Tub Time!

Last week Ella and I took a bath in the big tub by ourselves. Usually we have two other little bodies in the tub with us. Since it was just the two of us I was able to get the tub seat out and let her sit on her own.

We've noticed that Ella is a pretty fearless girl...this is what happened when she leaned over and stuck her face in the water.

I guess it wasn't exactly what she thought! Cough-cough!!!

Since this was Ella's first time in her bath seat I decided to look back in the blog and see when Owen and Jack first sat in the tub like this...you can see that post here. I also noticed that all my kids seems to like to chew on ducks...check this out! After a while Ella really started trying to get out of her seat...she is all about standing up right now. So I took her out and just had to snap a picture of her cute backside.

If you look close at the left side of her lower back you'll see her fourth birthmark. She has two "stork bites" on the back of her head (They are hidden by her hair now) and she has her "angel kiss" on her forehead and then she has this little bruise on her bum. At the hospital the doctor thought it might actually be a real bruise that was caused by one of their fingers when they pulled her out, but it didn't go away.

She had a great time in the bath, but I doubt her bath time will include her bath seat anymore since she loved holding onto the side of the tub and walking around. She is SO determined to be mobile!

Thanksgiving With Family!

Let the turkey coma begin...oh wait we hadn't even eaten yet when this picture was taken. Sometimes you just need a nap!

We headed down to my parents house on Thanksgiving morning. Uncle Ry and Aunt Stephie came down too.

After nap time we headed over to my Uncle Cliff and Aunt Jan's house for dinner. Ga-Ga gave Ella her first taste of a green olive. We were hoping she'd give us a really funny face, but she seriously didn't mind them at all. She's just like her mama!

Once I told Owen we were going to Aunt Jan's house he said, "She has a garbage truck!" He played and played and played!!!



Ella got to try all sorts of food - mashed potatoes and gravy, turkey, yams, green bean casserole and rolls.

Jack ate everything, but he had a TON of grapes!!!

One of the maybe two times Owen willingly came out of the playroom I snagged him and got him to eat a little bit. He even ate some turkey and had two bites of yams.

My cousin Tara's daughter Gabby just LOVES babies so she had so much fun talking and snuggling with Ella.

Ga-Ga and cousin Nicky!

Uncle Ry and Aunt Stephie...looking so cute!

The guys in deep discussion!

Amazingly we even got a really nice family picture!!

It was nice spending time with family. We have SO much to be thankful for!!!

This Is How Ella Gets Her Kix!

She just recently started liking Kix...before she would only eat Cheerios. The last couple days she's been scarfing these babies down!

Side note: See the nasty bruise in the middle of her forehead? That's what happens when you try to use your brothers train station to pull up on and then fall head first into the metal coffee table. OUCH!!! Poor baby girl was hiccuping she was crying so hard! :(

Entertaining Herself

Ella is really pretty good at entertaining herself. If she's been fed and changed she loves to just go and explore. She loves to try to play with whatever the boys are playing with or pull herself up on anything and walk around. She also LOVES the curtains. We've found her cracking up before just waving the curtains around in front her face. She loves it! I wish I could have gotten a video of her laughing, but it's still cute.

New Craft Area!

On Tuesday since MOPS was canceled we stayed home and I did a bunch of laundry and some baking. I also decided the area in our dining room that is my craft corner was just a mess and I couldn't take it anymore. My craft area is supposed to be up in the office, but that's just too close to the kids while they nap and I don't want to accidentally wake them up while I'm working. So a while back we moved my craft table down to the dining room. I wish I had a before picture, but the table was turned the other way and was more in front of the fireplace and the little dresser was under the window (behind the table).

My brother gave me the two (black and pine colored) cubbies a few months ago and now they are being put to good use. Before all my craft stuff was in 2 bigger storage containers and 3 smaller ones. I still have two smaller ones holding all my solid colored paper...they are hiding under the table. I was able to fit all my stamps sets in the dresser. At first I thought Michael wasn't going to be keen with the dresser being up on the hearth of the fireplace, but he didn't care at all. It's not the most esthetically pleasing thing, but it's works for what I need right now and we never use the fireplace.

I got this idea from my friend Lori when she came over about a month ago to make cards with me. She had a dowel rod with all her ribbon in it. Michael didn't have a dowel rod, but then I remembered I had some cute decorations in the playroom that would work. It's a cute, decorative and functional way to keep your ribbon handy.

