First Snow - 2011

After approximately three thousand requests to "play in the winter," I finally gave in and spent 20 minutes getting the girls bundled up. We finally made it outside for a quick 10 minutes of playing in the fresh snow/slush.  Ellie was thrilled, she would've stayed out there for hours.  I had to promise to take her out later while Emma naps in order to get her in the house.  Emma on the other hand didn't seem thrilled with any of it, as you can see, when you fall down it ain't easy gettin back up! 

Sun and Music

Another day driving home from "school" and Ellie tells me "gasses mommy" - I think about it a second, look back at her, eyes covered by her hands and determine she needs her sun glasses.

She plopped them on, upside down of course, and was good to go.

She had her glasses, water, cereal and some good tunes.

Again, the song telling her to get her hands in the air...

After a hard day...

The picture quality is horrible but the content is oh so cute!



Finally...

One of these:

has finally made an appearance for this little girl:

(thank you clipart for the picture)

Valentine's Day

Ellie and Emma brought these home from school yesterday.



Emma - 6 Months Old!

Emma turned 6 months old on Christmas Day - my how time flies!

Today she had her 6 month doctor visit, including shots :(

Here are her current stats versus her 4 month ones:

Height: 24 1/2 inches (50th percentile) and 26 inches (ummm 63rd percentile)

Head circumference: 16 (50th percentile) and 16 1/2 (30th percentile)

And the biggie: Weight: 11 pounds 14 ounces (25th percentile) and 14 pounds 16 ounces - wait a second, that can't be correct (although that's what the paper is telling me) because if I recall correctly there are 16 ounces in a pound...anyway I saw the scale it was 14 something.  That is in the 25th percentile.

So we have been using the same office that Ellie has gone to since she was born.  Soon after Emma was born our wonderful pediatrician, Dr. Flagel, left us for the sun and sand of Florida.  We now have some goofy, overweight guy that is a slob and now instead of our nice, cute, put-together nurse we have the female version of our doctor. Jeff and I just made faces at each other throughout the appointment today.  What. A. Bummer.

And since we can't have a post without a photo I'll leave you with a few from Emma's one month photo shoot which have yet to make it to blogland...

Emma sleeping.

Ellie and Emma.

The family.

Emma and daddy.

And one of Ellie and her daddy.

Christmas Art

Ellie created this little masterpiece at school this week.  The antlers are her hands (look at her pointer finger on the left hand...creepy...luckily, that is not an accurate depiction of her finger) and the head is made from her foot.  Notice all the coloring/drawing in the background.



She Doesn't Miss ANYTHING

First - thank goodness for poor quality cell phone pictures.

Second - this little girl doesn't miss anything! She pulled at her onesie until the buttons popped allowing her to pull it up. 



Driving home from daycare...

Driving home from daycare last night a song was on the radio with the lyrics "...hands in the air..." and I turned back to look at Ellie and this is what I saw:

She sat like that the entire song...of course she was shaking her head and bouncing her legs aka dancing.

Yes, I pulled over to take the picture!



Beds.

I stopped home over lunch today and was pleasantly surprised to see that Jeff had not only cleaned the house but also decided it was time to get out the tools and transform Ellie's crib to her toddler bed. I have this sneaking suspicion that she will fall out more than once.  I also suspect she'll be getting herself out of bed to play with her toys at 2:00 a.m.

Speaking of playing at 2 a.m., last week she was crying for what seemed like forever, I finally roused Jeff enough to go in and see what the problem was; after a long battle of trying to get her down he came back to our room and went back to bed.  I asked what was going on since I could still hear Ellie, this time goofing around instead of screaming.  He said she wanted to play and he was tired of dealing with her so he left her to play.  Umm...okay...so he went back to bed???  I, on the other hand was rocking Emma and determined that our 21 month old could not have the run of the house (or at least the second floor) while we slept peacefully.  After getting Emma back to sleep, which was tricky given that Ellie kept running in and out screaming and playing, I had the task of getting her back to sleepy mode and down for the last few hours of our night.  Parenting, oh so fun.

And...while I'm talking about beds, Emma also is moving up.  Santa delivered a big girl crib (he stopped by early this year). So she will soon go from sleeping in this:

to sleeping in this:

Not to mention she was sleeping in our closet (don't worry, we have a big closet, it even has a window in the event of an emergency).  Once her bedding arrives (pictured below) she'll be sleeping in the guest bedroom.  That's our next project - turning the guest room into Emma's nursery.  

Here's the bedding:

I was a sucker and bought the rug and curtain too, thank goodness for holiday sales.  And to think, it all started with a bed skirt...

Santa 2010

On Friday Jeff and I took the girls to Bass Pro Shop to visit Santa.  It also helps that they have a Winter Wonderland where the children can play and color pictures and that their pictures with Santa are Free! Yep, you heard me, not $9.99 or $15.99 like the mall but FREE - you even get a free kids meal at the restaurant.  Last year Jeff took Ellie one day while I was at work so I guess since we've now gone two years in a row it's pretty much a tradition.

I uploaded both pictures, for those of you that enjoy those pictures in the back of magazines where you have to find the subtle differences in a set of photos then this is for you. 

Calendar

Aunt Steph received a calendar from Aunt Sam last week and emailed it to me.  I thought it was really cute and wanted to share the pictures of my munchkins even though the picture quality isn't so great.



Halloween 2010

Grandpa and Grandma Kilstrom came to visit the weekend before Halloween as did Uncle Jon.  We decided to check out Night Eyes at the zoo.  Ellie was hilarious, she was very friendly and willing to talk with or high five anyone. 

Here are a "few" pictures from our trip.

Grandma helping Ellie get dressed up in her lady bug costume. Uncle Jon keeping a close eye on the preparations.

The family.

Hey people!

Uncle Jon, Grandpa and Ellie.

Hugs and kisses for baby kangaroo.

 

My little pirates.

Feeding the very hungry goats.

Umm...candy for me? Thanks!

Petting the horse.

Don't even think about taking this sucker or my candy necklace!

What a big girl!

I see you snappin pictures of me.

Minnie Mouse - high five!

Umm...scary.

The family.

Ellie needed a rest so she sat down on this wall. Next to her was a little girl eating her M&M's.  Ellie loves other kids - she always wants to give them hugs and talk to them.  Well this girl was having none of that, she was on a mission eating her candy.  She seemed sure Ellie was going to take it.  Little did she know Ellie just wanted to be her friend and could care less about her candy.

Ellie started out a few feet away. 

She progressively got closer.

Still the fairy wanted nothing to do with her.  Ellie thought about it and decided...

Maybe if I offer her some of my treats she'll be my friend.

Still nothing...oh well, it was worth a try. 

Emma was wore out after all the excitement.

So was Ellie, a little relaxation reading her book was in order.

The doll in this picture was mine when I was a little girl.  They are about the same size.