Birthday Party Teaser!

She IS the icing on the cake!!!!

Family Movie Night

Recently the boys had become way to dependant on TV for their entertainment. It's hard for it to not be a major part of it with them being sick, mommy needing to get things done and the weather being cruddy. But....I wanted to change that. So instead of TV being a daily habit we are now treating it more like...well a treat! In the mornings they do get to watch a half an hour of Curious George, but then the TV goes off.

Michael wanted to make our first family movie night really special for the kids. So he make tickets for them using the picture for the movie we were watching. The boys had to present their tickets at the door. The sign says, "Grand Opening! Martin Family Screen House"

After they passed their ticket through the door they got to go into the "movie theater"...

and redeem the second half of their ticket for one container of popcorn and one container of candy.


The day before our movie night Jack and I made a stop at The Dollar Store to stock up on candy. I picked out 4 different kinds, (I did buy other stuff too) but then when we got home there were 5 options. I checked my receipt and I did pay for it, but I just didn't put it in the cart. I wonder who did! :)

We had never seen How To Train Your Dragon before. New movies make Jack nervous so this is how he spent the first 5 minutes of the movie, but he soon warmed up to it. It was a super cute movie and it was fun getting to hang out in bed with the boys eating junk food. Ella was up for the first part of the movie...she loved eating popcorn, surprise surprise! ;)

Enjoying Her Birthday Brownie!

Here's a cute video of Elle enjoying her birthday brownie. You can hear Owen asking to blow out her candle and me having to explain that it's not his birthday it's Ella's. Ella also gives a quick version of her cheesy grin...my favorite! Love how she claps for herself at the end. She's such a ham!

If you're checking this on FB click here.

New Haircut!

On the afternoon of Ella's birthday Daddy watched the kids to I could go out and run some errands and get my haircut. It's been driving me crazy for a little while now. I can't stand it when it gets any sort of length. Poor Michael he just wants me to have long hair again like I had when we got married, but I just can't stand it. It's so nice and bouncy and manageable when it's short.

Ella's First Birthday!

Is she just the cutest things you've seen or what??? I could just scoop her up and smooch her!

Yesterday we took Ella in for her 1 year check up. She weighs 19lbs 14.5oz. She's our heaviest baby yet at a year old. I thought Owen was only 16lbs, but I just looked back on the blog and he was actually 18lbs 1oz. Jack was our lightest baby at year old...17lbs 13oz.

No wonder she's our biggest baby...this girl is an eater! Can I get a woot woot!!! With Owen being so picky with food it's seriously so nice that she just plain enjoys it!

Time for birthday brownies!


Mmmmmm!

Yum yum!

Oh yeah they were THAT good!

Sweet one year old girl!

She's 365 Days Old!!!

Remember City Slickers? The mom calls Billy Crystal's character Mitch every year at the time of his birth and says something like, "Your 456 months today!" I really don't measure Ella's age in days...I just thought it might be funny! :)

Anyways....my baby girl is 1 year old today! How can it be?

Right now Ella...

- Is walking around like a champ...she's even tried to run a couple of times.

- Loves to be chased or gotten. If I say, "I'm gonna get you!" she turns around and takes off. She also loves it when I tell her to "put 'em up" and then pretend to box with her. She laughs and laughs!

- Is really into carrying everything around. It's not enough to master walking...oh no...now she must master walking and carrying at the same time. Her favorite thing to carry for a while was the full container of baby wipes, but now it's pretty much anything she can get her hands on.

- Still loves sleep, but she also likes to be busy and hates to miss out on the action so now she cries when I take her bed. She only fusses for a minute or so and then it's off to dreamland. She's still taking 2 naps a day. Her second nap is totally dependant upon how well her first nap is...if she has a bad morning nap, her afternoon nap will be pretty much nonexistent. Doesn't make sense to me, but that's how it is! She is still super content when she wakes up and will most of the time just hang out until I go in and get her.

- Is eating everything! She loves chicken, beef, tuna, bread, veggies, fruits, dessert, cereal, pasta, potatoes...etc! You name it she'll eat it!

- Has 8 teeth....4 on top and 4 on bottom.

-She has started to do the motions for blowing kisses...she pats her mouth over and over again with her hand.

- She can climb up the stairs all the way to the top...with me behind her. It takes a L O N G time, but she makes it.

- Is still nursing 5 times a day and showing no signs of quiting anytime soon. I have started giving her a sippy everyday, but she really doesn't know what she's supposed to do with it. She just recently started saying, "Ba ba" when I sit her in my lap when it's time to nurse.

- Got so excited to see me last night when I came home from running some errands that she clapped over and over again.

It seriously seems unreal to me that my baby girl is 1 years old. She has been such a wonderful blessing to all of us!

Love you Ella Grace!!!

Jumping Jacks

Here's the video of Owen doing Jumping Jacks for the first time. As you can see Ella is just toddling around great! If you're checking this on FB click here to see the video.

