Bracing for Round 2

Gracie will be 17 months old this week. It's funny to me how my perspective has changed on how big I feel like the girls are between Ellie and Grace. What I am trying to say is that I felt like Ellie was such a big girl at this age and I feel like Gracie is still my baby. Recently, I have started thinking about putting Grace in a toddler bed. Granted, we are not ready just yet...but time goes so fast! We put Ellie in a toddler bed when she was almost 20 months old. I was excited about her going into a big girl bed, and at the same time we needed her crib for Gracie. It wasn't until we moved the crib out of the room that I started to realize how much she was growing, and how fast. I didn't cry, but I might have felt the "prickles". Thinking on these things also reminded me of the "fun" (ha) we used to go through when we put Ellie in her bed (and sometimes still do). SO...I am preparing for the next few months to put Ellie in a real bed, and Gracie into the toddler bed forever banishing the need for a crib in my house. OMG!The following pictures are of places and positions we found Ellie sleeping in the first few months she was in her bed.

And as I was looking through these pictures of Ellie, I found a similar one of the two girls and thought you might get a kick out of this:

Aside from the blue eyes, how much do these two look alike??

Tea for Two

I helped Ellie and Grace set up for a tea party today. We got all of their tea party paraphernalia and dress up clothes and set up their table. It is fun for me to see them play like this. It reminds me of my sister and me. Our Nana made us a ceramic tea set that we shared and loved to play together. I love to listen to Ellie play pretend, she has a great imagination and I so envy and admire that! Patti was the one between the two of us that had imagination. She had tons of it (still does) and I had (still have) almost none. I liked to set things up and lay things out, you know...organize! Patti used to get so mad at me because I loved the idea of playing things, but really I just wanted to make it all look nice, she really wanted to play. As with Patti and myself when we were kids, things ended much the same between my girls today see the pic below.

Ellie yelled at Grace because she kept knocking over the things on the table and making it messy and Grace was crying because Ellie was yelling. Apparently, Ellie might be just a little like me too...

Some Days...

Isn't that Michelob's catchy jingle? I think that for the last 2 days this should be my own personal theme song! I know I usually write about the kids and the funny things they do BUT....

While I love and adore my kids...they are making me CRAZY lately!! Ellie is into a very mouthy, anti-listening, defiant stage. Grace is also acting similarly with being defiant and doing things she knows are not nice, hitting and generally just being pretty difficult, especially at meal time. Check out this picture of Grace and the peanut butter sandwich.

While this picture is funny, what isn't funny is that someone (me) has to clean her up, and that this kid is constantly throwing food on the floor and feeding the dog.

Yesterday, Ellie just had a really tough day, which in turn meant that I had a tough day. I have resorted to giving her one warning, ie: "I asked you once to go into the bathroom and you didn't this is your warning, if you don't go now, _____ will happen". Most of the time we don't get to the consequence. Last night, before she went to bed she had lost just about anything she could, books in bed, night lights, saying prayers,(I know that is terrible but it's something she enjoys) before I ran out of things to take away and finaly carried her to bed . Once in bed she continued to scream, yell and sob to the point that I thought she might actually throw up. I thought this was the perfect ending to my day! Eventually she calmed down and I went in to talk with her, and we said her prayers, so I didn't feel as bad. I hate sending her to bed like that!

So then, because I didn't have enough to whine about, I decided to do a much needed job and wash the floors. I finished and let the dog out and settled in to watch "Pretty Woman" while playing fetch with Sadie. Sadie left the room and I thought she was going to get a drink, and she was gone just a little too long so I went to check on her. I found a pile of dog poop on the floor. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?? She has been so good, I have no idea where this came from, not to mention that she had just been out within a HALF HOUR!! I swear to God when I tell you, I had yelled so much that day, that I didn't even have it in me to yell at her, so I cried. I stood in the kitchen staring at a pile of dog crap and cried.

I was given advice once which was to always keep in mind that "this too shall pass". I try to keep this in mind and keep in perspective that tomorrow is another day, but sometimes that is hard to do. Especially when your days might start at 6:15 in the morning with a 3 year old talking loudly and demanding things in your ear! I love them so much, but Some Days ARE truly better than others!

Growing Things...

I do not have a green thumb. I had a flower garden on the side of our house last summer, and I was very proud of it (especially when people complemented it!) This year, I am going to try my hand at growing a "salsa" garden. Ellie likes to help with just about any task you could think of (as long as it isn't a mess SHE made) and I am looking forward to having her help me in this task. Besides, then I can blame her when it doesn't turn out...(j/k)

Warren bought pumpkin seeds to plant with the girls. He said his Dad used to have gardens at their house growing up, and his favorite part was the pumpkins. They are going to start the seeds out in a pot so they can watch them, and then we will transplant them. The girls had such a riot and felt so good doing this with their Dad. You should have seen them with their shovels in the dirt, and Ellie with her work gloves on. They both love doing just about anything with Warren, and this was an adorable example of that!

As Promised...

I promised when I blogged about vacation that I would post pictures of Warren and Patti playing rock, paper, scissors for butt punches. As promised, here are the pictures of my own personal freak show acting like kids. The reason they have their arms in their shirts is that we were playing a drinking game called *** hole where the "president" gets to make rules, one of our favorite rules is that the rest of the game has to be played with T-Rex arms. Patti and Warren took it a step further and continued into the game known as "pip pip pip" with T-Rex arms. Although it looks like Patti is biting Warren on the backside in the one shot, she really isn't... Enjoy!

Setting the Trap...

The Bait...

The Grab

The Bite

Any time I am using the cutting board, Ellie will make sure to peek and see if I am cutting peppers. Lately, she has taken to just stealing them off the countertop and taking bites out of them like they are apples. I know there are a lot of people that eat peppers, and a lot of kids that do too, but Ellie tends to be picky so I am surprised that she is such a fan. I made sure to put the pepper right at the edge of the counter to catch her in action, and these shots of her in action cracked me up...