Ellie "isms"

Our week started off like this...around 8:15 in the morning, Ellie walks into the living room from the playroom like this...

What is this you ask? Look closely...
That would be butter! Greasy, slimey, melted butter! She has gotten very independent and likes to push a stool over to the fridge to get her milk out, and apparently this particular time decided why not grab a stick of butter too! Good grief...just when I think she's maturing she gives me another reason to think again!

Wednesday morning (did I mention how muck I dislike Wednesday and Friday mornings?)...while I am packing lunches for my two munchkins, she grabs my lipstick out of my purse. I had no idea until I got a strong whiff of Burts Bees, and it hit me..."She's got my lipstick again!"

Move over MAC and hello Cover Girl...at least until she's 10. My make-up is all destroyed and in itty bitty pieces because of little stinker here! Notice how she's digging her little finger down as far as she can into my MAC lipstick! Yikes!!! This is all before leaving for school that morning!

She's gotten to where she loves the camera. Especially when she is wearing this...

and let me add that this is a different day she felt the need to pull out the uniform...

This too short, too tight, inside out (I let her put it on herself these days) Auburn cheerleading uniform may seriously have to suddenly disappear soon. It has gotten to the point where we are fighting about her wearing it to school, to birthday parties, etc, etc, you catch my drift! Oh Ellie, life would be just plain boring without you around.

The funniest part is that she's so serious!

Ok...I don't think I have documented this yet, and this is definitely a must for the blog because she does it all of the time..."hanging on the door"

and "hanging on the couch..." She seriously watches tv like this. I will walk in the playroom to check on her, and she is doing this. Or she'll run out of the room and say, "I'm going to hang on the couch!"

Have you ever in your life?????

It's like a challenge for her, and she is holding herself up totally with her arms. You should see her little biceps. You can't really tell in this picture, but her face is red from straining so hard...hilarious.

Enough about my sister...what about me????

I can be crazy too...look at my hair!

I may not be quite as crazy as my sister, but I sure have won my Mama's heart!

Thank you for coming back, warm weather!

I also learned a new trick over the weekend...clapping! My sister LOVES the Laurie Buckner Band song "5 Days Old," and there is a part about clapping, and I just started clapping all by myself!

I clapped all night long tonight except for when Mama pulled out the camera. I decided to just be cute for the camera instead of clap!

I'm getting more and more mature by the day and learning so many new things. I talk jibberish all day, smile and laugh more than ever and just started having a touch of separation anxiety. I am down to 2 bottles a day and am adjusting well. Lastly, Sissy and I are counting down the days until our birthdays around here! We can't wait!!

Life...

is just crazy. So crazy that I have let almost a month go by without a blog post! We have spent the last few weeks going to birthday parties, having a kid-free trip to the beach, and doing a little home improvement projects that were long overdue! And of course we have been enjoying the wonderful weather!

He absolutely loves his car!

Sometimes he gets a little serious about concentrating on his driving...

He's also been practicing his walking skills and is doing great...

I can't get over how big he looks in this picture!

And her too! Probably because they are about to be 3 and 1 next month! Sniff..sniff...
This weekend my parents and Thomas came up to help with a little project...making shutters for our house! Rusty assured me after we moved into the house that he could easily make the shutters. Well, I have patiently waited for well over a year, and they are finally up!

As Ellie would say, "Tadaa!" Check this off my LONG list of "to dos" for the house.And...he also surprised me for Valentine's Day with the best kind of roses a girl could get (now that we're old..ha)...hot pink knockout roses! Woo hoo! I have also been asking for these for a very LONG time. The picture doesn't do them justice. I promise they don't look like a bed full of scraggly weeds in person. Hopefully they'll be blooming in no time!

One other little project I have been working on is converting Ellie's room to a real big girl room. We still have a few things to finish up, but here it is...

Her big girl bed! She has been doing great with her sleeping lately too. No late-night visitor anymore! I find myself awaking in the morning and realizing I got a full-night's sleep with no interruptions and can't believe it! It's wonderful.

The piece in between her beds was in my room growing up.

And that's about it! I hope to check in more often!

What We've Been Up To...

This pretty much sums it up...

She's always been quite the entertainer and still is! She is quite fond of this AU cheerleading uniform lately too (she digs it out of her dirty clothes just about every day). Poor thing has got to find something to keep herself busy since we've been couped up inside for MONTHS due to this crazy freezing cold weather!

Bedtime is still quite a challenge around here with Ellie. Did I mention how wonderful cribs are, and that if you have a child who is sleeping perfectly fine in one do NOT move them until you absolutely HAVE to???? Anyway...we usually end up taking her back to her bed about 8 times every night until Rusty has to finally spank her to get her to stay in her bed (this is usually between 9:30-10:00), and then she will finally fall asleep. The other night (after taking her back to her bed several times), we heard some rumbling around in her bathroom and found her like this...

"Mama, look, I fixed my hair!" She was so proud! She got out the detangling spray and went to town!
All we could do was laugh!

Beautiful hair and shiny lips at 10:00 P.M.! Did I mention that we also get a night-time visitor about 3:00 a.m. every morning???? I've got to get a book to figure this out!

She's also been really into washing dishes lately which is such a big help...ha! She even lays them out on the towel beside the sink like her Mama. :) Oh, and of course her shirt is off because she cannot stand for one drip of water to be on it!

Santa did well with this gift. She's been working really hard on her split!

This might be the best one yet! Gymnastics is definitely in her future!

Don't worry...this little guy has been keeping us on our toes as well...

This is what happens when Mama is sick in bed and can't move, and Daddy is in charge! Apparently he found one of those (gosh awful...I thought I had thrown them all away) Crayola "toddler" markers that are round and in the shapes of little animals. Does anybody have any of them and hate them as much as me? All they do is eat them!

We have FINALLY gotten this sleep situation under control. It only took TWO nights of letting him "cry it out!" He has been sleeping like a little angel ever since. I sort of forced this blanket on him thinking it would help "self soothe." I don't know if its helped at all, but I'm for darn sure not putting him down without it now after the success we've had and after seeing this! How sweet!

Last weekend we did do something fun and took the kids to Treetop. It was a lot like Chucky Cheese, just a lot cleaner. Actually clean enough to let Greer crawl around on the floor in the toddler area. His bud Maddox was there...

and Baby Matthew too!

Ellie had the most fun playing with her friend Mason (who is in kindergarten)! She LOVES him! Mason is Angel's son, and Angel is his Office Manager. They have had lots of fun running all over Daddy's office and getting into trouble.

That's about it for now! Now that Christmas is over, Ellie asks me every day if its her birthday! I try to explain to her when it will be, but that is very difficult to understand for a 2 year old! I know it will be here before we know it, and my babies will be 3 and 1!