All about Elle

So, I'm behind on blogging - what's new? In an attempt to catch up a bit, I'm making this post all about Eleanor. She turned 3 last month and has become quite the social, independent, fun, sweet, smart, and antagonizing little lady. About what you'd expect for a 3 year old girl with 2 brothers, right? She has really blossomed at school the last few months. She's writing her name and many other letters quite well. She's singing, drawing, tracing, cutting with scissors - all kinds of fun things. Despite my best efforts, she has fully embraced princesses. She loves Tinkerbell. She prefers to have her nails painted, hair done, "lip glosh" on,  and jewelry with most outfits. While I, too, love to accessorize, she's 3! My challenge now is to fight against the princess mentality. So far, so good. She has a great imagination, is interested in her school work, loves to play outside and can hold her own with her big brother. In fact, she more often than not is the one instigating the trouble. She knows how to push buttons -- and her daddy's seem to be her favorite to push. A lot of her emotional breakdowns and perceived defiance are typical for 3 year olds exerting independence. It just drives her dad (ok, both of us) a little crazy sometimes.

 One of the greatest surprises to come with the addition of Patrick is how close Will & Ellie Kate have become. Much of it is because they are at school together now, but they play together so much more now and have a really good time. Just lately we've had to institute the "you may not touch each other for the rest of the night" rule due to some unsafe wrestling. But for the most part, they do really well together. And Ellie Kate has come to love her baby brother, too. She is the first to let us know if he's crying, wants to see and play with him, and can do spot on imitations of the sounds he makes. It's incredible, really.

a little after-school chat

Ellie Kate's 3rd birthday party was a great time. She loved getting to play with her cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. She asked for "a princess cake". Thank goodness for Aunt Casie! She made this awesome cake and all of the princesses you see around it. Pretty amazing, huh?

And she was spoiled as usual.

Since her party was the weekend before, she got to open her present from us on her actual birthday. She LOVES her new doll house.

And the weather was so nice that we got to eat her birthday dinner (complete with neon-frosted cupcakes) out on the deck. FYI, we headed straight to the bathtub after dinner!

We love love love our little Ellie Kate!

Happy 5th birthday, Will!

"I'm 5!!!!"

We celebrated Will's 5th birthday with a family party last weekend. He had a great time playing with his cousins! We had his request - vegetable soup, along with chili, hot dogs, snacks, and yummy cupcakes. He was so thrilled to pick out all the veggies to go in the soup. It was really adorable to see. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but I think it was pretty good!
As you can see, he got tons of stuff -- and he's been having such a great time playing with all of it in the evenings this week. He was pretty excited to get Monopoly and Operation. I'm so thankful he loves board games as much as I do! 

Oh my gosh, look at all this awesome stuff!

With his special request - chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles.

I love my new Woody PJ's! Thanks, Aunt Casie!

Both our kids had fevers after the party. Will was fairly subdued throughout the party, but seemed to have a really good time. Neither ate dinner. They had tylenol, lots of juice and water and went to bed. Thankfully, everyone felt better in the morning.

He had his school party on his actual birthday and had a great time there. When we got home, he was showing me all the stuff he got -- Legos, games, Rescue Heroes, and then he was ready to sit down and work on the 1st grade workbook his teacher gave him. I love this kid!
After opening presents from us, we had his b-day dinner of choice: chicken and macaroni & cheese. I tell ya, we should really be enjoying this time with such low expectations!!

A happy birthday boy with his dragon guys.

We had such a fun time celebrating this amazing little boy! I can't believe how quickly 5 years have gone.

Ellie Kate is 2!

We celebrated Ellie Kate's 2nd birthday last weekend. As of her 2 year check-up, she's 26.8 lbs and 33.75 in. tall. She jumped to the 75% for weight; still about 50% for height. Healthy girl - tubes look great.
We had a party with all the family and she had a great time! She was perfectly content to let her brother do most of the unwrapping while she watched and played with whatever he unwrapped.

We had cookies instead of cake. Aren't they cute?

I think Daddy likes this one too!

Big brother gave her bubbles. He's so proud of himself!

new tutu!

I love her trying to blow in this picture.

Cheese!

All week long as we've eaten leftover cookies, she sings happy birthday to herself :)

new backpack

new baby bed

chillin' in her new chair

Happy birthday, Justin!

Yesterday was Justin's birthday and we got to go on a date to Lawrence to celebrate! Would have been perfect had the Hawks won, but we still enjoyed our time together. Elle has been sick lately - battling ear infections. So, she's been at the doctor's Thursday, Friday & Saturday to get injections. The ear pain, cough, and insomnia from steroids has made her sleep rocky at best. She was so exhausted Saturday because she had so little sleep Friday night that she was just a mess. We got a little more sleep last night (it's all relative at this point) and she's in a happier mood today. We're keeping our fingers crossed that she'll sleep better tonight. That would be J's favorite birthday present, I'm sure!

