Family Weekend

This weekend was full of family time.

Friday we had lunch with Ellie's Grammy at TGIFridays.  Ellie has such a special bond with all of her grandparents and it's so sweet to see them together. 

We had a lovely lunch and Ellie was mostly well behaved. 

After coming home from lunch, Ellie went down for her nap, but it didn't last long.  She must have bitten her tongue during her sleep and she was not a happy camper when she got up.  Poor little sweetie's face was swollen from crying... :(

 After Ellie calmed down we went for a bike ride down to the pool and she (as usual) had a great time swimming and practicing holding her breath under the water.  I mount my phone on the bike so that I can keep track of my time and mileage and snapped a picture before we took off.



Moving on to Saturday:

We started the day with a light breakfast and then headed to the Farmer's Market to search for berries.  There were no blueberries or strawberries to be had so instead we picked up the most delicious Costa Rican coffee.  I usually hate black coffee, but this stuff was amazing.

After coming home Ellie played while Mommy and Daddy caught up on some reading.  Casey is currently reading Inferno and I'm currently reading AWOL on the Appalachian Trail.  So far I'm LOVING the book and it makes me want to get back into hiking and camping.  I love being outdoors, but Houston isn't the best city for outdoor activities, especially not in the summer.  I'm excited for when it cools off.
After Ellie battled her nap for 45 minutes, I finally got her out of her crib and we took a little nap on the couch.  Sometimes you just need a couch nap.  Side Note: Our little girl takes after her Daddy and is such a loud snorer.  Love it though..

 While we were napping, Casey was being productive and built me a fabulous cedar raised bed so I can start growing our own vegetables!  YAY!!  How amazing is he?  













Saturday afternoon, Casey's parents came over and we watched The Lorax and then went to the pool.  I have to say, we are going to be total pool bums this summer.  There's just no good reason why we should spend every day there.  It's almost 20 degrees cooler next to the pool because of the fountain and splash pad.  Here is Ellie with her grandparents heading into the pool.  She looooooves 1, 2, 3, WEE!!

 After the pool we headed to Texas Roadhouse up in Conroe.  I have to say... this was the most difficult dinner we have had in a while.  Ellie was in rare form (probably from lack of a good nap) and she was  WILD.  She was thrashing about and refusing to sit and eat.  She ended up sitting in my lap most of the time while I ate my steak, which was fine, but BOY were we all worn out by the time we left.  Luckily I have both of her favorite bedtime books memorized so we were able to do bedtime prayer and books in the car before she fell asleep.  That made putting her in bed so much easier.

On Sunday we were SUPER productive.  We got up and I immediately got to work cleaning the house and doing laundry.  I was able to clean the entire house AND got Ellie down for a nap before Casey's best friend Andrew came over.  We hung out with Drew for a few hours and then he and Casey went to Choice Tee to hit some balls.  Ellie woke up from her nap and we headed to Lowe's to find some plants for my new garden!  I cannot say enough how much I love the Ergo and how much Ellie loves it as well.  If you are a mom to a kid under the age of 3 - get one of these things.  You can carry a kid up to 45 lbs and it makes shopping so much easier.  Ellie hates riding in the cart and I hate it as well because she's constantly pulling things off of the shelves or racks and wanting "dow!".  The Ergo makes all of our shopping trips easy and fun.  We ended up getting yellow bell peppers, jalapenos, two kinds of tomatoes, zucchini, crookneck yellow squash, strawberries, and ... something else I can't remember now.  I can't wait to plant everything! 

We ended our perfect weekend by having meatloaf, mashed potoates, and green beans for dinner with Andrew and then we watched "Naked and Afraid" which may be my new favorite show.  

Hope everyone has a fantastic week!

Our Little Fish

Eleanor loves the water and I could not be more thrilled.  I loved the water as a kid and I've always hoped that I would have a kid who was as comfortable in the water as I was.

My daddy graciously offered to pay for swim lessons for Eleanor so we started her at FINS this week.  She will go once a week and when we took her for an evaluation, she was already good to go for the 2nd level class, Baby Fins 2!  YAY!  She is SUPER comfortable in the water, fearless, and is great at going under the water.  She always pops up smiling and clapping for herself.

She's already learning how to climb out of the pool, push up from the bottom of the pool, kick, and float on her back.  We are so proud!

These are also in another post, but I'm going to post them here as well.

Getting ready to go to class in our new bikini!

 With Mommy in the pool

 Getting ready to dry off - she didn't want to get out!

Yesterday we headed over to our neighborhood pool only to remember that they are closed on Thursdays.  So we biked back home and I got out Ellie's Whale Pool and we had some fun splashing around.  She practiced blowing bubbles and was even able to pop up and hold on to the side when she tripped and fell face first into the water.  Great job Ellie!  Will keep you guys updated on her progress.  

Loving these summer days with my sweetie.

A Few New Firsts!

This week we had a few new firsts for our sweet girl.

First legit pigtails.  

I'm not going to lie, sitting Ellie down in front of my, brushing her hair, and pulling into pigtails was a seriously surreal feeling for me.  I realized in that moment that I had a little girl and that the rest of our lives would be spent doing this kind of thing. My heart melted and I sobbed.  I am a loser.

 First trip to the Library

We didn't check out any books, but we sure did have fun at story time with our friends!

