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

Spring time

I have so many pictures -- I need to get caught up on posts! As with every spring in Kansas, snowing one day, beautiful the next. Literally, it was snowing this time last week and it is about 90 degrees now. As frustrating as this is with a wardrobe and planning, I secretly like it. It's hope that warmer weather will be here to stay soon.

These pictures are from a couple weekends ago. I can't wait til we have the deck and swingset done in the back! It will be so great to have that space outside and in a fenced in yard where I don't have to worry about anyone running into the street.

Will has been on a bit of a defiant streak. (As you can see in the scowling picture above.) While I was upstairs working on something, he decided to color on his face with a highlighter. "I thought it would be fun, mom!"

Then, he got mad when we were playing outside one evening and decided to shut the garage door...as Elle was running toward it! I got to her in plenty of time and yelled enough for Will to know he was in trouble. So, he was inside by himself and I figured I'd give us both a moment to cool down. He locked the front door. In effect, he locked us out of the house. Silly boy didn't realize the back door was unlocked so when I got there he was unlocking the front door. I'm pretty sure he got the picture that that was not a good choice.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I'm disappointed that I cut Will's head off in this picture, but given the first attempt (below), I was happy with what I got!

Ellie's first haircut!

This is really not a great picture, but you can see that I was able to get EK's hair back into a ponytail this weekend. Won't be doing that again anytime soon! She had her first haircut tonight - she did a great job!

BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

The long baby layer is gone!

Random photos, updates, Ellie Kate the daredevil

Be forewarned, this post has no common theme - just notes of recent occurrences that had us laughing or shaking our heads.

First - I just love this picture of W & J. They were just horsing around, but it turned out to be a cute pic.

Eleanor is quite the fashionista. Very particular about her accessories especially. All winter long she insisted on wearing her raincoat instead of her heavy winter coat. Now, it is a very cute J&J raincoat, but really? And, she always has an opinion on what shoes to wear. Usually she chooses her boots. Very fashionable...except with spring skirt outfits. I took her to run errands with me last weekend and we found this adorable sun hat and matching sandals. And, since we were at Babies R Us, we picked up a couple new sippy cups. I'll have you know she had this cup out of the packaging before we got to the next aisle. See how she's clutching it here? Did that ALL morning. And also refused to take off the hat or shoes.

Will has always been a fairly timid kid, especially with physical adventures. Socially, the kid has no fear - talks to anyone. Ellie Kate is much less timid. In fact, she seems to LOVE speed, feeling out of control, climbing to great heights and other danger-filled adventures. I was reminded of this as we were playing outside the other evening. Will was still on his little Diego bike (too afraid to ride his real bike with training wheels because he says he doesn't know how to do it). Ellie Kate was in the big red & yellow car you pedal Flintstone-style. Will wouldn't go more than a couple pedals without putting his feet down to stop. EK put her feet up at the top of the driveway and enjoyed the ride all the way to the bottom where I stopped her from going into the street. At one point she ran her car into Will's bike on her way down the driveway. This frustrated her to no end because he was not gong fast enough for her or kept stopping. She finally succeeded in pushing him of the way. In other adventures, she's enjoyed climbing up the stairs outside the railing (thankfully we only have 5-6 stairs like that!), trying to climb into her high chair (photo below), getting up onto the chair in the living room and leaping over onto the sofa (photo below), and insisting that she now walk up and down stairs -- no sitting or scooting. It doesn't matter that she can't reach the railing. She'll hold your hand or just venture it alone. I'm guessing this is what happened the other night while I was doing dishes and heard her crash down from the top to the landing. Oops. Thankfully, it just scared her - no injuries.

Finally, I'll end with a story about Will. I told him recently that he & I would be going to see Toy Story on Ice with Go-Go & his cousins. We've known about this for quite a while, but I've waited to tell him so that we aren't talking about it incessantly! Well, the show is next Friday so we'll see how the next week or so of anticipation goes! Here are his reactions when I first told him:
W: "Is Aunt Casie going to be there?" (very excitedly)
M: "No, I don't think Aunt Casie will be there, but all your cousins will be!"
W: "I think Aunt Casie should be there."

W: "Mom, are they going to be real people?"
K: "Yes, Will. They'll be real people in costumes and they'll be ice skating."
W: "Will there be snow? I bet there will be a Christmas tree!"
K: "Well, I'm not so sure about that. It's not really a Christmas show."
W: "Mom, do you think we can meet Buzz & Woody? I would be so happy to talk to Woody! I think Buzz might be a little too excited to talk to me though."

Yep, I bet he'll be too excited to talk to you, Buddy!

Sibling love

I've been able to get a couple pictures of the kids together recently. This is a rarity indeed. They play together great, but you get a camera out and it is nearly impossible to get a good picture. They are both doing great right now -- happy, healthy, enjoying life and each other. They are blessings indeed!
Ellie Kate is talking more and more. "Frog" and "Fork" sound mysteriously like another F-word. My 32-year-old child giggles every time she says it. Will is working on reading and spelling simple words. And we're reading another chapter book at bedtime. We're tackling "A Wrinkle in Time" this time. I'm confident he doesn't get it, but he does enjoy us reading it to him, so we'll keep going with it.

Just in time for March Madness, I had to get the KU gear out.

"Will, say cheese like Mommy said!"

That's more like it!

I love the sheer joy in both their faces!

 
This is them doing a yoga video together. Will does a good job with it and Elle does her best to keep up! She's definitely bendy enough!

Oh, and by the way, she insisted on wearing the fleece jacket the whole afternoon. She's quite particular about what she'd like to wear for not even being 2 years old yet!