Being BRAVE!

What a weekend!   We spent it wiggling and jiggling (Friday morning), visiting Baby Harrison, baking treats, house hunting (unsuccessfully), lunches out with family and even starting to pack! 

Friday:  Wiggling and jiggling at a library event.  Ella had a great time as you can see!  There was a LOT of hopping, wiggling and jiggling....

I have a few pictures of the other events which I don't have access to right now. 

But....the REAL big reason I wanted to post today is about Ms. Ella!  She's in her 2nd week of swimming lessons for session 1.  SHE JUMPED OFF THE DIVING BOARD TODAY!!  This deserves all caps, am I right?  She just turned 4!  And this morning was one of "those" mornings where she didn't want to get dressed, didn't want to leave the house, didn't want to let go of Jay at drop off, etc.  So, I can't believe it!  Apparently she had HUGE grin after she did the jump and Sara & the others gave her high fives.  So cute, sad I missed it. :(  But, Sara saved the day and sent me a few pics.  Enjoy! 

 Can you see the reluctance?!?!

But she did it!  JUMP!

Cheers to being brave!

Gearing up....

What a weekend it was!  We are gearing up for many upcoming things (some of which have started since I'm a late blog updater!)

Gearing up for....summertime swimming lessons!  Ella started Level 1 swim lessons at the outdoor pool yesterday.  She goes every day this week and next week (and then that's it for Level 1).  I was REALLY worried about it yesterday since we're not there with her.  But, I got a text message after the session yesterday and she did great!  Even blew bubbles in the water!  Hurray!  Jay couldn't get her to do that for anything during the parent/tot class they took earlier this year. 

Thanks Sara for sending me pictures from this morning!!

Side note:  This is Ella meeting Raven (the dog) & Ron Schara (from Minnesota Bound) during an event last Thursday in Farmington.  She was so excited!

Gearing up for....finding a house (and moving)!  As of Friday, our townhome has a purchase agreement pending.  The Buyer inspection is this afternoon, so we're anxious for that to be complete so we can confirm it's moving forward.  I told Jay yesterday that I'm having a tiny bit of Seller's remorse.  We went out on a short house hunt Saturday morning and I left completely discouraged.  The inventory on single family homes in Farmington is pretty minimal (we're thinking we'd like to stay in the Farmington school district).  Anyway, we'll see what happens.  I'm sure we'll find something, right?!

Gearing up for....meeting our newest nephew!  Baby Harrison was born yesterday!! (Parents are Annie & Andrew)  It was a difficult past week for them  - a lot of back and forth trips to the hospital - so I am sure they are exhausted but so excited too!  We can't wait to meet him!

Gearing up for....lunches from the food trucks!  Working downtown in the summer has some big perks like being able to hit up the farmer's market on Thursdays, and now the food trucks are back!  Last week I tried an empanada truck.  Delicious!

Friday night Jay & I had a date night - we went to see The Great Gatsby.  We were both surprised at how much we liked it.  There wasn't much to choose from to see!!  It was a fun night to relax after the stress of getting a PA signed up on the townhome!  Now that the weather (fingers crossed) is going to stay summer-like, we're ready to hit the pool and parks too! 

Stay tuned as we continue the house hunting!

Weekending (Just the Girls! & Ella's 4 year stats!)

It was "just the girls!" this past weekend, as Jay was out of town for "guy's weekend."  Friday morning started with Ella's 4 year well visit with Dr. Mitha.  It went great until they mentioned that she'd need to get a shot!  She is now 42 1/2 inches tall and 38 pounds.  Right in line with her previous percentiles, so no real surprises there.  We are trying a new cream for her random eczema spots she continues to get on her legs & back.  I'm hoping that it will help!

After the drama of the shot at the Dr., we headed to Great Harvest for a late breakfast.  YUM!

Later in the day we made our weekly stop at the library and Ella spent some time playing some Sesame Street games on the kid's computer.  She is really starting to like all the technology!

Ella totally surprised me on her bike ride later Friday afternoon.  She took off no problem and pedaled away!  Hurray!  She was struggling a bit on the new bike earlier in the week. 

Saturday, the sun was shining for a bit in the morning!! (can you believe it?!?!)  So we rushed out the door and headed to a local park to enjoy the sun while it lasted.  Ella had a blast!  We've had so little nice days to get outside that we'll take advantage of anything we can get!

We made guesses on which horse would win the Belmont Stakes on Saturday afternoon.  :)  Ella always has the luck!  Her pick got 2nd place!  She REALLY get into it, loves to cheer for the horsies to run faster!

And on dreary Sunday morning to end our "just the girls" weekend, we lounged and watched a Dora movie!

It was a fun weekend!  I even got told by Ella that I have a big butt.  Nice.  If that doesn't motivate me to workout I don't know what will!

Today was a semi-exciting day.  We've officially gotten an offer for our townhome.  Yet we're going to have to pull money out of ?????? in order to make it happen.  Unfortunately the market isn't recovering fast enough for us on the townhome side of things so we are scrambling to find a solution to keep this buyer.  Say a little prayer for us to make this deal happen!  Thankfully I have tomorrow off to spend time worrying about it.  Sounds fun, no?  HA!

