Let the planning begin!

Ella's big 3rd birthday is coming up soon, so I've started to gather ideas for this year's theme.  Last night I started the test cake.  I have yet to get the frosting on, but I think this will be a do-able cake this year.  Kind of fun.  Here it is in all of its naked unfrosted glory!

 And a couple pictures of Ella since it's been a while!

This is Ella and her Dora backpack.  Doesn't she look so old in this picture?  I can't believe it!  She loves to put her library books in her backpack.  :)

Weekending

We had a whirlwind visit to Worthington this past weekend to join in celebrating my Grandma Alice's 85th birthday.  I love her.  She's been through a lot this past year, and it was nice to have everyone together to celebrate her 85th year!  It was a rough (overwhelming) day for her though, with the abundance of people, noise and pictures.  I pray she will stay strong and keep her spirits high and get her body stronger!  Here are a few of the lovely pictures from the day (thanks Tracie!):
 

Grandma Alice's kids (all 9 were there!)

 Grandma Alice's grandchildren, missing: Mike, Seth, Lance (15 total)

Grandma Alice's great-grandchildren, missing: Jonathan, Eric (16 total)

And I LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture!  It's Grandma Alice and her sister Delores.  The camera caught the perfect expression for Delores!  I love it, though Grandma is looking a little beat by the time this picture was taken.

Grandma and Lou DeGroot (Grandma's sister-in-law, who was married to my Grandma Harm's brother Chris DeGroot).  Lou is currently fighting cancer and in treatment, but it was so nice to see and visit with her.  This picture is so great.  I love that Grandma is smiling and they both look beautiful.

Happy May Day!

Ella telling stories

Here's the video from the post below!

A few things - and SMORES cookies!

Happy weekend!  It's Ella & I just hanging out - Jay is out of town.  We have been doing lots of fun stuff - baked S'mores cookies on Thursday night (more on those in a minute), a kid's consignment sale & Subway on Friday, bakery breakfast, library & another trip to Subway today!  Ella & I are obsessed with Subway lately.  :)  Better than "Old McDonalds" (this is what Ella calls McDs - HA!)

So tonight at Subway, Ella was fake calling me on her cell phone.   When I figured out what was going on, I answered my fake cell phone and this was our conversation:
Ella:  "Hello?!  Mommy, you there?"
Me:  "Oh, hi Ella, how are you?"
Ella:  "Mommy, put my juice in my milk cup, okay, bye!"
Me:  I couldn't even talk I was laughing so hard!

Now about these S'mores cookies.  Here's a picture (I can't believe there are any left at this point, they are THAT good): 

You really should bake a batch up - like today!  I bake a lot, and this cookie is by far the most delicious one I've made in a LONG time.  The only other cookie that rivals this one is a chocolate chip cookie which includes vanilla pudding in the recipe.  So, seriously try it.  I'd love to know what you think.  I can't wait to make more.  I came across the recipe last week at some point and I think it was a link from a link.  But, here's the link to the recipe.  S'more Cookie  I didn't follow it exactly.  I used the new Kraft brand Mallow Bits (vanilla flavor) instead of regular marshmellows.  The Mallow Bits are tiny little delicious marshmellows that are sometimes in hot chocolate or on Caribou Campfire Mochas!  I also only had the dough in the fridge for like 20 minutes.  I didn't have any issues with it spreading too much or being too difficult to work with.  The trickiest part I found was making sure the cookie part was baked well enough without burning the graham bottom.  My oven was 5 minutes (add chocolate) and then back in for 6 minutes.  Here's the thing, I've seen and tried a few S'mores type recipes.  But this one is so authentic tasting, like you are indulging in the real deal.  With the Hershey's chocolate right on top.  Love!

And, I have to share two more things.  Ella has learned (via me, I guess) a bad word that isn't Darn it.  I swear I only used that word ONE time in front of her when we were in the car a few months back.  I don't know if I shared that story on the blog, but a day or so later, Ella dropped her baby (on purpose) and then looked up at me and said "D* it!"  I didn't even know how to respond I was so surprised.  Well, that happened again last weekend.  We were playing a Curious George matching game, and Ella got near the end and only had one Dog card left.  No match.  Ella looked at me and said "Oh the Dog card is missing D* it"  I was NOT prepared for this word to be used again, and said "Ella what did you say?" (Dumb, yes I know) and so, Ella, repeated it "Mommy, the Dog card is missing D* it!" OMG!  I wanted to laugh, but I said, Ella, that's a bad word we don't say that....and do you know what she responded?!?  "But Mommy and Daddy say that word!"  Oh man...so, then I said, well, Mommy and Daddy are going to be in big trouble with Grandma for saying that word (I had no idea what to say to her!)  and so then we had to call Grandma Deb.  Ella insisted that we tell her that the Dog card is missing.  I wanted to tell my mom the story b/c it was so hilarious but of course I couldn't repeat it in front of Ms. Ella.  Talk about a little stinker!

And lastly, Ella's obsession with books continues, and now she's started to make up her own stories (which all start with the obligatory "Once Upon a Time...")  I was able to catch a few of her rambling stories the other night, so I thought I'd share.  They make me smile. 

Doubles

It was a weekend of doubles in our house.  Let me explain and first of all.  First of all, we had been planning all week to make a trip to the MN Zoo to see the Farm Babies exhibit (and the penguins) on Saturday.  The weather was looking great, plans were falling into place.  But then...the doubles...let me explain.

