Prayer request

Hey everyone. My grandma Alice fell today & fractured her pelvis in 3 spots. :( She is in the hospital tonight. Quite a bit of pain. Please include a little prayer for her for a speedy recovery. She's been having a rough few weeks with falls, so her recovery period will likely be long (and sadly, in nursing home care). She's tough though, so I'm praying for a swift recovery!! Here's our latest 4 generation picture (taken at Ella's 2nd birthday party). So lovely.

Weekend Wrap-Up - Father's Day 2011

We had a great weekend. I won tickets to the MN Zoo for Saturday Father's Day event, so we headed out (in the rain) but we still had a good time. Ella LOVED seeing all the animals at the zoo and is still talking about them! Her favorites were the monkeys and the bears (I think). She's been listing off all the animals she saw, so it's hard to tell which her favorites are. Few pictures from the day:






Sleeping bear with its paw over its eyes....


Ella checking out the tigers!


Checking out the fish & sharks!


Someone was ready for a nap....

Sunday (Father's Day) we made a coffee run & Ella got to sit on a big chair all by herself and she did awesome! It's amazing how much she's grown. We still do the high chair at home and when eating out, but she'll sit great in a regular chair for short bits. We had a busy day and ended the night with some delicious ice cream cake! I wanted to make my own, but ran out of time. DQ to the rescue!


Happy Father's Day 2011!

Two Year Pictures!

As promised, here are a few pictures from Ella's 2 year photo shoot last week. There were many cute pictures to choose from. It will be hard to pick which photos to print!

OMG. Can she wear a tutu everyday? LOVE!

2 year stats

Ella's 2 year wellness appointment was Friday morning. She now weighs 29 pounds and is 36 1/4 inches tall. She is 75th percentile for weight and 97th percentile for height, so she's been staying near the top of the growth charts. Everything else checked out great. She had 1 shot and Ella did fine (a short cry) but the bandaid was a "sticker" to her, so that was awesome. Like a present after a needle prick. She brought her Curious George doll to the appointment with her which was pretty hilarious. She carried him herself. I wish I would have thought to take a picture!

I guess we've officially entered the year of the "terrible twos" I don't know if I totally believe this "syndrome" or whatever it's supposed to be. But, I do know that Ella gets frustrated quickly and is VERY emotional. I hope to catch some video for proof to share with you soon.

Friday afternoon we did get Ella's 2 year pictures taken (in the stickiest, most humid day of the year). It sort of felt like a sweat-fest. But Ella did great (Jay & I were both surprised actually). I will post a link to pictures as soon as I have them. I think there will be some cute ones!

My breakthrough

Okay people. I don't think I've ever shared this on the blog, and many of you probably don't know about this. From the day Ella was born, we've (okay, after Ella was probably 6 months, "I've") been charting Ella's daily formula (then milk)/food consumption & wet & poopy diapers. What I mean is, we have an Excel spreadsheet filled out for every day of this little girl's life. What she drank/ate, what time, how much, pees, poops, baths, tylenol, any other miscellaneous things that might have gone down on a particular day. Until today. I can't believe it. But, today, I was like, hey, she's 2. If she eats something and drinks some milk, I'm feeling pretty good that she'll be okay. Wow. The previous sentence & what that means took a long time for me to be okay with. Call it being a first time mom, anal mom, obsessive (much?) mom, control freak mom, whatever. I just couldn't stop the charting! I will blame it on the nurses post-delivery. I was breastfeeding and was obviously clueless, so we were told to chart Ella's feedings (times & estimated amounts) and then also keep track of her diaper changes. Well, that just snowballed into a 2 year project....

I'm feeling proud of myself today for letting go of the chart.

p.s. I'll admit, I did track diapers today (but that's it, I swear).

p.p.s. Don't make fun. I know it's insane that I've been doing these daily charts for so long.

Happy 2nd Birthday Ella!

My sweet baby girl turned 2 today! Can you believe it? She is so grown up! We had a busy day here. This morning, we took Ella out for birthday pancakes at Blondies in Farmington. They made her pancakes extra special (she pretty much only ate the chocolate chips & the whip cream!)

This afternoon we played outside....


(Notice she's holding the bat on the wrong end! We'll have to work on that!)

And then headed to Chuck-E-Cheese for some rides, games & pizza!


She's saying "CHEESE" So cute!





Trying to get a picture together....


Helping Annie play a game

Ella & Jay driving crazy race cars

And then we knew it was time to go....

We sang Happy Birthday to Ella a few times today. And then I caught her singing it to herself later. She told a few people we saw throughout the day that today was "Ah's (Ella's) birthday" and when asked how old she was, she'd tell them 2! We are 2 proud parents today. Ella is surprising us more & more with things she's learning. Her personality (good & bad) is shining through too. Hopefully she had a fantastic 2nd (golden) birthday. Tomorrow is the 2 year well visit & in the afternoon we are having her pictures taken! Another busy day for us! Check back for her latest stats & pictures!

Ella's Second Birthday Party

We celebrated Ella's 2nd birthday yesterday with a big ELMO party!

I found lots of inspiration online and at etsy. It was a fun party to plan, and Ella was totally in to it this year. She knew her Elmo party was Sunday and she was going to have an Elmo cake and presents to open.

I didn't make the cake this year. Instead, we ordered Elmo cupcakes and I made cutout sugar cookies in the shapes of 'E's and '2's. The cookies were a hit and I thought the cupcakes turned out really cute. We had goldfish too (for Elmo's pet goldfish Dorothy) Here are some pictures from the big party.

The cupcakes

The cookies. Elmo cookies are actually oreos with elmo icing/sugar faces (bought those too!)


Waiting patiently for guests to arrive...chewing on my fingers (the eye teeth are STILL trying to come through) She napped before everyone arrived, and then I got her dressed for the party (her bows were so cute - I need to make more in different colors!)

We were so anxious we went outside to play for a bit.

This year we had everyone take a picture with Ella wearing Elmo party hats. It was a little harder this year (last year we had the Ears for the Minne Mouse party). Ella is so hard to get to look at the camera for a picture!

The party hats


So Ella is finally looking at the camera - and we're not! Of course!


I think Ella is so cute in her party outfit & Elmo hat!!

Opening gifts...

Ella was a little better about opening her own gifts, but generally, I still had to do most of the paper ripping.


She got lots of fun things for her birthday. A new trike (from Mom & Dad), a pink princess lawn chair (Debbie), her very own Curious George (Grandma Deb), a baby that has a potty chair (Kaila), clothes (lots!), Barbies (Ellingboes and Annie), an Elmo bath towel (Grandpa Gary & Dianne), and a sandbox (Grandpa Paul & Grandma Jolyn). Lots of other stuff too! She is going to have lots of new toys to keep her busy this summer.

Checking out her new sandbox!

Happy Birthday to you...


YUM! (Ella eating her birthday cupcake & ice cream)

We had a great time. She officially turns 2 on Thursday (6/2), so it's her golden birthday. We're planning a trip to Chuck-E Cheese. She's never been. I have a feeling she'll have a good time. More pictures soon!