Christmas Recap

On Christmas Eve afternoon Ella and Roc each opened one gift.

Then that evening we went to Brent and Hannah's for some pizza. The next morning we opened gifts at our house. Ella was not quite as in to opening gifts as I thought she would be but we still had fun. Roc's favorite gift is his new dump truck. After that we headed over to my parents house, it is quite an adventure there as there are so many people and so many gifts. Roc and I did not last the whole day as he was really fussy and not feeling well. He fussed most the early afternoon so I took him back home and he did a bit better. I keep thinking maybe a tooth is coming but so far I don't see a sign of one, so he may have just been feeling yucky from his cold. On Christmas night we were sitting around at home and decided that we were going to take down the Christmas decorations. I said we may be the only people doing this today, but oh well we figured no time like the present...
Ella's main gift was a kitchen, so now I need to find room for that in the toy room. I may move some of her toys to her room to make more space. I got a toy organizer for Roc this weekend to help make some more room in the playarea. They had them on sale at Fred Meyer and we previously got Ella the pastel one so I decided since they were on sale we could use one for Roc. He gets the primary colored one.

Christmas Program

So I have waited for this day since before Ella was born, I have always loved Children Christmas programs and couldn't wait for my own children to participate. This year Ella was old enough! She was going to be a sheep but at the last minute another girl, who was supposed to be an angel, really wanted to be a sheep and Ella didn't care too much about the sheep costume anyways so they traded. I must say she looked adorable. Hannah sat in the balcony to get some good pictures so when I get those I will post them, but for now here is what Kevin took. By the way, I am not sure they heard but she saw Uncle Brent in the balcony and said "there's Brent." Then later she also saw Rachael and said a few times "there's Rachael." All in all she did a great job for her first program.












Before the program Roc tried out for the baby Jesus spot, and we were told we could have him in the manager for part of the program, but I was not sure how that would go so he remained in the audience.

Free Fun

While this is not that exciting, it is free. If anyone does not know this the Car ride in the front of Rosauers is Free. We discovered this today. Hannah told me she thought it was but I tried it Monday and it did not appear to be. There was a quarter stuck in it and it did not work when I hit the start button, so I told Ella it was not working, but on our way out of the store today someone was on it and of course Ella noticed it and said "it's working!". The guy helping me to the car said it was free and you just had to hold the start button down. So after loading our groceries we headed back in for a ride. Ella loved it and this sure beats the $.25 cents Fred Meyer charges for the horse ride, (which is why I will no longer go in that entrance, as I let Ella do it once and now she always wants to do it). go figure!

I'd like a little potato with my cream

No never mind I'll just take the cream. Ella is too much, last night we had a baked potato bar for dinner. I had most of the toppings on the table and looked over and Ella was eating a huge spoonful of sour cream. While I laughed this is not unusual as she has been known to do this before. I had to capture a picture though, so we asked her what she was doing and she took another bite. She actually really likes butter plain as well. She will want lots of it on her bread/rolls and will eat it off and then ask for more butter. She has been know to dig right into the butter for a bite as well and will eat mayo or miracle whip by the spoonful if I let her. I think perhaps we have the next Paula Dean on our hands.

Also I think she looks quite cute in last years too small Christmas dress and red cowboy boots.

Christmas Happenings

I can't believe Christmas is almost here! I have been working on making stockings for Roc and Ella. Hannah and I decided to try and make stockings out of felt after we had fun making the ornaments I mentioned in an earlier post. I finally finished them today, actually my mom finished them as I had her sew them together, since I have never used a sewing machine before. Here is a picture of one of them. I made them both the same, but may think of something unique for each one so I know which is Ella's and which is Roc's. Now I just need to think of things to load in them. This is the first year that Ella is really getting into Christmas, so I need to do it up more this year than I have before.

Also on Tuesday we had our Third Annual Cookie Baking day, which you can read more about here. It was fun, but I think next year we will do it on the weekend and let the children stay home with their Daddy's.

Oh That Girl

So Ella's latest thing has been to ask "What are you doing?" or the infamous "why Mama?", which when she gets an answer, she follows it up with another "why?" So today I was working on my felt stockings and was having a bit of trouble stitching where I had glued some felt together. I was telling Ella that my needle would not go through. Of course she says "Why Mama?" I say because this is rock hard, she quickly responds with "it is not 'Roc hard' it is Ella hard". Had to laugh over that one.

My big boy.

Roc had his four-month doctor appointment on Friday. I forget to get the sheets with his statistics, but I do remember that he weighed 15 lbs 14 oz, which is 95% percentile, and he was in the 75th percentile for height and head circumference. The Doctor suggested we start rice cereal so we gave him his first taste last night and he really seemed to enjoy it.

Christmas Candy

I have a little bowl of chocolates sitting on the counter in the kitchen and Ella's latest thing is to bring me a piece of candy. "Here mommy have a piece of candy", she will say. While this is totally sweet of her, I believe she has an ulterior motive as of course she has another one in her hand for herself. I think she thinks if she brings me one then she will get one too. Of course I let her, I mean how could anyone refuse such a cutie.

The Tree

ok the tree got up last night without anymore injuries. Here's a picture of it. Ella seems to enjoy it and we have only had one ornament causality so far. I said maybe we should put the breakable ones up high so Ella can't get them, Kevin says you know she will just pull a chair over and stand on it and get them anyways... And what did Ella do this morning but pull a chair over to look at the ornaments. In fact as I am typing this she has pulled her chair over once again to examine our beautiful tree. It should be noted though that she did not break the ornament, who did so shall remain a secret.

No tree up yet.....