Cold Day & Cold Treats!

On Thursday we took the kids to Seahurst Park in Burien. It was too gorgeous to stay home even though all of us are still getting over colds.

It might have been beautiful, but boy it was still pretty chilly out. Thankfully it wasn't really that windy or we probably would have just eaten in the van.

Of course the kids don't ever spend much time eating when we pack a picnic lunch. There's just too much stuff to explore and do and eating is just so boring! That and sandwiches don't really taste good when they actually have sand in them.

The boys had tons of fun climb over and on the drift wood.


Owen just loves challenging himself physically...he's been jumping, flipping, falling, twisting and turning all over the place lately!


Once we got further down on the beach it was too hard to push Ella in the stroller. She's still too unstable to walk in the sand though so Daddy used his coat as a baby carrier and zipped her up nice and snug.

I love watching the waves! Owen and Jack were only mesmerized for a moment though...then it was back to the drift wood.

Like I said it was a GORGEOUS day!

In the end the boys were having so much fun rolling down this sand hill coming as close as they could to the water. Owen ended up going butt first in the water and got his coat all wet. I think we were at the beach for about an hour and then we headed out for a special treat.

I had a coupon for buy one get one free for a Peanut Buster Parfait. Those are our favorite!

We split the two PBP's between the 5 of us and even though Owen had ice cream in his cup he kept asking if we'd share.

Ella loved her ice cream even though it was super cold and she'd make a funny face almost every bite.

Owen was so cold after eating ice cream (and his coat was wet so we took it off) that we told him to warm up by doing Jumping Jacks. He loved doing them...video to follow!

Since I was taking so many picture of Owen being crazy this cutie got a little jealous and said, "Take a picture of me!" How could I resist!

Waving Bye Bye!

Ella has been waving bye bye for a few days now and the other night she actually said "bye bye" really clear, but unfortunately her sweet voice is so soft you can't hear it in the video. It's so cute seeing her being able to communicate more and more. If you're checking this on FB click here to see the video.

Cheesy Grin!

Ella has recently started doing this cute cheesy grin. I know it's probably just a phase so I'm glad I got it on video. Owen was having fun "hurting" himself so she'd laugh. If you're checking this on FB click here to see the video.

The Reveal!

Here's the video of the boys getting to see their new beds for the first time. If you're checking this from FB click here.

New Bed & Our Little Supervisor!

Last Saturday the boys spent the night at Ga-Ga & Pa's house so Michael and I could put together a surprise for the boys. It was also super nice for us to have time with just Ella. She's had alone Mama time, but she's very rarely had alone Daddy time.

On Saturday night we started working on the boys surprise and Ella was right there supervising!

She was really interested in the tools and tried her very best to get her hands on them.

Hmmmm....I'm not sure these look quite right Daddy!

Here let me show you!

That's better!

We only put part of the bed together on Saturday night and then we finished on Sunday. We did encounter a few hiccups along the way, but Michael was able to figure it out.

Here are a few before pictures of the boys rooms....the storybook corner.

Owen's bed!

Jack's toddler bed

The new look....this is right when you walk in the door. The corner where toy box is used to be where Owen's twin bed was. The twin bed coming out from the wall is Jack's new twin big boy bed. We put the bed rail on the other side of the bed because there is a baseboard heater on that side so we couldn't put the bed flush with the wall and we don't want him to fall off and hit himself on the corner of the heater. He's already fallen out from the other side, but it's not really that much higher than his toddler bed was.

This used to be the storybook corner. Owen gets the top bunk for now. The dresser drawers under the bed is being used as there daily clothes drawer. Yesterday I went through and picked out the boys clothes for the whole week....so I can just grab those clothes in the morning and don't have to spend time picking them out everyday.

This is the cute clubhouse under Owen's bed. I put a lamp in there I got for free at MOPS Care & Share. The boys LOVE having their own lamp. After I took this picture Michael mounted the magnet board on the wall. I have letter and number magnets, but I'd like to get them some other cool ones like animals or something. This is the type of bed where I could put Jack's bed in this nook so the bed unit would look like a 'T'. Their room is so big though I thought it would be fun to give them this little space....that and I was sure if I put the bed under there Owen would be jumping from his bed down onto Jack's all the time!

When Ga-Ga & Pa brought the kids home on Sunday night we had dinner first and then we took them upstairs to show them the surprise. They were so happy...we'll Owen was for sure...Jack was little grumpy, but we are all sick with colds so I think that might have contributed to it.

Owen loves climbing up and down from his bed. Yesterday I found out that he has used the drawer knobs to climb up instead of his ladder so we did had to lay a few ground rules for the bunk bed. Such as no throwing books from the bunk bed and no scraping the popcorn off the ceiling...ahhh boys!!!

Jack on his new big boy bed!

Happy boy!

Thanks Ga-Ga & Pa for getting the boys their beds for their birthdays and watching them for us!