Happy Birthday Uncle Steve (Big Steve)

Here's Ella wishing Big Steve a Happy Birthday!

Ella's haircut

It was time. I'm sick of her hair always looking messy, even 5 minutes after I comb it in the morning and put it up. It hurts me when she cries from the sight of a hairbrush because she thinks it's going to hurt, so she got a big haircut today.

I finally figured, well, her hair grows really fast so if I hate it, it won't be that long before it's long again.

She's so well-behaved for them... it makes for nice and even haircuts. :o)

That pile of hair was a little scary, but look how happy she was picking out her sucker! She also got 2 balloons, one for her and one for Holly.

I love it. She seems to love it too, she's been running around all happy tonight. But, she might just be excited about the balloon and the sucker. :o)

Silly wish lists...

The Toys R Us is being silly with a couple of things I wanted to put on Ella's wish list.

She picked out this Cinderella doll (which Santa already got for her). They have almost all the other princesses, but these 3 are in her room. If I put them on the list, it just says she wants 4 Cinderellas. Thanks!
Snow White
Aurora
Belle

In less than 2 weeks...

On October 29th I posted that I was starting to teach Ella Spanish. I'm happy to report, it's going quite well. We started with numbers, easy words and alphabet will be next.

Holly's 18-month checkup

I took Holly to the doctor this morning for her 18-month checkup. She's in really good health and as I thought - a little dentally advanced (thanks for the term, Mom) with her 16 teeth. About 12 are completely in, and the last 4 just broke through. If you look at the picture below, she's only missing #9 and #10.

Here's the stats:

Height = 33 inches, 90th percentile

Weight = 26 pounds 10 ounces, 75%

Head circumference = 47.5 cm, 75%

It looks like her weight was high, up until her last checkup (12 months) she was in the 75% for height and 90% for weight. She's leveling off and thinning out. And I don't think there's a place on her chart for this, but the doctor loves her eyes and eyelashes! :o)

She got 3 shots, but didn't cry until after the last one. She stopped right away too when she realized the nurse was done. Much better than Ella, who would still be whimpering in the car on the ride home. Holly's a tough cookie.

Videos, videos, videos...

Do you know where to find their movies? Look on the left side right under the picture of Mommy and Daddy... there's the most recent ones. Under that is a link to all their movies. There are 4 new ones as of yesterday, and many more from the past couple months. Happy viewing!

Leaf us alone!

It's good that Ella has so much fun jumping in the leaves... it really sucks to clean them up.

The first picture is why I'm glad I put the trash out first. The second shows the view from the street. Yup, that's a full-sized garbage can buried in there.

Ella had a ton of fun playing in the leaves, but Holly was a little scared. She's standing in that first picture. The leaves were up to her armpits, and big sister kept trying to bury her.

Ella dug a nice hole to play with right in the middle of the pile.

After 4 hours of leaf-blowing over 2 days, I was ready to play a little bit.

Happy Halloween 2009

Hope everyone had a great Halloween! We started with Ella's swim lesson, which you can see in the previous post. Then after putting up some cobwebs for the trick-or-treaters, Daddy took the girls to a few houses in the wagon. I stayed behind to hand out the treats. It's too bad it was so windy, Ella's teeth were chattering and both of their costumes had to be covered up with coats. :o(

Ella with her puppy pumpkin, and she had me carve Mickey for them.


After the girls went to bed, we stayed at home and "went" to the party next door. We had a couple campfires going - one in our driveway and one in theirs. Thanks to a chilly, but calm night, we got to visit with several of the party-goers and had a great time. All while being able to hear the baby monitor and watch the kids.

Jay was not happy about me making him wear this costume, but it made several people laugh next door. They were a little confused if we weren't right next to each other. Ha!

Swim Class - Part 2

Ella's taking another session of swim lessons. She can't technically move up because she's not old enough for the next level, but the more experience she gets in the water, the better. Also, her friend, Addison in the class with her. She was a little mischievous, I think showing off for him, but hopefully things will get a little better.

Is this the same little girl who would cry when water touched her face in the bathtub?

She's not only developed a confidence in the water, but with a whole messload of things. Who knows, maybe it's just what happens by growing up, but she's gotten more independent in the last 2 months than she has in the past 6.

Random October photos

Here are some random photos from last month. Enjoy!

A friend of mine made these hats for the girls. Thanks Danyel!

Ella loves to play the Wii Fit games when I'm done with my workout. The object of this game is to keep the penguin on the iceberg, but she thinks it's funnier to have it keep falling off.

I thought I finally found a use for Wii Music, but even Ella got bored after 5 minutes. They built up that game so much... what a bummer.

I often hear Holly playing around after her naps, but this is what I walked in on a couple weeks ago. Be sure to watch for the video of this... "Light on, light HA ha ha hah ha." Needless to say, we've moved the toy box.

Holly loves doing flashcards... and Ella loves teaching her what all the pictures are. Holly's signing ball in the first picture, and right after she was done smiling for me, Ella yelled at her and said it wasn't a ball. "No, Holly... it's jacks!"

Poor Holly looks like she's gonna fall out of this thing. She also looks a little pitiful on the bus, but anytime we take her off, she runs right back over and wants to do it again. I just wish she'd smile when she's on the stuff. :o(

Ella "taking a picture" of Holly and the two of them playing catch.

Ella saw so many kids dressed up on Friday while we were out she got a little jealous. So, I let her wear her Belle dress for the evening. She loves playing dress-up!