Our morning routine

Two of my favorite times of the day are when Maddie is taking her morning nap and when Ella is taking her afternoon nap. Why? Well, in the morning I get to spend time with just Ella for an hour or so and in the afternoon Ella usually sleeps a little bit longer than Maddie so then I get some alone time with just her. I think it's good that they get some one-on-one time, especially since Ella is going through this I need some attention phase right now.

Since Chris has been working at home the past couple of months, as soon as Maddie goes down for her nap, Ella and I go outside and take Cooper for a walk. Shortly after we put Maddie in her crib, Ella chimes in with, "I want to go walking now." Her favorite things to do on our walk is pick flowers and her new favorite is to collect sticks. You would think that we are gathering wood to start a small fire based on the amount of sticks sitting by our front door at the moment. The other challenge we face in the stick collecting, is that Cooper loves a good stick. Therefore, Cooper is constantly trying to pry the sticks out of Ella's hand. Ella finds this rather amusing most of the time. So, their battle for who is going to carry the stick around the neighborhood usually goes on for the entire time of our walk.

I think the best part about our morning walks are when Ella picks out what she is going to wear. Below are two fine examples;

Project Runway season 23 watch out - I think we have a future stylist in the making!

Festival food

I think the girls have picked up their dad's liking of food that can only be found at a festival. We have been to two outdoor festivals the past two weeks and Ella has already sampled kettle corn, a pork sandwich, lemonade, fresh cut potato chips, and a hot dog. Her favorite by far is the lemonade. But she hasn't tried a funnel cake or a corn dog yet so that could change. We do have one more festival that we are going to go to at the end of the month so we have to save something for that outing. I don't know, the way she guzzles down that lemonade, I really don't think anything is going to top that for awhile.

Here are a couple of pictures for the Inman Park Festival that we went to on Sunday. The girls were so good which kind of surprised us since we were there for three and a half hours. As soon as we got them in their car seats to come home, they crashed.

Ready, set, crawl!

It's official! Maddie crawled for the first time today. And here's the proof.

I'd like to be...

Sorry it's been so long. We are leaving to go skiing tomorrow and it's a bit of a mad house around here. So, here's a quick little video of Ella that is pretty cute.

Flashcard millionaire

It's hard to believe that a week ago we were wearing this...

And today it's 75 degrees and we're wearing this....

It's beautiful here this weekend. We had to make another trip to the playground. The nice weather is just another excuse for Ella to wear her sunglasses. She loves them! Chris has nicknamed her Hollywood because she wears them so much.

Chris has invented a new game that has now become a nightly ritual at our house. Actually, my mom came up with the idea but Chris has just named it, Who Wants to Be a Flashcard Millionaire. We lay a bunch of Ella's flashcards out in front of her and then ask her a question about one of them in the hopes that she can locate the correct one. It goes something like this...Chris will announce, "Who wants to be a flashcard millionaire." He's no Regis Philbin but he'll at least hum the dramatic music which I find to be rather entertaining. We'll then ask a question like, "Which animal likes to eat carrots" Ella will look around and sure enough, she'll find the bunny rabbit card. Unfortunately, there's no polling the audience. I don't think her babies or Cooper would be that much of a help. And there's no phone-a-friend. I suppose she could call Mimi and Papa since she thinks it's them every time the phone rings. Although, I don't think she needs the help. She's actually really good at it.

A couple of more picture of the girls enjoying the nice weather before it gets cold again.

Winter wonderland

Snow! For once the weather forecast was right and on March 1 it snowed in Atlanta, Georgia. I was so excited to see the snow. I really just wanted to get Ella out in it to see what she thought. We decided to start out slowly, so I took her on a walk with Cooper. I thought we were in trouble when we got to the end of the first block and she looked up at me and said, "Up-upy." This is what she says when she wants to be picked up. I persuaded her to keep walking a little bit longer and after turning the corner on the second block, she was running along (well, more like wobbling along) and trying to catch the snow. It was pretty cute seeing her run around in her snowsuit.

After looking at those pictures, I know what you're thinking....yes, Ella has a full snowsuit and yes, I know that we live in Georgia where it rarely snows and no, I'm not crazy. I'll explain - we're going to Colorado at the end of the month to ski so I had bought this snowsuit about 2 months ago on ebay. Too bad I hadn't received the snow boots yet! Until the snow, Ella had only been wearing her snowsuit around the house. I was happy that she was able to see what "snow pants" were really all about. And yes, that is also our sled. It was actually my brother's and mine when we were growing up. My parents had held onto it for all this time and gave it to us last year when we got a little bit of snow. So happy we had it! Ella loved it!

In case you were wondering, Cooper also enjoyed the snow. He ran around in it like a maniac...he ate it...he rolled around in it like he was making snow angels. He was hilarious.

Ella loved the snow. We were able to go out in it twice that day. I thought Ella would get cold and start to whine but she didn't. I really think she had a lot of fun. The next morning when Chris was walking downstairs with her she said, "I like snow....sled." That's how I know it was a hit.

Let's hope that it snows again next year so we can get some more use out of that sled!

Acceptance letter

I have a feeling that this is going to be a long one since I have a lot to talk about...

First off and probably the most exciting, is that Ella got accepted to the preschool that I liked the best! We got the acceptance letter in the mail on Saturday. I guess I should rewind a little bit. We know that Ella needs a little bit more interaction around kids her own age and decided to put Ella in preschool starting next fall. So, we started to look at some preschools that were close to us and we just stumbled upon the fact that it was open enrollment for next fall. Good thing we started looking when we did because I had no idea how competitive and difficult it can be to just get into preschool! So, she got accepted and I am so excited! It seems like such a great place and I know she is really going to love it there.

So, we've all been sick here for the past couple of days. It's really just been Maddie and me. Nothing major just stuffy noses and stuff. Ella has been very observant as we have had to use the snot sucker (I am sure there is another word for it but that's what Chris and I call it) to clear about Maddie's nose. Ella always has to chime in with, "Baby has boogers." The other day I captured these moments...

Apparently the baby dolls are also sick. I am always curious as to what Chris does with the girls when I go out for a little bit. I know he's great with them but I just like knowing what they do while I am away. The other day, Chris informed me while I was gone that he turned on some dance/techno music and him and the girls danced around the living room. I wish I could have been there to see that but I will settle for this attempt at a reenactment.

And this one just because it's so sweet.

Finally, we went out to dinner last Friday at Chick-fil-A. Okay, there weren't many places open at a quarter till five so this was the best choice. They really do have the best kids meal out there. Your child can get chicken nuggets, a cup of fresh fruit, and lemonade or apple juice. Believe me - it's the best. We were pretty happy that Ella ate three of her six chicken nuggets. She's not a big meat person, unless it's a hot dog and I don't really consider that meat. She loves her fruit and veggies. After, inhaling her fruit, we decided we would all share a milkshake. Ella would let us each of us know when it was our turn to take a sip by announcing "Ella's turn!", "Daddy's turn!", "Mommy's turn!" After Ella took the last sip she said, "Big milk."