Postpalooza #3 - How in the world is Ella 4?! (and weekend wrap-up)

Yesterday was Ella's 4th birthday!  How in the world is that even possible?  I can't believe it!  My mom, Randy & Chase were still visiting us, so we were all able to go out for birthday breakfast!  They made Ms. Ella the cutest little Mickey Mouse birthday pancake - she was loving this special treat!

I guess the whipped cream mouth was a little crooked!  HA!

Ella had such a blast with Chase all weekend long, they kept themselves very busy!  Friday afternoon after they arrived, we had to open Easter Baskets! (yes, it's been that long since we've seen them!)  Ella was super excited to get Cat in the Hat and Chase got new Batman shades - hilarious!

I forgot to tell you about the Nabi tablet gifted to Ella from my mom.  She got a tablet before me - UNREAL!  But Ella loves it already.  Listening to Laurie Berkner music on her new Minnie Mouse headphones is her favorite!  She seems so grown up with headphones on - but I think the Minnie Mouse ones are ADORABLE!  She spent time playing on the Nabi both Saturday afternoon & Sunday morning before breakfast!

Before everyone headed home, we snapped a few pictures.  Too bad not everyone's eyes are open!

And then we headed out for Ella's inaugural bike ride.   (See her baby bringing up the rear!)

More birthday gifts on her actual birthday from Paul & Jolyn!

We had some fun with the GIANT birthday bag!

We played some soccer outside - Ella's a decent shot!

And we had to capture the annual picture by the birthday balloons!

Last night Jay & I sang Happy Birthday to her (again)!

Happy Birthday Ella!  I can't believe how much you have grown this past year.  You're still tall for your age and are wearing 4T mostly, but pants have to be a 4 for the length.  You have new sparkly silver sandals in size 10!  You are writing your name now and asking TONS of questions about all kinds of things (you're so curious!)  :) You LOVE to sing, even making up songs about random stuff, which I love to listen to!  You like to play "mommy" and take such good care of your "babies"!  I am so proud of you for finally conquering the potty training and now you are even riding bike!  There's been big changes this year with preschool, Sunday School and going to Sara's school and you adjusted really well! You love to learn new things and are a great helper at home with making your bed & even helping me with laundry & cleaning!  I look forward to making lots of fun memories this summer and hopefully decorating a new bedroom for you soon!  You've certainly outgrown your toddler bed!!  We love you!

Postpalooza #2 - Ella's Fourth Birthday Party - CURIOUS GEORGE!

Saturday we celebrated Ella's 4th birthday with a Curious George themed party.  It was a lot of fun to put together, although I didn't invest as much time planning this year, and thankfully it still all came together just fine!  Here's a recap of the fun day!

A pre-party picture of Ella & Chase - they were super excited for the day!

 Waiting for everyone to arrive with Grandma Deb!

 I saw a Pinterest idea showing George hanging out with balloons above the main table.  We used beach balls with primary colors (to match the decor!) and Curious George hung out up there for the party.

Another Pinterest idea:  We had everyone who attended sign a birthday note to Ms. Ella in the Curious George and the Birthday Surprise book!  LOVE IT!

 Party favors for the kiddos included containers of candy, monkey stickers and

a Curious George book to take home!  I also had printables of Curious George from pbskids.org, but we didn't even have time to use those!

 Of course we ordered a balloon bouquet for the party!  The large balloon on top is so huge that I couldn't even get it in the picture!!

 I made these "Man with the Yellow Hat" hats for the tables outside.  Cute right?  I lucked out on finding the cones at the Dollar Store in the graduation section (random!) and then I added black electrical tape to make them fit right in for the Curious George decor!

 I made a banana dessert (we call it Banana Delight) and we also served frozen banana slices covered in chocolate and ordered Curious George cupcakes (I didn't bake the cakes this year).  I think the cupcakes turned out super cute! 

See her big smile?  She was super happy to have everyone singing Happy Birthday to her. :)  And she blew out the candle all by herself this year!  She was very proud of herself to turn off the fire!  :)

She got TONS of gifts! (and kept giving us this cheeseball smile!)

High five for new PJs!!

And the grand finale gift from Jay & I was Ella's first bike.  She needs some pedaling practice & her legs are too big for the little red trike now, so it was time for a big girl bike!  You guys, it was HILARIOUS!  Jay brought the bike down as we were opening the other gift from us and she looked up, saw Jay coming down the stairs with the bike and goes quietly "oohhh mmmyyyy goooshhhh...."  It was so cute I wish I would have captured it on video.  She loves it.  :)

It's got a seat for her baby in the back.  Hilarious!!

This year's photo op included photo booth Curious George props (found them on Etsy).  It was really fun!

Did you notice Ella's new pigtail bows?  I wanted to get Curious George bows on Etsy but I failed to place an order in time to arrive for the big day, so I decided to make my own.  I think they turned out really cute and I plan to make more of this style bows!

It was a fun party!!  

We were all pretty worn out and Ella finally crashed for a SUPER late snooze after 4 o'clock!