Random updates on a Monday

1. Soccer is over. They had team pictures but apparently the photographer isn't returning calls and the league has no idea when we will be receiving the photos. So this is the best I have, from my phone. Sadly, Reese's best friend wasn't there on picture day :(.

2. Reese loves salad. Every time we go to CFA she begs for salad but I never get it for her because I don't think she will eat it. I recently got her one and she ate the majority. She feels like such a big girl ordering a salad so I guess I'll keep on getting that for her. She wasn't even upset that it didn't come with a toy.

3. These sweet sisters are playing together more and more. They really love each other and it makes me so proud. They still fight with passion too though.

4. The Christmas decor goes up at our house as soon as Halloween is over. Truth be known it sometimes happens a day or 2 before Halloween. The downstairs is fully decorated at this point. 1 month is far too short to enjoy all of the work that it takes.

5. This girl is beginning to figure out our electronics and it is so cute to watch.

6. She spent about a half an hour last week gathering up each of her babies and tucking them into my bed. She was so proud and it was adorable.

7. She adores babies and our good friend and neighbors baby she thinks of as "her" baby. Below is a photo of her holding and feeding "her" baby Griffyn.

8. On Sunday we skipped church and enjoyed God's creation instead. It is so beautiful this time if year and we had a great time on the Crystal Bridges trails.

9. This chicken lives at the donut shop near us. The girls acted as if it was going to attack them when they 1st saw it and then put their arms around it and begged me to take their picture. Nuts.

10. I know I've said it before but I love this dog so much!

Halloween 2013

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. My children are obsessed with candy and this holiday really doesn't help. We spent about an hour trick or treating. They actually say trick or treat this year and were pleasantly polite in saying thank you, more often than not. 

This wig! She only wore it for a few moments.

Ella's 3 years of Halloween.

Reese's 4 years of Halloween.

Ella and Caroline.

All of the cul-de-sac kids making funny faces.

Ella's birthday

Two weeks ago we threw Ella's 2nd birthday party at our home. Our October was insanely busy this year so we knew we had to keep it simple this time. We decided to invite a few of her little girlfriends and have a babies party. It ended up being so much fun to keep it smaller and I think all of the little girls (and 2 little boys) had a great time. Prepare for photo overload below.

 

I've decided to make a tradition of getting a family photo at each birthday in front of this window. We started it at Reese's 3rd birthday.

The girls playing before the party.

Baby feeding station.

One week check up station.

Baby play station.

A picture with Gigi before the party.

Each kid got a baby doll and birth certificate.

Sweet sisters.

Trying on mom's boots.

Friends beginning to arrive.

Reagan was not in a picture mood.

Molly Kate is always the best dressed.

Singing to her sister.

If you look at her expression you can tell that she did not enjoy being the center of attention.

Making a mess with her baby bff.

Making a mess with her bff.

She's such a ham.

Washing her hands with Emmie.

Adorable cookies.

My sweet Uncle Pat and Aunt Cheryl were able to make the party.

 On her actual birthday, the Thursday following her party we took the day off and spent it with just her. We went to the toy store to pick a toy, ate lunch and took her to chuck-e-cheese.

 


Excited about her new baby doll.

Lunch at Firehouse Subs.

 

 

She loves games that involve throwing balls.

I can't believe she is 2. Love this girl so much!

2 years and 3.5 years

Ella:

I CANNOT believe that you are already 2 years old! Time is flying. I am having so much fun in this new stage of life but sometimes long for a cuddly baby, luckily you are a fairly cuddly little girl. You still have your baby chubbiness which I cherish as I know that will be gone before I know it. You have begun potty training but it is slow going. You have pooped on the potty 3 times and pee peed on the potty a handful of times (all at school though). You love to “practice” going on the potty but it seldom happens, you are making progress earlier than Reese did though. You now weigh 28.4 lbs (seventy fifth percentile) and are 2' 10.5" tall (seventy fifth percentile) and your head is also seventy fifth percentile. You are in between the sizes of 2T and 3T, a size 7 shoe and you wear a size 4 diaper but we are beginning to transition you to 3T pull-ups. You have adorable light brown/dirty blonde hair that has never been cut. Your hair is really starting to grow now and I look forward to putting those adorable little pig tails in it soon, that Reese always wore at about your age. You love Reese so much and want to do everything she does. You have discovered that when you are not getting your way you can pull her hair and basically hang from it to get a reaction, she does not appreciate this. You love to have your nails painted and to put play make up on with Reese. You are really beginning to talk well and are starting to put works together. Last night you told me to “get up” when you wanted me to come with you somewhere, this is one that I had not heard you say before. I am still trying to figure out what you are saying at times and you get so frustrated with me when I cannot understand. You are a great sleeper at this point and we seldom have to go to your room at night. You have the most expressive reactions to things and make the cutest faces. You are fairly shy until you really get to know someone. You love Elmo, babies, Minnie and Mickey Mouse and you and your sister both are candy fiends. We knew you had a lot of personality to live up to with Reese but you are keeping right up and have us laughing just as much as your sister always has. You are so sweet and adorable and I am so glad that I get to be your mommy.

