Princess Party!!

Adelyn and Ella were invited to a princess themed birthday party for their 4-year old friend, Alison, who lives down the street. Since 'princess wear' was requested (and I've had a hard time finding a princess dress to fit Adelyn's tiny stature), I seized the opportunity to dress the girls alike in their matching tutu's. I was so proud of myself for making their matching white t-shirts adorned with rhinestones to spell their name with a tiara at the top. Adelyn had more princess stuff to go with and Ella had her princess Robees (soft shoes) and headband with a tiny tiara on it.

By the way, you don't have to let me know how corny of a mom I am... my husband tells me this all the time! Oh, well... I had fun getting the girls ready for a fun day with their new friend. I quickly put a slide show together of our royal day. Hope you enjoy it!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Oh, and here's a random picture of Ella I took the other day. Isn't she a doll?! :)

Welcome Baby Makenna!

Congratulations to my sister and her family on a beautiful baby girl named Makenna Lee. Baby Makenna came around 1 am this morning weighing in at 7 lbs., 14 oz and measuring 20 in. in length. She is doing well and her big sister, Gracen, is smitten with her I hear!

I am so excited to see my new niece. I'll have pictures to post after the weekend.

You are so lucky to have such a wonderful family, Makenna. Baby Ella is already looking forward to having a cousin so close to her age to play with when we visit! :) We love you!

Celebrating Ella's 4-mo Birthday with Babaloo

I wanted to something to commemorate Ella's 4-month birthday so we went to see a musical comedy act for kids even though Ella was a bit young to appreciate it like her big sister could. Actually, Adelyn just woke up from a snooze in the car so she was a little bit intimidated when we entered the park full of music, but she did warm up as the show progressed. You can tell that Babaloo is used to playing in front of much larger crowds but we loved that we got to enjoy such a cool artist in such an intimate setting. I'm not sure if Adelyn or I liked him more (he reminded me of Steve from Blues Clues!) but Adelyn did get a kick out of the show and we'll definitely see him again. We jammed out to his CD all the way home. You can check him out at:

www.babaloomusicandfun.com

Here are a couple videos of our afternoon. BTW, thanks for the recommendation, Katie!


Also, here are a few shots of the girls on Ella's special day. Adelyn is so good with her little sister... I love watching them together!

Kickin' It

For what it's worth, I actually put some thought into this post title. Perhaps a little too much thought.

First, Ella had her 4-month check-up today and she is doing great. 55% in weight and 60% in height so she's not as big of a chunk as I thought. The only concern is that she is slightly sluggish (I told you she was too laid back!) but we're working on her muscle tone with lots of tummy time... whether she likes it or not. Poor thing had to get a whopping 4 shots today so I, naturally, was a mess having to witness her cry in pain. And this time was worse than others because Adelyn was due a shot, too, so I had to go through it with both back-to-back. Can you believe the little spitfire actually pulled the shot out of her thigh when the nurse stuck her?! (I was preoccupied with Ella.) Thank goodness they got the medicine in before she reached it. Then she got ticked off and yelled at the nurse, "Addy Bye Bye Now!"

Here's a picture of Ella with all of her band-aids. I hated seeing her wear these!

Adelyn recovered well... here's a video of her dancing for us tonight. We decided to pick a different genre of music and she adapted pretty well! I can't believe she is only 2 and can dance like this. She's got some moves if I can say so myself. I apologize for the WAY ANNOYING "WHOOOH!" at the beginning of the video. My new camera won't let me edit that out unfortunately. I don't know what crazy lady would ever think to hoot and holler so loud to country music. Who am I kidding... it's in my blood! Hope you enjoy the picture and video.

New Garage Doors

Clever title, huh?

Unfortunately, the first things you notice as you enter our home from down the street are our garage doors. Andrew and I thought it would be a good (cosmetic) investment to replace them with something a little more elaborate to dress it up. Here are the before/after shots as well as a couple more views. We picked the arched windows to match the arched windows on the front of our house. I think they turned out great! I'll post more before/after shots of our house as we complete more landscaping this summer.

Evening at the Ballpark

Just wanted to share a couple pictures of the girls from Austin's baseball game last night. Adelyn was a great cheerleader for her cousin and Ella enjoyed spending some time with Grandma. We stopped at Bobby's (Andrew's favorite!) and had some ice cream on our way home from the game.

Thank you, Andrew!

