) We loved the movie and bought the book a few days later. We pretty much had to fight over who got to read it when (he he) and are now totally hooked and are having withdrawals b/c we don't have the second book yet. (you crazy Twilight fans know what I'm talking about) It's a rare occasion to get me to read a book so this book must be good.

For Thanksgiving we were just going to stay here in Mesa while my WHOLE family went to Colorado Springs at my Grandma's house. I was a little bummed about this but sucked it up. My brother, his wife, my sister and my grandma hadn't seen Carly since she was 5 weeks old. I really wanted to go. My brother came through for us last minute and gave us money to go. We didn't tell anybody and just made the 12 HOUR drive to Co. Springs on Wednesday. Everyone was really surprised and we had a great Thanksgiving. We had to leave on Friday at 6 am so I only got to do some Black Friday (my FAVORITE holiday) shopping for 2 hours. (last year I was 8.5 months pregnant and was shopping from 3 am till 10 am) The girls did amazingly well in the car. No crying, fussing, tantrums, "are we there yet" whining, etc. Carly had a little melt down about 1/2 hour before we got to Grandmas and on the way home about a half hour before we got home but it wasn't anything she couldn't deal with once she got her bink and her favorite blanky (Erin, it's her pink and purple silky one you got her! Yay for blankies!) Ella actually got to see some snow (the second time in her life. The first was when she was about 11 months old). I've got a picture of it but I'll have to wait for that.

Carly turned 11 months old on the 22nd of November. She just started looking bigger to me yesterday. It kinda hit me like a ton of bricks. She also started waving hello and bye bye about a week ago. She started walking along furniture on Sunday and we're hoping she's walking soon. It's hard to take her and Ella to the park and me have to hold her the whole time. I also can't bear to watch her destroy every single piece of clothing she owns by army crawling and grinding dirt (that I can't get out for the life of me) into the tummy of all her shirts. She is so content and sweet natured. We all love her and suddenly turn into cannibals around her. Nobody can resist her chubby cheeks.

Ella has really gotten into princesses lately. Her favorite is Ariel. She watches Little Mermaid or Little Mermaid II at least once a day. I really can't stand LM II. It's pretty unbearable. :) She loves Carly to the point of smothering the poor child. But they really get along great and that's all I ask for. She's got an imaginary friend. It's a bee. And whenever I ask her how she knew something or why she did something she says, "the bee told me." or "the bee told me to do it". I asked her last night, "where is this bee that you keep talking about?" her: "Um, he's in my tummy." Wow, that's pretty.... uh... well, pretty weird. but ok.


I'm busy planning 3 birthday parties. Ella's is this week and it's going to be a princess tea party. I'm so excited for this b/c it's become a big thing. Carly is having a birthday party with another girl born the day after her. That's snowballed into a big thing too(more on that later). Poor Joseph doesn't have much of a big birthday bash planned but I've got something up my sleeve for just the two of us...which is almost better in my book. I'm also trying to get all of the invitations to parties, Christmas Cards made, and Christmas presents bought and made so I'm sorry that you don't get more of an inside look at our family life but it will probably be this way till Jan. 1st. So stay tuned for pictures from Ella's birthday party. Until then.... just know we're still alive. (sorry if this post is pretty scatterbrained... That's about how I am right now.)

I'm It...twice.

I don't do much of these. I don't know why. I kinda think they're fun but I guess I feel I'll get around to them and then I don't. :)




So here's how it works, you take your 4th folder of pictures and post the 4th picture. This is one of my chubby bunnies, Ella. It was taken about a week before she was 10 months old. She was just learning to stand on her own so I got her this toy at DI so she could have a toy that she HAD to stand up with to play in. She started walking about two weeks later.

I tag Abbie, Alissa, CJ and Jen P.






#2

8 Favorite TV Shows:
1. Grey's Anatomy (guilty pleasure)
2. Biggest Loser
3. The Office
4. 30 Rock
5. Ace of Cakes
6. Super Nanny
7. Food Network Challenge
8. Throw Down With Bobby Flay (we watch a lot of food network)

8 Things I Did Yesterday:
1. Made a bottle
2. Made Lunch
3. Made Dinner
4. Made Cards
5. Voted for McCain (secretly hoping old age would catch up to him in his sleep and Sarah Palin would be come president)
6. Hung out with Susy.
7. Played Referee with Ella and Harley
8. Went to work

8 Things I Look Forward To:
1. Not living with my parents any more!
2. Settling down in an apartment where I don't have to move so much anymore.
3. Hanging pictures of my family on the walls of my home for me to enjoy.
4. Losing ALL of my baby weight.
5. My husband getting a better job.
6. Our own house.
7. Carly Walking
8. Joseph being done with school.

8 Favorite Restaurants:
1. LUCILE'S
2. Chipotle
3. The Roof
4. Cheesecake Factory
5. P.F. Changs
6. Texas Roadhouse
7. GoJo's
8. R.A. Sushi

8 Things on my Wish List:
1. To own our home.
2. To have adequate food storage
3. To teach aerobics again
4. To be out of debt
5. A Cricut machine
6. Another diamond ring
7. A Puppy
8. to be a size 6

8 People I Tag:
1. Amanda D.
2. Maggie
3. Samantha
4. Ashle
5. Crystal
6. Erin
7. Stacey
8. Melissa

TRICK AND TRICK

That's what Ella calls it anyway. She says to me this morning, "When we gonna have Trick and Trick mom?"