 

Reese:

You are already half way through the year and on your way to 4! You are too smart for your own good and you absorb everything. Your hair is getting so long and is so curly and beautiful. You are getting so tall and I have trouble finding clothes that work for you. You wear a size 4T or 5T (you really need 5T for length but 4T for size and you could possibly wear a 3T for width but it would all be far too short) and size 10/11 shoe. Shoes are quite the battle with you. You are very particular about what clothes you are going to wear and even more particular about shoes. We often fight over shoes and I often give up and let you wear socks with sandals or boots when it is 80 degrees out. Ariel is currently your favorite princess and you are going to be her for Halloween in a couple of weeks. You love Ella and are so sweet so often. You often share well with her and make sure that other kids are nice to her. You have begun playing with her for periods of time and entertaining each other, it is nice. You are fully potty trained at this point during the day and we are working on getting out of pull-ups at night. You love to play with the older girls in the cul de sac and were invited to one of their houses last week to play and it made your day. You felt so big and had a great time. You are very affectionate and concerned when a friend or stranger is upset. You try to comfort Ella when she is crying and offer her toys to make her happy. You are sleeping better than you were 6 months ago. You typically come down stairs or yell at us at the top of the stairs at least once a night and up to 4 times. Most nights it is just once or twice. The most common reason is that you have lost Lyla but what it always comes down to is that you want one of us to lay with you. If it is past 5 we just tell you to get into bed with us and I think this is what you are always hoping for. You have freckles on your nose and we recently discovered some in your feet too. You are such a lovable, sweet and precious little girl and I wish I could pause time for a while. I am equally glad to be your mommy too.

 

I love you both with all of my heart and am so proud of you.

Princess experience

My girls love princesses. Reese＊s love is far greater than Ella＊s but Ella is quickly catching up. I think that most little girls love princesses and have discovered that you can find just about any product out there adorned in princesses.

Last Saturday an organization in our area put on a fun Princess Experience event. The event included a sneak peak of the Little Mermaid, that will be released this month, in the movie theatre near to our house and a princess makeover and games after the movie. At the theatre they had lots of princesses there for photo ops as well as a goodie bag. We only made it 取 of the way through the movie, Ella was done and Reese just doesn＊t do very good in the theatre yet. After we got Ella out of the theatre she completely melted down and we realized she was not going to make it to the makeover portion. Neal took Ella home to nap (she took a 4.5 hour nap) and I took Reese on to the makeover portion.

Reese absolutely loved getting her nails, hair and makeup done. She thought she was such a big girl. She also had fun with all of the game and freebies available. It was a really well done, fun event.

Random updates on a Monday

1. Reese got an outfit from her Gigi last Spring that has turned into her favorite. The outfit really didn’t hold up that well from one year to the next, it wasn’t terrible but it was faded this year and just looked like it was worn hard last year. She has insisted on wearing this outfit at least once a week. It is being sold in the garage sale in a couple of weeks but I let her get one last wear out of it and made sure to get a picture.

2. Ella is becoming a little girl L There are so many baby things that are slowly going away. A couple of things that I do not want to forget are the way that she has said Elmo for the past 5 months, Melmo. She is now saying Elmo and is correcting me whenever I say Melmo. She has also called her milk, maach until a few weeks ago she is now saying milk. She is so precious and while I am excited for her to grow up I am going to miss my sweet baby. I want time to stop for a bit. In the below photo she tried a lick of her ice cream shaped chalk…she didn’t think it was very tasty.

3. We are not thinking that Reese is going to be a soccer star. She seems to think it is okay but it isn’t something that she is excited about. She is normally more interested in water or snack breaks and picking flowers on the field. She will run down the field with her team mates sometimes but doesn’t really have interest in kicking the ball or scoring a goal. At lease she is adorable when she is out there. I don't have any new soccer pictures but the below is an adorable picture of her sliding down a blow up slide.

4. Ella rode her 1^st pony at first Friday a couple of weeks ago. She loves to look at photos of Reese riding ponies and begs to ride one too. She was so scared and would not let go of me the whole ride. She only agreed to sit on the pony for about a minute. She was not a fan. This is the best photo I was able to get. Stinker.

5. I just had to include this photo.

Soccer, Birthdays and Busyness

The next few months are going to be jammed packed but a lot of fun. In the month of September Reese has soccer games every Saturday, Neal will be traveling for a little over a week for Fall market and we have an exciting Little Mermaid Princess Experience to attend with the girls. In October we have Ella’s birthday party and day of birthday festivities and my youngest sister, Chelsea, is getting married towards the end of October and Reese has soccer every Saturday. The wedding will mean a lingerie shower, a rehearsal dinner and the wedding day all in a week (the same week of the birthday party and day of birthday festivities). Then the week after she gets married I will be having surgery and the following week is Halloween. I am exhausted just thinking about all of these things but it will be exciting and fun. I am looking forward to having my entire family in the NWA area. I love living here and it will be fun for me to show them to where I live.

Saturday before last Reese had her 1^st soccer game. She is playing through a program called Happy Feet. There are 6 kids on her team and 2 of them are from her school, 1 of the 2 is her best friend Reagan. We found out last week that another one of her favorite friends will be joining her team starting this Saturday. They play another team of 6 each week. They have 3 kids from each team play at a time and do 3 on 3 scrambles. It was really cute and much less chaotic/funny than I thought it would be. They all did a great job when they weren’t too busy picking flowers.

This past weekend I ran my 1st 5k! I wasn't able to run the August 3rd 5k that I'd been working towards due to my ankle issues but I managed to run this one. I ran it in 30.05 minutes. I was so pleased to finish it without walking but there were a few hills that nearly killed me.