I just wanted to brag on my husband for spoiling me on Mother's Day! I was having a fabulous dream about picking out clothes with a personal shopper at Nordstrom's when I woke up to something even more fabulous... my girls and husband feeding me breakfast in bed! He let me sleep in till 10 am and had already taken care of the girls all morning. So awesome! AND, I got a new camera that I wanted, too! My old camera was on the fritz and every great shot I would get of the girls would turn out dark... I was getting so frustrated with it. I'll have to admit that this one originally caught my eye because it was pink (I've decided to embrace the pink that came with my girls!)... but it had great reviews, too. Besides, I am definitely a novice at picture-taking so I don't need anything too elaborate. Here's the first picture I took with it of Adelyn on our way to see Great Grandma Dorothy in St. Louis.

We hope you had a great day!

Call Me Crazy...

No, really.... I've been called worse. :)

Ever since Adelyn was diagnosed with C Diff when she was only 9 months old, I've been so weird about public changing stations. It seems like she always gets sick when I use one of those things. Even with a couple layers of my own blankets/pads, it just doesn't seem sanitary to share the same fecal space with other potentially contaminated babies. I'd prefer to change her and Ella in the car if I have to.

So, the other night when we went out to eat, Adelyn randomly announced that she needed to go "poo poo potty." I assumed that she already did the #2 in her pants and this was how she wanted to tell us. But after a quick sniff test, I got really excited because she hadn't gone yet! :) We ran to the bathroom and after spreading a layer of toilet paper on the seat, I sat her down. Yeah, right. Way too easy. She laughed at me and said, "All done!" I figured that since I already had her diaper off, we should put a fresh one on her. Unfortunately, that meant that I needed to lay her down somewhere (she won't stand still long enough to put one on her that way) and I didn't plan on pulling her outside with her jeans around her ankles so I could change her in the car. So, I tossed her on the changing pad station, changed her, and then thoroughly washed our hands before we left to return to our table.

Here's the crazy part.... 24 hours later and she's running a high freakin' fever! Excuse my language but I felt like kicking myself. I mean, did or can this happen so quickly? I'm telling you..... EVERY TIME we are forced to use one of those things, she's sick shortly thereafter.

So frustrating!!! I feel like I did everything I could do (besides stay in and cook at home) and she still got sick. Now we're doing our regular rotation of Motrin and Tylenol to keep the fever down and so far, there aren't any other symptoms of whatever type of infection she got. Wish us luck that this will be short-lived!!

Sorry for all the poo poo talk but you have to expect it from a mommy of 2 babies!

Happy Early Mother's Day!

We attended a mother/daughter banquet last night and I wanted to share some pictures from our evening. I'm so excited that I finally have a few pictures of the three of us girls... and I even dressed to match! (Yes, I have turned into that mom.)


Anyway, Ella was a perfect angel and Adelyn was.... well, we'll just say that she was not a perfect angel. At one point, she ran off and brought back an elderly lady's cane! So embarrassing...... but at least the whole table 'awwwed' when I brought her back to tell the nice lady that she was 'Tarry' for taking her cane. I have a feeling that it won't be the last time those big brown eyes get her out of trouble.

I'm so lucky to celebrate Mother's Day with such beautiful girls. I hope you all enjoy your special day because God knows you deserve it!

I've Been Tagged!

Apparently listing unimportant things about yourself is a blogging tradition. Even though I'd prefer to make this blog more about my girls than about myself (they are way more interesting and cute!), I feel obligated to cooperate since it's my first.

10 things you may or may not have known about me (in no particular order):

1. My guilty pleasure is being on-line whether browsing, checking e-mail, finding deals, BLOGGING...... I truly think I would be lost without the web. And yes-- this survey is only nurturing this!

2. I grew up in a tiny, tiny town called Doniphan, MO, with an approx. population of 1,500. Growing up there allowed me to enjoy the finer things in life like country roads and floating down the river during the summer. It was a very modest but fulfilling living and makes me appreciate even more the blessings I have today. We definitely had more memories than $ when I was growing up and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

3. My brother was born 1 min. before I was. And no, we're not identical!! In fact, the only thing we shared (besides birthdays) was our love for baseball/softball. I can't believe he had to put up with me bossing him around all these years. Poor guy! :)

4. When I was in high school, I couldn't be any more involved. I played sports year-round, held offices in multiple clubs including acting as Student Body President, was voted 'Student of the Year' , 'Most School Spirit,' 'Most Talented'.... you name it. But when I went off to college, I was scared to death to meet new people! I didn't realize that I had a major case of social anxiety. I truly freaked out at the thought of walking across campus amidst hundreds of people to join a class full of new faces. I would get knots in my stomach and would even skip class sometimes because it was so bad. I guess since I grew up with the same small class, I never had this problem before. At least it wasn't noticeable at the time but perhaps somewhat recognizable in retrospect. I continued to have a case of this until I moved to Michigan with my husband where I started to receive promotions into management and couldn't afford to have this issue. For the most part, I think I've grown out of it especially since becoming a mom. The good news is that it never got in the way of accomplishing what I wanted to in life post high school and I can probably thank my husband for supporting me through my little idiosyncrasies along the way!

