Post-It Note Tuesday

I had a post planned for today, but I didn't have enough nerve to publish it. Big Daddy and I both found a particular thing that I saw yesterday very funny and I wanted to share it with everyone. I wrote out the post, set it to auto-publish and then I went back and hit the delete button. Maybe I'll share it sometime later, but it almost seemed inappropriate for the family blog.

That leads us to "Post-It Note Tuesday". I really have very little to say today, but here it is. You can head on over to SupahMommy's to join in the fun.

What A Weekend!

The most exciting part of my weekend came last night, or was it this morning? Baby Ellie allowed me nearly four consecutive hours of sleep. As Maggie would say, "Praise be to Jesus!". Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights were not good. I'm blaming it on the teeth issue. I'm now using those homeopathic teething tablets (for Ellie, not me) , and so far I think they are helping.

Ellie's smile sort of shows how I felt this morning! Pardon the short-sleeved romper. I had planned to put a white turtleneck underneath and sort of forgot. After taking Muff to school and getting groceries Ellie had Cheerios (cut in half) in her exersaucer and then changed into the turtleneck.

Anyway...Big Daddy took Miss Muffinhead to the gym with him on Saturday and Ellie and I ran a few errands, a.k.a. she slept in the sling while I ran errands. We decided to make a T.arget run and go to dinner at Panera. Yes, Panera again. We always think that we'll go somewhere lse, but we really love Panera right now! We always get the same thing, too. Muff always packs a meal to go and gets a cookie for dessert. She LOVES Panera, but wasn't crazy about the "new" one that we went to this weekend. Big Daddy said it "felt funny" and they vowed to only eat at our "old" Panera from now on.

We managed to go to church on Sunday. YAY! Everyone was happy to be back. Ellie will be moving to the big class oon since she's crawling. This is a first for us since The Muffin never had to move up to a new class. I'm sad, but so happy that Ellie is growing and progressing as she should. Both girls also enjoyed going to Church last night. Muffin's teacher said that she is the "mose well-behaved" child in the four year old Worship and Music class. I'm so happy about that. I had a nice time in the parenting class, too.

Maggie and Ellie found themselves in Daddy's room (a.k.a. the bonus room/playroom) last night. Ellie enjoyed reading a book and rocking babies.
Have I mentioned that she loves babydolls! I'll try to get a picture of her with Baby Joy or Thelma sometime soon. Ellie's love of babies has also caused The Muffin to want to play babies a little more...I LOVE IT!

Baby Ellie You Are 8 Months Old

Baby Ellie, you are growing so fast!
You now weigh 19.5 pounds! Your sister only weighed a pound more when she had her first birthday! You wear mostly 12 month clothes, but some of them are a little snug.
You crawl and pull up and get into everything.
You love your sister's toys and opening drawers and chasing empty water bottles around on the hardwood floors. You are a very busy girl!You eat three meals a day and drink about 6 ounces of formula in a sippy cup over the course of the day. You like all food, but applesauce is still your least favorite and you do not like juice. You love Jumbo Rice Krispies (cut in half because Mommy worries that you'll choke) for your snacks.
One of my favorite times of the day is feeding you before bedtime in my bedroom. We cuddle up in the chair and you fall asleep after your belly is full. You are still waking up during the night, but I think we are finally doing a few things so that you don't think you have to eat every single time.
You still have only two teeth, but you act like you'll cut more anytime. You kept me and your Daddy up for a couple of hours last night just screaming and gnawing on your fingers. You love to have your teeth brushed and you open wide when you know it's time!
You like to crawl away while I'm trying to change your diaper and you have trouble going to sleep for naps because you want to stand up in your bed. You are so active.
You say "da-da" a lot and also say "b" when you see babies or books.
Your hair is still a light brown and it still sticks up in the back no matter what I do to it.
You love taking a bath with your sister and you get so excited when the bath tub is filling up. You like to splash and squeal and kick your legs.
You like to shop and eat out at restaurants and you love to people-watch.
You have stayed in the nursery at our new Church for several months now and we've yet to be paged! Daddy and I love to see you playing with the other babies when we pick you up. We are so happy that you enjoy going to Church, just like your sister does.
You cry when I tell you "no-no" or if we take something that you're not supposed to have away from you. You sound so heartbroken.