First preface:  Ella has been having some sort of stuffy nose/runny nose thing which started Friday before Palm Sunday.  We've been doing Tylenol, Triaminic, Vicks, what have you...just about every remedy available over the counter to try and kick this in the butt. 

Okay, so Friday marked 14 days of this thing, so I called our nurse line and got Ella in on Friday morning to see Dr. Mitha.  Guess what?  Double Ear Infection.  WHAT?!  Not once did Ella complain about either of her ears, she was sleeping mostly decent and now she's got a Double Ear Infection.  Apparently quite a yucky case too according to Dr. Mitha.  Wonderful.  Do you remember Ella's last (and only other) ear infection?  It did not clear quickly, and that was only in one ear. 

Second preface:  Lower back problems have become a common occurrence in our house (but we don't really understand why).  Jay's lower back and hip went out during the week before Easter.  He saw the chiropractor a few times that week and then was starting to feel less pain and back to normal...until Friday. 

Jay was walking down the stairs and something went out (you'd think we were 80 years old)!  He knew it right away but icing and ibuprofen didn't help.  Probably only an hour or so before his walk down the stairs, I was sitting in the doctor's office and during the course of putting Ella on my lap, a "zinger" went down my back.  If you have ever had back problems, this zinger is not a good one.  The muscles immediately clenched up and I felt like I'd never make it out of the chair!

A double ear infection and both Jay and I were/are dealing with lower back issues.  It was an interesting weekend.  

Easter 2012

We had a great Easter weekend in Worthington.  We were busy running around (per usual) but we made it to sunrise service on Sunday morning which was no small feat.  A few pictures from our weekend!  Note, for some reason my pictures are uploading to Blogger sideways.  This is annoying, I know!!  I can't get it to load correctly, so you'll just have to strain your necks to view the pictures. Note, we started this day at 5:30 a.m., so I wouldn't say these are the best pictures I've ever taken.....and Warning tons of pictures in this post!! 

Ella was super excited to see what presents the Easter bunny brought for her!

From the Easter Bunny's first stop (Grandpa Gary & Dianne): Abby Cadabby Potty Book (we certainly will be reading this!), My Little Pony book of 5 puzzles, a bunny & candy!

The Easter Bunny's second stop (Mommy & Daddy): Cat in the Hat Golden Book, Cinderella Golden Book, Dora puzzle, Minnie Mouse pillow, Candy and a few other Easter trinkets!

The Easter Bunny's third stop (Kaila, Dave & Chase): Do you see the "basket"?!  OMG!  I LOVE this Easter Basket.  It's actually a bag designed to look like a tutu.  Seriously, it is adorable!  And so girly and SO perfect for Ms. Ella.  Contents were candy and bubbles and I can't even remember what other fun things were in there!  She was loving it!

The Easter Bunny's final stop (Grandma Deb):  I can't even list the items that were all in there...but I remember there were a few books, an Alphabet puzzle and loads of candy.  Ella has SO much candy!

And then - the Easter Egg Hunt!!

Yesterday I got a text from Jay (who was enjoying a day off of work at home with Ella).  They had opened and sorted all of Ella's eggs from the egg hunt and here's what the text message said:  "$12.54.  Not bad for Easter.  I told Ella how much she made and she said 'That's probably enough' "  HA!  She says the funniest stuff!

Chase Harm (4) and Ella Alice (2 1/2) on Easter morning.  I am almost positive this is the first picture we have ever gotten where both of them are looking at the camera and actually smiling.  Now if I could just get Ella to keep her hands down when taking pictures!!  But isn't this a cute picture?  They had so much fun.  And I also snapped a picture of Ella & Grandma Deb after all the festivities of the day, which I think turned out cute.  Both were looking at the camera in the first one, but when Chase jumped in for a grandkids pic, then Ella kept getting distracted!  Oh well....next time!

And the fun of the weekend continued as we celebrated (early) my sister Kaila's 30th birthday!  She turns 30 on Monday the 16th.  I baked Funfetti cupcakes with the new Duncan Hines mix-in frosting (I chose Cherry Vanilla).  Kaila was disappointed that these weren't from scratch, but hey, I was working out of my mom's kitchen and didn't want to travel with all the stuff I would have needed for baked from scratch birthday cupcakes.  They were still delicious! 

See her pink ribbon badge?  I made her wear it Saturday night during our little cupcake party  :)  I told her she needs to wear it on Monday too....and I'm going to bug her for a picture to prove she's wearing it!

First of all, ignore this old pan the cupcakes were on - oops!  Some frosting was piped on, but that got tedious and I was running out of time, so I switched to the old butter knife and added some jelly beans for cuteness.  :)

Happy Birthday Kaila!  I can't believe you will be 30.  That makes me feel old....

Hey Peeps

I may or may not have been waiting all year for my post title. We are gearing up for Easter here. Do you have those days when you think, man, I am awesome. Like so efficient and checking things off your list left and right? That's me right now. Love it when it happens. I mean I had a billion open items on my to do list when I made the list this a.m. but now I'm feeling like I have control of the craziness! For writing this post I will probably have a mess of a day tomorrow but I'll enjoy this moment. The rest of my peeps are sleeping (like how I got peeps into this post again) and you can see pics of what I have been busy with tonight.
Happy Easter and safe travels. Hope to have pics from our weekend up on Monday!