Will picked out a present for Daddy -- a Snow White DVD. Thoughtful, don't you think? :)

Here's to a healthier, more restful week.

Will is 4!

Happy 4th birthday, William!

Will had a very fun birthday party with his friends at school on Monday. He chose pancakes for dinner at home on his birthday. (More specifically - a chocolate chip pancake with peanut butter and blueberries on top.) We spent most of the evening enjoying all his new things. We gave him a new bike for his birthday.

He seemed to like it and quickly announced: "A new big boy bike! Now I can ride it to Jason's house!" 

Hard to believe it's been 4 years...a friend told me I'd graduated from kid college. It doesn't quite feel like that. Oddly, these 4 years seem much quicker than the 4 years of college. I think I've grown about as much, maybe more. I suppose that's how life continues to go.  Here's looking forward to the next 4 and more!

Will's 4th birthday party

On Saturday we hosted Will's 4th birthday party - what a great time! 22 people in all - lots of fun with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents & Great Grandma. Will had been so looking forward to his party. I asked him what he thought we should serve (the party was around dinner time).
"Hot dogs, broccoli, and eye spy soup!" (Eye spy soup is this yummy vegetable soup his teacher serves at school. The kids play eye spy to identify the many, many veggies in it.) What a healthy eater I have! I tried to incorporate as much of this as possible into the actual menu, knowing that most other kids (and some adults) would be sadly disappointed if I served his chosen dishes. We ended up grilling, having chips, dip, veggies and fruit. It worked out just fine.

For the cake, Will requested chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, M&M's, sprinkles and oreos. Do you think he likes chocolate? I quickly convinced him we would have to cut the oreos - it was just too much. I conveniently decorated when he was not around and he forgot about the sprinkles, too. So, here is the final product.

The morning of Will's party, Aunt Casie came to take him on a "surprise adventure". The two of them went to the mall for the morning and Will got to do a Build-A-Bear for his birthday. Thanks to Aunt Casie's guidance, he ended up with a very cute "Cuddly Frog" who he now sleeps with every night. Will had so much fun and was thankfully very worn out for his nap.

We didn't get too many great pictures from the party. He was so busy playing, eating, and unwrapping gifts! I'm pretty sure we now own everything ever made related to Toy Story or Disney Cars. He was so cute as he was opening each card. He'd open it and "read" something to the effect of "Dear William, I love you very much. Have a happy birthday!" It was pretty funny. We ended up with a very happy little boy. (And I know Casie has some better pictures, so hopefully she'll send me copies and I can post them.)

Since our camping trip this summer, Will has been begging for me to sleep with him again. I decided that for a special occasion we could do a slumber party in the living room. So, after the party, he and I had a slumber party. He got to stay up late (10:45!), watch movies, play with all his new toys, and snuggle with me. By 6:45 the next morning, he was up and ready to go. I don't think either of us slept particularly well. Justin asked him how he slept and Will replied, "Not very good. Mama kept pushing me." Really?! He was the one grabbing my hands, face, hair, or shirt all night! It was a really fun time, but something we'll only do on special occasions.



The next morning felt like the day after Christmas. Will was so excited to play with all his new toys. Here he is in his new Mickey PJ's playing with his dragon castle. He LOVES it and it has sparked so much creative play for him!

Ellie Kate thoroughly enjoyed having a blow-up mattress out to bounce on. It also made it so she could climb onto the sofas by herself. She was in heaven!

All in all, I think it was quite a successful party. It marked the beginning of 2 weeks full of birthday and Halloween parties -- we should all be sugared up by November 1!



Hair-do's and Monkey Bizness

The hot water heater does not appear to be working...Justin is downstairs working on that. Let's hope this goes ok...

Yesterday Will went to a friend's birthday party at Little Monkey Bizness. He was mostly in an "I need a nap. I'm going to disagree with everything you say." mood, but he did play a little.


Ellie's hair is long enough now that I can play with it a little. I've learned I have to be very quick putting in ponytails, not to worry about straight parts or off-centered pigtails, and that the high chair (with food to distract) is the best place to style.
Yesterday was the single side pony with a ribbon bow - yay! (I think her little mouth is so cute in this picture!)


Today we tried little pigtails. These didn't stay in quite as long.


And I do believe we have a walker now. Elle has been stringing together several steps and does really well when she doesn't think about it. If she focuses on it, she's still pretty shaky. Now on to the vocabulary. The screaming until we figure out what she wants (usually a carb-filled snack of some kind) is getting pretty old.
No booms from the basement yet. I guess that's a good sign.