5. I am a reality show junkie. But I don't make this a priority over my kids. So, I catch shows on a random basis and don't follow just one. I'm also a candy junkie... so I guess you can call me a junkie junkie. I love Skittles, ring pops, blow pops, laffy taffy, etc.

6. I love bath time! Maybe I should clarify... I love giving my girls baths. They just seem so happy when they're gettin' clean. And we always sing the same songs together... "Row Your Boat" and "The Wheels on the Bus."

7. When my girls and I are alone, we play silly games and dance around like we're 'Cinderella' as Adelyn puts it. Apparently I did this a lot as a little girl, too, so I guess I never grew out of it. It also serves as a great procrastination tool when I need to do dishes.

8. I have an ugly scar on my chest that I'm totally insecure about. I hate swimsuit season because of it. It was originally a mere scratch from my cat that turned into a small, round scar. I talked my parents into getting it surgically removed by a local doctor for cosmetic reasons. (I was a teenager and didn't like the idea of it showing in my prom dresses!) What I didn't know is that it was a keloid scar which is not recommended to be treated by surgical removal. It came back with a vengeance! So then I went to a specialist in Memphis and received multiple cortisone shots in my chest on a monthly basis to diminish it. It's not as noticeable today but still bothers me!

9. I have an amazing sister! She is just so kind-hearted, loving, and non-judgmental. She's like the backbone of our family. I don't know what I could have done without her over the last few years especially since learning about my father's cancer. I hope you know that, Angel!

10. I love Blues Clues! Well, I only like the episodes with Steve in them so I guess I love Steve since he is Blues Clues. I have seen EVERY episode (thanks to Lil' Miss Adelyn) and Steve never ceases to amaze me every time I watch him act, sing, dance, impersonate, and narrate through every episode. He's so charismatic and somehow he makes even the cheesiest lines so funny! It just seems like there's nothing he can't do. He should change his name to 'Super Steve.'

There you go... now you know probably way too much about me and I don't even know your middle name, right? BTW, mine is Christin....

Ode to Ella

As a younger sister who grew up watching her older sister win all of the beauty pageants, citizenship titles, sports awards, etc., I vowed to make sure Ella would never fall in the shadow of her older sister. Remarkably, I never let jealousy get in the way of accomplishing what was important to me and my sister was always proud of me when I did. That's the attitude I want both of my girls to have. I don't want them to think they are ever in competition with each other because they will be unique from one another. I am very hopeful!

With that said, I've noticed that I have a tendency to post more pictures of Adelyn than of Ella and I wanted to make up for it. The only excuse I have is that Adelyn is at an age that provides a wider variety of pictures. But that doesn't mean that you don't want to see our little Ella Bella Bean! So, here you go.... a tribute to our little baby.

Ella's latest milestone has been discovering her hands for the first time. She's been doing this for a while now but it has become a favorite thing of hers to do. Here is a sweet line from a poem that reminds me so much of Ella right now.

Ten tiny little fingers that from the very start,
Will reach out for tomorrow, yet always hold your heart.

Enjoy the pictures and videos!

As a sidenote, isn't it funny how genetics works? Andrew and I (and Adelyn) have dark hair, dark eyes, and dark skin tone so when Ella was born with light auburn hair, light skin tone, and light blue eyes (still TBD), we automatically thought of Andrew's mom and her side of the family. And look at these pics... could Baby Ella, Andrew's mom, and Andrew's mom's mom (Grandma Deckard), look any more alike? I love that Ella has a look unique from her sister and can't wait to see how she develops into a young lady. Did I just say that?! Nevermind... I can wait! :)

Cheese!!

I guess my new, tiny profile pic isn't cutting it for those who want to see a recent picture of me. I'd prefer to wait until I lost all of my 'baby fat' but I'm getting too many e-mails about this to wait an eternity. As much as I hate to do this, here you go. I had Andrew take a picture of me tonight just for you!! (Feel lucky that I have a little make-up on!) While we're at it, let's include a picture of Andrew, too. The funniest part of this picture is Adelyn in the background cracking up at her cousin Austin at his Spring concert tonight. She loved the show!