So Ella waited all day for Daddy (or Kevin as she likes to call him) to come home so we could decorate the tree. We had a delicious Arroz con Pollo for dinner (a recipe I got from the Food 911 Show) then got ready to decorate, but the tree stand was too small. Kevin went to borrow one from my dad to see if that would work and while trying to get this stand to work managed to cut his leg with the saw and ended up going to the ER. Mind you he was wearing his newer good jeans, so now I need to find a cool patch! He arrived home a few hours and four stitches later, with promises that we could decorate tonight, hopefully without further incident. I did try to get a picture for the blog, but Kevin said it was all covered with a bandage, maybe I will get one tonight :)

Also last year my mom got Ella the Starbucks Advent Calender
Tree, which I saved and filled with my own candy for her. She is enjoying doing this each night.

Cookies and Christmas Trees

Ella helped me bake cookies yesterday. Sugar ones, which I burned. I seem to either burn cookies or under bake them... Oh well at least she had fun putting the sprinkles on.

Today Kevin, Ella, Uncle Josh and Sadie (and Josh's friend Luke and his little girl) went to the woods to get our Christmas Tree. One of my Kansas friends asked me the other day if we had any Christmas Traditions, and I got to thinking that this is maybe one that we could start. Hopefully next year Roc and I will be able to join them. I think they had fun, but the girls were cold!

Nap Time?

ok so this is not the first time I have caught her doing this, but I did brave the deep snow to take a picture because as Abby now says "It's all about the blog!"
I tried to be stern with her and told her to get in bed, but it is hard not to laugh at this child of mine!

Bathtime

So the other night I put Roc in a bath seat in the regular tub rather than the infant tub. He seemed to enjoy it. Last night I bathed the little ones together. I am hoping this is ok, at least for a little while.

Thanksgiving!

So to all of you who voted that it is ok to decorate for Christmas before we celebrate Thanksgiving... Shame on you!!! :)

Ok so we had a nice Thanksgiving weekend. Rachael and Mike came home. Much to Ella's delight. She loves Uncle Mike and he had her wound up all day on Thursday! Ella loves her auntie Rach too. Rachael has taught all the nieces to say Rachael is the Best! However when she asked Ella who her favorite Auntie was she immediately replied "Stella!"





On Friday Abby, Scott and the girls came down and we hung out at my parents and Hannah led the girls in a felt craft. Which was pretty fun. Ella made a gingerbread and I made a snowflake.
They turned out pretty good. This week Hannah and I are going to attempt felt stockings for the children. So be on the look out for pictures of these.

Katie is feeling a bit better, so she even got to join us for a while!

Finally!

I have been wanting a Kone Dustbuster for quite sometime now and finally decided to buy it with the 20% linens and things coupon I had. It finally came yesterday as I of course had to get the purple color so it had to be special ordered, but they shipped it to my house for free! What a deal. I think it looks quite nice if I do say so myself.

Ella one year!

So when Ella turned one I had Hannah do a one year photo shoot. Isn't she a doll. Then did nothing with all these wonderful pictures. I decided to frame some and finally found a collage frame that I liked (not easy for some reason as most of them out there have plastic instead of glass). I got a frame for Roc too and I am planning on doing a six month photo shoot for Roc and then when he is a year do that. So be looking for these. Hannah you are probably surprised that I actually did this:)

Four Months Old

So Roc is now four months old. Do Ella and Roc look alike? I get mixed reviews from people, what do you think? Here is a picture of both of them at four months old.



Also our amazing child learned to ride a bike last night.

Ella's TV Debut

I sound and look like a dork, but she is sure cute. See this A Night of Fires in Yakima!

Roller Skating?

So tonight Kevin's work had a party at the skating rink. Ella has been talking about going skating all week. She enjoyed her first time but did not quite get the hang of it, so she did not last that long, but did enjoy watching all the other "Children". Roc actually really enjoyed himself too. I had him in the baby bjorn and he did not squawk once but just looked around at everyone and chewed on the sleeve of his fuzzy bear jacket:)

Thanks to Auntie Rach!

So it all started last Christmas, when Rachael (who drew our name) gave me a picture for Ella's room. I decided I really liked it and wanted to do it as the theme for her room. I found some wallpaper that went really well with the picture. The picture she gave us is one in a series of four, and I bought a second one a while back but have never seemed to find the other two. (they carry them at Target). Kevin painted her room purple and pink and then Hannah came over to help me hang the wallpaper. I ordered two rolls, which was plenty, but when the rolls met they were not the same size. Just slightly off but also slightly different colors and it was too noticeable to ignore. I special ordered it from Lowe's and they said they would replace it, but I had to take it off the wall and bring it back so they could send to the manufacture. I did this and got two new rolls, which they did not make me pay for and they also credited me my original purchase! But these two rolls did not match either and there was no way to get around having the rolls meet, so I did end up buying one more roll, but three for the price of one was a really good deal. ( if anyone needs wall paper Lowe's was very customer friendly and I recommend using them. They ship it for free (the stores I found online all had a fee to mail and process your order) so you don't have to go down to the store to pick it up) . So since I had all this extra wall paper and could not find the last two pictures, I decided to make my own. I am not a really crafty person so these picture took me a lot of time but I think they turned out ok and Ella seems to like them. I got 4 white shelves for a great deal at Shopko and painted them pink. I also got letters at Walmat (which they no longer carry, bummer cuz I wanted some for Roc) and painted those pink too. I also bought white frames at Shopko for my pictures. I finished making these pictures last week, so after all this the other day, what do I find at Target, the last two pictures. Yeah. I finally got all of them up this morning and now I just need to find one small thing for the small shelf. I am thinking a candle in the shape of a butterfly, dragonfly, lady bug or bee. If anyone sees a cute one let em know!. Know I just need to think of a theme for Roc's room....

Yummy Yummy!

So yesterday Ella and I made Muddy Buddies. There are delicious!