Tantrums & Parties

BAD: It happened.  Ella threw her first ever tantrum in public today.  Two actually.  It was mortifying.  I always look at those people at Target with kids that are screaming and melting down and think, "those poor parents- I'm so lucky that MY baby girl NEVER does that."  Oh, but it got better.  Because her stellar behavior was rewarded by getting to go to a birthday party...where she proceeded to tantrum (albeit mini meltdowns) TWO more times.  Awesome.  Who was it that told me 3 is a million times worse than 2?  Oh yeah, everyone.  HELP ME.

GOOD: We went to Gavin's (Everett's bestie) 1st birthday party!  Isn't he so cute?

One of my very favorite families!

The theme was Southern BBQ, so I made Ella a dress to match the theme. :)

Jill did a great job decorating- everything looked so cute!

 

Ella had a great time running around...

Hanging out with Everett...

And hitting the pinata...

There was even a lady with a giant bunny.  See the kids faces...is that a bunny or a dog?!

Everett was his usual chill self (I love when he does this- it's the only time he cuddles!)...

Despite her questionable behavior, Ella was a happy girl most of the time!

Fashion Sense

I've never let Ella pick her own clothes.  I may pick out two things and say, "you can wear this or that", but it's just not something she ever fights me about.  So anyway, today while I was downstairs with Everett, she went up to her room and got herself dressed...now I know exactly why I pick out all her clothes!

black & cream dress over her red & white Valentine's tutu with her sparkly silver espadrilles...on the wrong feet.

Along with fine tuning her fashion sense, she has also been helping daddy with his push ups!

Happy 7 Years!

From this...

First Dating

 

To this...

Engaged

 

To this...

 Married

To this...

Honeymoon

To this...

First "baby"

To this...

Best things that ever happened to us...

It's been a crazy 7 years, and I love the life we've created. :)

Fun with Friends

It's still way too hot around here, so we need to keep cool...

We went back to our old ballet studio!  We talked to friends with older girls that said our old studio is better for younger kids, and the girls have much more fun there.  After class at the new studio, Aviela said that she didn't want to go back there!  We really want the girls to love dance class so we're back at the old place.  We definitely made the right decision- the girls LOVE it there!

I never want to push Ella to do activities that she doesn't want to do, but I really hope she continues to love ballet because it really is one of the highlights of my week to sit and chat with a good friend while we watch the girls in dance class- they are just too cute!  Aaaaaand, I think we'll do the recital this year!!

Organizing- Wrapping Station

In my quest to get my disaster of a house just slightly organized and more liveable, I finally executed a Pinterest wrapping station idea- I love it!

I used to have all my wrapping stuff in the guest room closet, which had to be moved to the nursery when Ella moved to her big room, but now that Everett is mobile, that didn't work either.  So now it's on the back of our downstairs coat closet door.

Top shelf is my tape and scissors (you wouldn't have to put it that high, but I wanted the scissors as far away from the kids' reach as possible)...

Next is tissue paper (above) followed by gift bags (below)...

Then wrapping paper (all my Christmas paper is in a big bin under the crib)...

And last is ribbon...

Here is a photo of the closet with the door open...

We have really tall closets throughout our house so they lend themselves perfectly to those cheap Target storage cubes, which I use for all my boxes, etc.

All you need are some Elfa components from The Container Store.  Here is the blog where I got the idea, and she tells you exactly what you need.  The only addition I made was an extra media rack, which is the one on the bottom where I have the ribbon so you can pull the ribbon right from it and cut it and not have to take it out.

Every time I open the closet, it makes me happy!  I love organization!  Although you wouldn't know it from the look of my house post-two kids.

Next up...we are building a room in half of our formal living/dining room for a playroom- SO excited.  Having a formal living/dining room is such wasted space, and I noticed that NONE of the model homes we've been looking at (oh, did I mention that we are considering moving?) have them, even the 3,500 square foot models.  No one wants them anymore.  So while we will still have a formal dining room, the formal LR will be gone- yippee!  I told Gary it will kill FOUR birds with one stone!
(1) It will give me the playroom I want downstairs;
(2) It will add value to our house (perfect since we're thinking of moving!);
(3) It will create the cozy enclosed formal dining room that I wanted so bad when we were house hunting but couldn't find anywhere; and
(4) It will create an actual entryway since I hate how when you walk into our front door, you walk right into a room instead of an entry or foyer.

HERE are photos of our formal LR/DR area.  The dining room will stay exactly like it looks except it will now have walls on both sides.  The play room will be where the couch/chairs are.

Wish us luck!  These projects always end up being MUCH more complicated then we anticipate, but at least this time, we are hiring a contractor to do the framing and drywall...decided to give dad and Gary a break for once. ;)

Who's Pulling Himself Up to Standing?

This guy!

I figured I'd update this post with some photos of him actually standing...oh, and apparently he can pull himself in the crib now- first time today! (9/17/12)

Bank Robber!

We took Everett to the specialist for his plagiocephaly, and this is how they have to take the photos of his head!  Of course, he smiled through it all, and the specialist said, "my he is happy!"  He has a very mild case, and I don't think a helmet is necessary, but Gary does so I guess you may or may not start seeing him in a helmet 23 hours a day!

Ella even had a good time and didn't want to leave her animals!

And a cute video of Everett- he LOOOOOVES himself!

Ballet & Tap

We started up ballet again!  We are doing it at a new dance studio so I was worried about Ella being timid since it would be an all new environment with a new teacher, but she did GREAT!  She didn't hesitate at all going into class and listened well.  The only problem came when about 40 minutes into class, they send all the girls out to change into tap shoes (which we didn't have yet), and both Ella and Aviela thought the class was over so they didn't want to go back in!  I really wish they would just change their shoes in class because I have a feeling this is going to happen again.

Our little ballerinas...

These are their ballet hands ;)

Let's stretch before class...

We went shopping for new leotards and tap shoes after class so the girls worked up a big appetite!

And here are the girls on their very first day of ballet over 7 months ago on January 28, 2012!

Crawling...and stuff

I got a *sort of* decent video of Everett crawling (if you watch, please mute your computer because my voice is beyond annoying).

In other Everett news, Mr. Smiley Pants strikes again...we were at Costco today, and again, as I was pushing Everett in the cart, he of course starts smiling at the woman walking behind me.  She says to me, "Oh my gosh, look!  He's smiling at me!!"  I cannot tell you the number of times a day people comment that he is smiling at them, or that he surely must really like them. ;)  It's very sweet, and while I'm sure he does love all the people he smiles and laughs at, you basically just have to turn your head towards him to get him to smile.  Which is HI-LARIOUS since with Ella, I had to do handstands, bring out clowns, dance, bribe and beg to get her to smile!  Ok, I'm slightly exaggerating, but she was definitely a much more serious baby.

And onto Ella...we went to a friend's house today, and Ella decided to make me proud by hanging out in (and I'm sure stretching out) their cute toy basket!

Apparently, my girl has quite the competitive spirit.  She rarely wants to be videotaped, and typically immediately stops doing whatever cute thing she is doing the second you hold up the camera, however, a friend posted a video on FB of her daughter singing Twinkle Twinkle, and Ella was sitting next to me when I watched it.  Oh heck no was that little cutie going to upstage her...she asked me to tape her singing it!  I asked her about 5 times if she was SURE she wanted me to tape her singing because I knew she would refuse when I turned on the camera, but lo and behold, she did this!!!!

And finally, we went to the lagoon last weekend, and I got this adorable picture of Ella and one of her very favorite friends, Cadence...