Football & Wine?

This weekend we went to a football party/ playdate with some friends in Ladera Ranch.  The poor husbands hardly got to watch the SC game because the babies were crazy all over the place!  For me though, it was the perfect way to watch football...with girlfriends, lots of food and lots of toys to entertain the kids! ;)

After that party, we left Ella with Alex and went to a wine and cheese party at our friends' house.  It was such a great idea...everyone was told to bring their favorite wine and cheese pairing (ok, Gary and I know nothing about wine and cheese pairings so we just brought a cab and brie).  They put brown bags around all the wine and numbered them, and then numbered the cheese.  Everyone tasted the wines and cheeses (you were supposed to taste a wine then go taste the coordinating number cheese), gave each a score, and then voted on their favorites.  The couples whose wine and cheese got the most votes got a prize!  Really cute idea, and Jen made a bunch of amazing appetizers like prosciutto wrapped asparagus, tri-tip on crostini with mustard sauce and blue cheese and bacon wrapped dates.

Sunday, grammy and pop-pop came to visit Ella and take us out for Gary's birthday to Lucille's BBQ (yum!).  They brought Ella's birthday present from great-grandma since she won't be able to make it out from Arizona to Ella's party.

Ella was very excited about all the pink tissue paper...


She read the card, and slowly took out each piece of tissue paper...


She looked up at grammy and pop-pop to make sure it was ok to rip into the gift, and then immediately started playing with the fun Melissa & Doug puzzles...


She thought pop-pop was pretty funny...


And she like playing puzzles with grammy...


Great-grandma got her 5 puzzles, but we only opened 2 of them, both of which she loved...

Happy Birthday Daddy!

This was Gary's birthday weekend (his actual birthday is Monday), and Ella and I had nothing planned...in my defense, I threw him a big surprise party last year!  I asked him if he wanted to get a babysitter, go to a fancy dinner, buy something nice, do something fun...anything.  He said, "I just want to watch the Penn State Game with Ella, have a beer and eat Cannelloni."  Silly boy. He didn't even want a cake or apple pie...just rice krispy treats!

Ella was a little too fond of daddy's beer bottle...


The rest of the weekend went like this:

Ella had her friends, Kaitlyn, Hannah, Ryan and Quinn over to play.

She woke up from her nap looking like Kate Gosselin (pre-extensions)...


While Rylee was innocently sleeping in her DOG bed, Ella (who has decided the dog bed is her favorite place to chill) got annoyed that Rylee dare fall asleep in her own bed and did this (notice the hand on the hip in the second photo)...


And life AS WE KNOW IT is gone...Ella has finally learned to do this...

Which led to this...


Ella went to IHOP for breakfast in her pajamas (and tutu!) early Sunday morning and had pancakes for the first time. Then we went to Costco where Ella had chocolate and vanilla frozen yogurt for the first time.

We went to grandma and grandpa's house for a birthday dinner on Sunday night. Ella flew with grandpa...

Helped Rylee eat a dog treat (I know, gross)...

Helped daddy open his present...

And blew out the candles on the apple pie...


HAPPY BIRHTDAY DADDY, WE LOVE YOU!

The Orange County Fair

We took Ella for her first visit to the Orange County Fair!  I heart the fair.  It reminds me of childhood.  I want to take Ella every year.  The funny part was that she was not so sure about the animals in the petting zoo, but she LOVED all the people walking around!

Very tentative while grandma feeds a goat...





We caught big mama during feeding time...the little piglets were SO cute!

Ella watched from afar...

Gary had to milk the giant cow...

My dad and I got those giant turkey legs for dinner...

We found a booth with tons of stuffed animals, which Ella found much more appealing than the real animals!



Ella's typical stance...feet up on her stroller bar, laughing at all the people!

Another Weekend

On Friday, Ella and I went to the pool so she could play with her friends, Kaitlyn, Ryan and Logan.  It was her first time back in the pool since Vegas, and she did fine.  She didn't seem to like it as much as she did in Vegas, but she didn't scream either so that's a success in my book. ;)

Friday night, Gary, Ella and I went to Pomodoro for dinner, and then Devon and I went to a scrapbooking party at Marlena's house...which is funny since neither Devon nor I scrapbook...we've come to the conclusion that scrapbooking does not like us.  So it turned into a wine drinking party, and it was really fun!

On Saturday, Jen, Kylen and Paige stopped by, but Ella was sleeping so she didn't even get to play with Paige!  Paigey had lots of fun with Rylee though.  Gary, Ella and I went to the main pool in the afternoon (Ella WILL turn into a water baby!), and Gary took her in both the baby pool and big pool.  We started in the baby pool with no floatie...


Some practice floating on her back...

Then a little floatie time in the big pool...

Followed by a little dunking time...

Which wasn't super successful because Ella kept trying to drink the pool water!


The rest of the weekend involved dinner at Kimera, Sunday brunch, lots of errands, walks and Ella falling on her head about 25 times (seriously, when do you need to worry about all the falling?!!).  I bought some new clothes for Ella over the weekend (she is officially in 12 month size), and I just had to get some pictures of her in the adorable new plaid shorts I got her!



Oh, and two more things...in just a day, Ella is crawling on all fours A LOT. Much more than her army crawl (so I guess I was wrong, and she IS going to crawl). Two, her hair is out.of.control. Every time she wakes up from a nap, she has major bedhead sticking out all over the place!