Later on that night I decided to actually work at my craft desk and it was SO nice. Before when it was unorganized this table was just stacks and stacks of stuff so I would just move everything I needed for the particular project I was working on over to the dining room table. That was after I made sure there wasn't anything sticky on the table that was going to mess up my project. Now I don't have to worry about sticky things. The only thing I ended up adding while I was working there for the first time was a lamp. It was really quite dark in this corner...so I took a lamp that I had in Ella's room, but never used and it worked perfectly to light up this little crafty corner!

Thankful!

Even if it's a stress filled, whiney, grumpy kind of day....I'm still so very thankful...

for each of...

our precious...

Blessings!

Playing In The Snow...Inside!

I totally stole this idea from MckMama. Bring clean snow from the outside in...so the kids can play in the nice warm house, but still get to experience the fun of the snow.

Daddy brought in two bowls worth off the deck for each side of the sink.

I got the boys measuring cups and wooden spoons.


Jack still isn't the best at using utensils so his has were freezing by the time he was done playing.

Owen had been talking about taking his cars out in the snow so I told him that would be just fine.



He was so happy he ran and got all of them!





For the most part it was a peaceful playtime...occasionally I had to step in and remind the boys to play on their side of the sink. They can seriously drive each other crazy sometimes, but I guess that's exactly what siblings are supposed to do!

In the end we washed all the cars off and got to watch the snow melt. It was such a hit after nap time we did it all again!

That's the look of determination!

First Snow Of The Season!

So I ended up buying more storage for my blog. You get 1 free GB of storage space with blogger and it cost me $5 per year to get 20 more GB. It's taken me almost 4 years to take up 1 GB so it should be a LONG time before I use up 20 more....and $5 a year is cheap.

Yesterday morning at first we only had a dusting. We don't have proper snowsuits for the boys so we just do the layered thing.

Miss Kim came over with Andy and Josiah. We had planned a crafty sort of morning and the snow wasn't that bad.

By the time Kim left though it had snowed a bunch more and it took over 2 hours for her to get home. She normally only lives 7 minutes away! She ended up having to park her van at Lowe's and her husband Micah came and picked them up in their car that they have chains for. Yesterday was just all around crazy when it came to driving!

My friend Erin gave us a couple bodysuits for Ella. She's almost too small for this one.

Later after lunch we went out again to play in the fresh snow.

We were thinking about taking a walk so I put Ella in the Babyhawk carrier. I also put her in one of the other bodysuits and this one fit her better.

The boys had fun sliding down the easement. We really need to get some sleds. We saw a bunch of people today walking down the road with them. I remember sledding when I was younger...so much fun!!!

The boys mainly just had fun walking around making tracks and getting snow all over their boots.

Michael loves to make snowmen...

and snowwomen!

I know there are a lot of people out there that don't like the snow, but I really enjoy it and I hope we get tons more this season!

Blog Issues!

Tonight I tried to upload pictures of the kids playing in the snow and Blogger is saying I've reached my limit for photos. Has anyone out there ran into this before? I'm trying to decided if I should pay for more storage or if it's just better to create a new blog. Bear with me!

The View From Here!

When I'm on the computer at night it's usually in bed and right now (okay a few minutes ago...according to the clock on my computer) this is my view...

of my almost completed king size afghan! I've been working on it for about a month now and I finished the crocheting part last night. Now all I need to do is weave the yard strings on the ends into the afghan. Even though I finished it last night we've been using it on our bed for the last week or so. It's been SO nice having the extra weight on the bed to keep us nice and toasty warm!

Visiting Papa & Grandma Martin!

Last night after nap time we took the kids over to Papa & Grandma Martin's for a visit.

The boys had fun playing with Papa's cars.

This is what I saw alot while we were there. Owen just loves taking pictures with Papa's camera. In fact Papa told me that he has a special folder on his computer for Owen's pictures that he takes with his camera.

The boys also had a lot of fun running around...being boys!


While the boys were running around, Ella got curious about where they were going so she decided to explore.

She crawled all over the place.

She got really interested in this cabinet door and was trying her hardest to open it. Just within the last few days Ella's been responding to her name. Right before I took this picture Michael said, "Ella Grace!" and she turned around. It's so fun!

We had such a great time eating, playing and chatting with them.

Love you Papa & Grandma!!!