Little Girl Turns 2

Originally when I started planning Ella's second birthday party it involved a lot of people, food and games but the more I tried to plan around all those people and their kids the more I got stressed out of my mind!

Food for all those people, seating, and games for all those 2 and unders (have you ever tried to plan games for kids that young that are fun for both the kids and parents? Not even possible).

And then trying to plan all that when I was barely scraping through the day with two little ones.

It just wasn't going to realistically happen.

But then it hit me that Ella wouldn't really care if there was a ton of people there, a couple friends would make her just as happy.

She has two cute friends who are within a month of her age that she really loves to play with because they like the same sorts of things that she does, so I scratched all my big party plans and cut down to just two families and instantly I felt much less stressed and I knew she would love it.

We celebrated by going to a trampoline and bounce house place and then having pizza and cake at our little apartment place afterward.

It actually turned out perfect that we only had those two families come because Ella got sick right before the party and so we had to postpone it two weeks and it was much easier to coordinate that with two families rather than several families.

The night before the party, Adam and I were up until 2AM decorating our little hearts out!

We were dead tired but also dancing around because we couldn't believe that OUR daughter was about to celebrate her SECOND birthday!!

And I would like you to know that we did not fail in the cliche parent department this year with our gift.

We got her a Cozy Coupe that seems to be a classic 2-year-old gift, I mean, I got one for my second birthday 23 years ago.

We snagged this one at a kids consignment shop for $20, which meant we could get her even more gifts.

It is ridiculously fun to shop for kids toys.

 She insists on having Fenton ride with her in the car because they are best friends and all and what little brother wouldn't love a ride with his older sister?
He likes it for about 2 minutes and then gets tired of Ella's endless wiggles and maniacal laughter and so he starts to cry and then Ella gets mad that I'm taking him out because I'm ruining the incredibly fun time that they are having together.
Although, Ella has been known to reach over and unexpectedly shove open the car door so that Fenton will go toppling out when she no longer wants him in there.

Brother-sister relationships are kind of the best.

A Little Trip

I love these pictures from a trip we recently took to Salt Lake but I feel overwhelmed with the idea of having to write about it because we were there for the funeral of a rather wonderful grandmother of mine, and I don't really feel like writing the thoughts and emotions that are connected with her funeral.

So I'm not going to.

Although our reason for being there was sad, it was so fun to get to see everyone.

There were about 40 people stuffed into one house during the days, all laughing and playing and eating together.

Ella was in heaven running around with all my youngest cousins and chasing my grandparents' Siamese cat.

Ice cream was eaten in abundance and football was constantly on the tv.

^The cute dark-haired boy is my youngest cousin, Johnny, who is only two weeks older than Fenton.

Johnny is very happy and social, which both amused and freaked out Fenton, whose calm self can only handle so much craziness, even though he lives with the queen of the social crazies.

 ^When your dad is a Packers fan, this automatically means that you are too.

^Oh, that floor!! 

I love it so much! 

We are going back there for Christmas and I'm already plotting to take pictures of Fenton on that wonderful tile!

After the funeral we spent a couple days in downtown Salt Lake.

This included a trip to Bruge's Waffles, which is AMAZING.

You must go if you are in SLC.

You MUST!

Also, a trip to IKEA.

Oh, IKEA.

That place is such a problem.

It's one thing to walk into a store and have everything be adorable, but then to have it all be so dang affordable as well, I was throwing all sorts of stuff we didn't need into the cart.

And now our home looks so cute thanks to all those things, it makes me want to go back now and get more.

Like I said, such a problem.

^Even Little Girl liked IKEA (who doesn't?)

And we visited Ella's beautiful aunt Maddy and collected leaves.

Ella really loves leaves, she loves to collect them.

I love seeing the world and things as simple as leaves through her eyes.

And it turned out that we drove home on Ella's birthday and so Adam's grandparents made sure to give her some cake, which she kind of loved!

Although, we have some serious candle-blowing-out skills to work on before next year.

The Latest

 The latest: 

We survived 4 whole entire days with Adam being out of town, and it was during the weekend which is when he is usually home with us, so we felt pretty accomplished for getting through that unscathed! 

It involved eating at quick cheap restaurants every single night so that I wouldn't go insane trying to make dinner with two children crying for my attention and it was the perfect excuse to get out of the house, we try to be outside of the house as much as possible to avoid craziness.

One of the places we went to was this hole-in-the-wall Indian place that was way yummy, Ella loved it because "chickin" is currently one of her favorite foods.

There was an old bollywood movie going on in the corner and everything.

And my beautiful friend, Krislyn, who is one of the most selfless people I know, came and helped me with the kids on Saturday and Sunday when I was starting to go stir-crazy, it was so nice to talk to another adult after several days of only having kids for company.

Ella came over to me with the TV remote control in her hand.
She knows the remote control is a no-no.
She held out the remote to me and said, "Yes oh no?" (yes or no?) which is a question I ask her when she is doing something she shouldn't, "Is that a yes or a no?"
"That would be a no," I told her.
"Yeah!" She exclaimed, so proud of me, "A no!" And handed the remote to me.

Fenton's two bottom teeth have poked through, they are adorable.

And he has to have his clothes changed several times a day due to drool.

I was about to head out the door but I couldn't find a certain pair of shoes that I needed and I asked Adam, as I searched the living room, "Have you seen my shoes?"
Ella was in the living room and heard the question and she immediately walked over to a basket of shoes that we keep right by the door and pulled out two mismatched flip flops and put them side by side on the floor for me so that I could slip them on and run out the door.
Almost died over the sweetness of that and I felt so sad that I couldn't wear the flip flops since it was cold outside and I was in Sunday dress.
I thanked her profusely and when she saw I had grabbed another pair of shoes she carefully put the flip-flops back in the basket.

 I am in love with the musical West Side Story.
It is just fantastic in so many ways.
And I especially love the song "Maria" in that musical.
I've been singing that song to Ella and Fenton since each of them was born and we regularly listen to it in the car.
The other day we were driving and I started singing, "The most beautiful sound I ever heard, Ma-," and then I paused to see what Ella would do, to see if she had paid any attention at all to that song as we listen to it in the car and sure enough this little sing-song voice in the backseat responded, "-RIA!!!"
I died of pride right there and then.


 And this article, called Happiness, Your Heritage is absolutely beautiful, I love it!
When I read it I feel like every part of me just wants to sing because it's so true
(that was a cheesy thing to say but that's just what it feels like)!

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