We started the day with Joseph at school and me running around Mesa like a chicken with my head cut off b/c last night a midnight I decided that I really did want to dress up this year. Carly, Ella and I were flowers and Joseph was a gardener. After getting home I ran to a friends house to whip up a tutu, a petal headband and a pot of chili. Yeah, what was I thinking is exactly right. It was nuts. But then again, have any of you ever known me to be a planning, non procrastinating, do things early and relax type person? Nope, not me. I wouldn't dare. I'm a fly by the seat of my pants kinda gal. We got it all accomplished and we had fun. (Maybe not while we were freaking out but after we got things done.) After the chili dinner (and us being the last ones there b/c we were so late) we went real trick and trick'n. No trunk or treats or trick or treating at the mall, this was a real traditional trick or treating. At first Ella was a little timid going to the doorsteps. (actually, I'll just lay it all out on the table, she was pretty freaked out) We figured, if she went with her friend (almost 4 year old) Harley then she'd be fine. She was fine, till we got to the door step of the Trick or Treatee and then our little trick or treater became panic stricken. She handed us her bag of candy and hid be hind my legs. After about 15 houses she got the hang of what was going on and would race Harley to the doors. :) We ended the night at about 8:30 pm (I know, we're old and boring) and then realized that we're sure getting old b/c we used to stay out till like 11 pm trick or treating when we were like 10 years old and came back with pillow cases full of candy. It was fun non the less. Poor Ella... The last house she went to she was running, tripped and fell on her bag and broke the bag. All her hard earned candy was littering the neighbor's lawn. Poor Ella bella. Good thing we had Carly's bag as a back up. Anyway, here are some pictures of our "Trick and Trick".

Fall Festivities

The family at a local farm. It was pretty fun... there were two baby calves born while we were there. They were so cute. We went on a hay ride, Ella road a pony, tried like 12 different flavors of milk, had homemade ice cream straight from the cow to the freezer. It was pretty fun and best of all... we got in free! Yay. I love that now it's getting cooler (only like 95 degrees lately! Yes, that's when us desert folk pull out the sweatshirts. lol) Here are some pictures from our weekend. This was actually like 2 or 3 weeks ago but I'm a little behind with the posts and pictures so also check out Carly's 10 month post. Enjoy.




Mommy and Carly say'n cheese.



Mommy and Ella.



Ella riding on her pony "Chip". Now she talks about Chip all the time and calls him "HER" pony.




Carly and Daddy on the hay ride.





Daddy and his girls. I love this picture b/c Ella was so excited to see the animals but she was also a little timid and also a little curious. Anytime an animal sniffed her she would squeal and giggle. Pretty cute.


This is pretty funny. Check out this goat. He came up to Ella to see if she had any food. She didn't yet so he just started going away from her...



Then we got some food so he came back. Ella kept backing up whenever he tried to get the food from her...



So he took it upon himself to climb up the fence and reach over and get it himself. He wasn't mess'n around.




Here's a little video of Ella's pony ride. She had the cowgirl boots and everything!

10 Months!

Our little Carly is 10 months old right now! She's doing SO much already. She says, "Ella" (more like "Eeee-ya"), "Baby", "da da", "mum mum", "ba-ba" and all other cute cute little babbles. She talks SOOO much and loves to give kisses and "love bites" ("love bites" are what we do to the girls... they are so cute and squishy that we want to bite them so we do soft little love bites.) She plays "Peek-a-Boo" all the time by pulling a blanket or anything else up to her face, covers her face with it when we say, "where's Carly??" and pulls it down so we can say "peek-a-boo!" and she'll giggle giggle giggle. She also plays "pat-a-cake" (check out the video below). She absolutely adores Ella and is in love with one of Ella's little baby dolls and drags it around the house with her army crawl. And yes, she's still army crawling and destroying all of her clothes. She's threatening to crawl the traditional way. We see her up on her hands and knees, rocking back and forth, lately but when she wants to move she gets back on her tummy. She's also trying to pull up on things. Carly is such a mild tempered baby and even if she's tired she'll still do her best to be happy. She's so easy going and a big delight to be around. Everyone loves her smile and it doesn't matter where we are, she gets her cheeks pinched ALL the time! Here's Carly loving herself some Lasagna and a little video clip of her.

SHOULD WE BE WORRIED??

This morning we were reading scriptures and Ella is all about trying to teach Nephi's brothers to be good guys. She says, "We need to teach Lamen and Lemual to be happy guys, not naughty guys." So today we were reading about basically following the commandments of the Lord. After reading I always paraphrase what we read and translate into 2 yr old little girl language. This morning I said...

Me: We need to follow Heavenly Father's teachings and commandments so that we can see him again.

Ella: I don't want to see him.

Me: What? You don't want to see Heavenly Father? But he loves us and he would be really sad if we didn't come back to be with him in Heaven.

Ella: Nope, I just don't want to go to Heaven.

Me: Well we would be much happier in Heaven than if we went to Hell.

Ella: Just don't want to go to Heaven. I want to go to Hell.

(Joseph chokes on his cereal and I'm biting my lower lip trying not to laugh b/c really folks, as bad as it sounds, it's pretty funny to hear a two year old say, "I want to go to Hell".)

Me: Ella, Hell is naughty place where bad guys go.

Ella: I go to Hell, I teach the naughty brodures Laaamen and Lomule to be happy and nice. We need to teach dem mom. We need to teach dem to be happy.

Super Model Documentary Hour!

This totally cracked me up. I had to give it it's own post. Ella was really needing to have someone on one time so I decided to do her make up b/c she ALWAYS watches me while I am doing mine and asking if she can have some. She was so excited and put a dress on for the occasion. (oh, and her beautiful red "tippy toe shoes" as she calls them. What a fashion diva.) I did her make up and she did mine. (don't I look beautiful??) We also did hair. I thought the video was hilarious. Especially the part when I ask her to show me her lipstick. (that was her favorite thing about getting to wear make up.) She kept pouting her lips and would pose with her legs crossed whenever someone told her to show them her make up. I love this girl. She's so funny!