Baby Ellie, you are such a delight and we couldn't imagine our lives without you.

Just Another Snowy Day

**These pictures were taken earlier in the week, but our tent is still up!**

This is one of the ways that we've entertained ourselves since we have been bombarded with winter precipitation. Maggie & Ellie both love our "tent". Muff likes it so much that I think she needs one of those little indoor tents for her birthday.

I keep the house clean, but at any given time it looks a bit like a daycare.

She likes to fix it so that it has a little door and then she opens it and lets Ellie come in...so cute!

And this is Ellie's favorite new move. She's doing it in one of the pictures above too. And yes, she had taken off her sock while I was washing dishes.

And The Muffin was watching Taylor Swift videos on the computer. Have I Mentioned that we love love love Taylor Swift in this house??
Big Daddy has been working at least 12 hours every single day this week, so I let the girls entertain themselves while I clean the kitchen up. Then, Big Daddy comes home and we have family time!

And this is what I found when I went in Muff's bathroom to clean the other day. She has quiet an assortment of products: Aveeno lotion for her face, B&B Works glitter lotion for her body (a gift from Ms. A), two body sprays with glitter, two B&B Works foaming hand soaps and then our normal pump full of soap. She uses each product at least three times a day because of "dry skin, dirty hands and a funny smell". Poor thing doesn't realize that the funny smell is all of these products combined!

Happy Friday!!

One Is Easy

If you had told me even a year ago that I would say this I would have died laughing.

Having one child is easy.

It's only easy compared to more than one, though. I really believe it's all relative to what you're used to and it only makes since that more than one kid is harder than only one. I'm sure the mom with eight kids would say that seven was easy. (Did I tell you that there was a young mom with seven kids at the Library a couple of weeks ago!?! She pulled into the parking lot in a "Church van" and I counted the kids as they filed out.)

I adore Maggie & Ellie together and yesterday I even had Cousin Callie for a while. (Sometimes, I even think that three may be easier than one, but only if one of them is like an 8 year old babysitter!) Maggie & Ellie both adore Callie. She carries Ellie around, so Ellie thinks she's awesome. Ellie loves to watch Maggie & Callie chase each other and slide around on the hardwood floors.

Anyway...back to my one is easy comment.

Maggie plays great by herself. Ellie plays great by herself most of the time too. Put the two of them in the same room with their respective toys and someone is going to get upset. Ellie loves Maggie's toys and Maggie loves whatever toy Ellie is playing with or Maggie loves on Ellie too much.

I was trying to get video of Ellie saying "da-da" the other day and this is what I caught.

Fast forward to dinner the next night and this is what was going on. (And you may see that we really do use cloth napkins all the time.) Squaeling. This is one of the things I know I'll miss when they get too old to constantly squeal at each other! Maggie didn't start the squeal-fest, Ellie did.

Our house isn't quiet all that often, but Ellie gets fussy if she's in a place where there's too much activity or too many noises. How strange is that?

For me, the hardest part of having two kids isn't the squealing or the fussing over toys, it's being pulled in two different directions. One wants to play Barbies with you and the other needs you to put her down for a nap. Trying to cook pancakes (again) while someone is fussing for their oatmeal and bananas. Cooking dinner while one is asking how to spell "McMillan" (for the two thousandth time) while the other just wants to be held. And then there's always one wanting to be held while the other needs to be held.

No matter what they really are worth it all. And that is why sometimes I say crazy things like I might want to have just one more. And no, this is not an announcement! I just wanted to share my two crazy girls with you.

Now I must go and watch any Taylor Swift video that I want to on youtube because The Boss (a.k.a. Maggie) isn't here. I have I mentioned that she loves loves loves Taylor Swift??

Picture Overload

I try to clean off the memory card in our camera about once a week and these were a few of my favorites!