 First Swim Lesson

More on this later...

First Time Eating Cereal

Couldn't get a picture of this one because Ellie moves so much when she's eating, but she loved it!

Play Dates!

I am blessed to have the BEST playgroup mamas around and I don't think I tell them enough how thankful I am for them and of course their little darlings.  This week we did two playdates.

The first was at the Conroe Library for Story Time.  I had never taken Ellie to the library for fear that she would run around like a maniac and disturb people, but it turns out, this was the perfect place!  The story time had a "Garden" theme and the kids were invited to act out being a seed, growing into a plant, being an insect, and just generally running around and dancing.  It. Was. Awesome.  Ellie, L., and J., had SO much fun and their mamas did too! 

Next up, we headed to Incredible Pizza yesterday for some lunch and playtime.  Just like last week, Ellie had a blast with her friends!  Her favorite thing was the Race car, again.  I couldn't get her out of that thing!  

 Ellie and Joshua's date!  Just know that you guys will NOT allowed to go parking together when you get older...

 Riding on the turtle

 Going over the bridge 6,286,135 times.

 VRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!

Miss Manners

"More, please!  Thank you!"  and she signed the first two words - yayyyy!!

Our little lady is finally using her words!  Excuse the "CHEESE!!!!" at the beginning, she saw me get my phone out and I always tell her to say "cheese" when I'm taking a picture.  :)

Ellie 18 Month Update!

Well, our baby girl is now officially 1 1/2 years old.  We went for her 18 month check up this morning and it went great!  We thought she had to get a vaccination, but she doesn't have to have it until September.  So here are her stats:

Height: 32" (68th percentile)

Weight: 24 lbs (57th percentile)

and finally.. sigh... Head Circumference: 44.4 cm (5th percentile as usual)

Other than a slight concern with the constant heat rash on the back of her knees, Dr. Kozak said Eleanor is doing fantastic!  She has exceeded all of the minimum 18 month developmental goals and is almost through the minimum 2 year goals.  YAY!  We love our clever girl.  

As for the appointment itself, I cannot say enough about how great Dr. Kozak is.  He is thorough and really takes time to listen to your concerns and questions.  Ellie still isn't sure that she loves him, but Casey and I sure do.  When you are a parent, you really appreciate a good pediatrician.  Ellie did give Dr. K a nickname.  Apparently his name is "Choppy" because when he left the room for a moment she said "Buh Bye Choppy!  Bye Choppy!".  I couldn't stop laughing.

Here we are before the appointment and then in the room waiting and Ellie being curious

" Not so sure about this appointment, Mom, but ripping paper is fun!"

Ellie's Favorites:

Food: Bananas, Chick Fil A, Carrots, "Hopkey" (Ice Cream)
Toy: Baby (her Cabbage Patch Doll), Kitty (Sully from Monsters Inc), Elfant (Horton), Puppy (the Fur Real Dog that my Mom got her for Christmas), and of course "Nunny" her bunny best friend.
Hobbies: Swimming (more on that in the next post), Dancing, Coloring
Color: Purple?  She tends to gravitate toward that color.
Television Show: Yo Gabba Gabba... what else?
 Movie: She recently watched Wall-E and really seemed to enjoy it.  She also loves Monsters Inc. and anything with Puppies or "Kee-Kats!"
Dislikes: Making her eat when she doesn't want to, not getting "up" when she wants, in general, not getting her way.
Sleep: Ellie still sleeps like a champ and rarely cries when we put her down at night.  Naps are another story.  Apparently they would pat her back until she fell asleep at daycare, which is great, but now she expects it.

That's all for now folks!  DisneyLand in two weeks - woo hoo!!

Incredible Pizza is... Incredible!

Last Thursday we took all of the kids to Incredible Pizza in Conroe.  We had a BLAST eating and playing and the kids had fun too! (haha).

First we ate from the HUMONGOUS pizza and wings bar (FYI, they give a teacher discount!) and Eleanor seriously ate the most I've ever seen her eat.  The pizza and wings were delicious and I loved that they had 150 flavors of sodas.

Ellie after 4 slices of pizza, pasta, and 2 helpings of veggies.

Ellie posing by the classic car. Riding rides - practicing for DisneyLand!

Her new favorite thing- cars!

 Me and Rylan playing in the playplace!

After playing in the play place and Jen, Ab, Lizzie, and Taylor riding Go Karts, this happened....

 If you don't know me or Jen, you have no idea how competitive we are.  Also, we love guns.  Laser tag is ideal for us.  We had a blast as "Peggy Sue" and "TX Ranger" and played like we were on the front lines of a war.  Luckily, the other players got into it as well (including a 40 something dad who was sliding down rails and diving behind barricades - it was hilarious!) and we had SO much fun.

After Laser Tag, the kids were starting to get sleepy so we did one last activity and headed home.  Abby REALLY wanted to go ice skating, so I took her in the "ice" skating rink (it was really just plastic, but very slick, so it was similar to ice.)  We left around 9:45 and I was surprised that we had NO meltdowns!  Incredible Pizza is SUPER fun and I can't wait to take Ellie back.

Oh and I mentioned that Ellie is now obsessed with cars... here is video proof.  We played a racing game and she was REALLY good.  So much fun!