Maggie actually wanted her picture taken today!

Cousin Callie came over for a little visit. Since all three girls were in pink, we took a picture to give to Nana & Pawpaw for Valentine's Day. (this is not the one that we used)

These two love each other so much!

Baby Ellie loves exploring every room in the house. She like my bathroom because the drawers are full of goodies.

I think you are teething when you have that much drool and you're chewing on your bib.

This is from yesterday's pajama day.

Ellie loves to crawl away during diaper and wardrobe changes.

Wordless Wednesday-What is she looking at?

Lazy Days

We have been enjoying our lazy snow days so much! Well, they really aren't that lazy, but they have been as lazy as they can be with a wild and crazy almost four year old and a sweet, little crawler getting into everything. There's something about knowing that I'm not going out that just makes me feel more relaxed. We have stayed in our pajamas a little (maybe a lot) longer than usual and have played together in every single room of the house...bathrooms included. Ellie has been exploring corners of the house that she's never been in before and so far, shows no interest in the stairs. She likes opening drawers and hiding underneath her crib. (Maggie pretends that it's an apartment and says,"You have a very nice apartment, Ellie", when they're under the bed together.)

I've managed to stay on top of the laundry, keep the house clean and cook dinner each night while still feeling a little lazy.

I've talked on the phone to my mommy friend...twice. Of course, it was a long conversation with our children (four between us) constantly interrupting us. We talked about the weather, our big kids, our babies, our birth control and whether or not we should each have a third child. The conversation will have to do until we can see each other in person.

I've organized baby clothes and have a huge stack of dresses that Ellie will be wearing this Spring. I also have a nice bag of clothes to take to Baby T since she's growing so big.

On the other hand, we've miss getting out of the house. The Muffin has asked about preschool, but I don't think she's really missed it. She plays so well in the morning and Ellie loves to watch her play and tries to join in at times. We've all missed going to church and I'm hoping that there's not more winter weather this weekend because we need to go to church.

Tomorrow will most likely be a normal day. Back to preschool and getting up with an alarm clock and not an Ellie clock. I know Muff will be excited, but she also enjoys staying at home with endless free time.

All that being said, please know that we are ready for Spring.

Happy Groundhog Day!

And She Crawls!!!

I know...two posts in one day! After I posted our snow pictures from the weekend, I finally caught Ellie crawling on video! She's still a little slow, but she gets where she wants to go. You'll notice that she makes a panting sound when she's excited!

It's been a rude awakening for her big sister. I can't tell you the number of times that Maggie squeals and says, "put her up" because Ellie is about to get one of her toys. Luckily, Ellie enjoys short stints in her playpen!

Ellie loves drawers, boxes, getting into her cloth diaper basket and of course, getting her sister's toys! She tries to pull up on everything and has figured out how to crawl to me, turn around and lift her bottom into my lap. Big Daddy and I are really enjoying watching her learn to move!

Ellie's wearing a bumgenius cloth diaper in Blossom. I was getting her out of her pajamas and into clothes and she saw something she wanted across the room. I promise I don't let her crawl around mostly n.aked very often, but I do love watching her big cloth diaper booty!

Ready For Spring

The snow started about 6pm on Friday and it snowed all night and part of Saturday. We had about 7 inches in the end. That's a lot of snow for us.

I took Muff outside on Saturday and Sunday and we threw snow balls and attempted to make a snowman. She was happiest just walking around. The kids took a loooong nap Saturday afternoon and Big Daddy and I curled up on the bed with our respective blankets. Having babies changes everything! If it weren't for the girls that's what I would've done all weekend.

Baby Ellie wants to be held constantly, so Big Daddy wore the sling for the first time ever. He loved it and wants to wear her some when we go out! I'm trying to convince him that we need a mei tai in a more masculine print. (Big Daddy's cutting his nails while wearing Ellie!!)

Baby Ellie was happy to have extended time with Daddy.

The Muffin had a dream about Spring again last night. I think she's ready to play outside.