Happy Birthday, Ella!!!

Ella's second birthday started out with cinnamon rolls and a chorus of "Happy Birthday" sung by Jessica and Jacob. Ella picked out her new pink dress to wear and we headed to the gym. Once there, Ella handed out cookies to all of her Kids Klub friends. Since Ella is now two, she gets to go with Jacob and the big kids to Kid Fit. She was reluctant to try her new tennis shoes at first, but she soon changed her mind when she saw that her buddy, Jaleesa, was wearing some. After Jessica ran THREE MILES (oh yeah!) she picked up the kids and headed to JCPenney's for more pictures. Ella wanted cheeseburgers for lunch so we did the drive through at Jack in the Box and headed home. After a really long nap, Ella had to be woken up to have a dinner of fried chicken. Jacob and Jessica made brownies for dessert (Ella was having 2 year old issues at the time) and so we all sang "Happy Birthday" again and Ella blew out her candle a second time. Soon after it was off to bed.

Happy Birthday, Jacob!!!

Jacob is FOUR today!!! The morning started out with pancakes, a #4 candle, and a chorus of "Happy Birthday." Then to appease Ella, we followed up with a #2 candle and an encore of "Happy Birthday." Jacob took M&M cookies to Kid Fit at the gym and afterwards, we took the yearly birthday pictures at JCPenney's. They were behind schedule (of course) but we were given the added entertainment of crazy people both before and after us in line. There was yelling and arguing and security... very exciting. Since we were nice, we were given the Smiles By Wire for free : ) We had a mall lunch before heading back home. Once Ella was awake from her nap, we all piled in the car and headed to Chuck E. Cheese. Jacob was really REALLY excited. He barely touched his pizza (Ella didn't even take a bite) before heading off to ride rides and play games.

Ella Bella

Limited Time Offer!!!

**No, I'm not selling the kids... yet**

I responded to the following weird meme on Hope's blog:

The first 5 people who respond to this post will get something made by me (my choice) for you. Don't you feel super special already? This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. What I make will be just for you (it could be a craft project; it could be something to eat; it could be anything...)

2. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make.

3. It will be done sometime before September.

4. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange. The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 who do the same on their blogs. And you have to post a picture of what you win when you get it!

Chest

This Week in Acheivements...

Ella:
*can now pedal her bike backwards and forwards
*is really good at coloring within lines and has proven it by coloring inside several of her story books
*has decided that yes, she really is a pie worm

Jacob:
*learned checkers and is now learning chess, or "chest" as it's known around here
*is trying to learn all of the countries on his world map place mat. Here's how dinner sounds, "What is this place? Can we go there? And what about this place? Can we go there???"
*tries to play chest using the tiles in the kitchen

Jessica:
*is ordering 8X10 prints of her photos to show at a local pizza place

Kris:
*is currently writing a giant paper about why swamp man has phenomenal awareness

"What are the Dimensions of your Children?"

Ella: currently wears only ballerina dresses and has some weird qualifications about what that means exactly. It's different every day. We think it just has to be a skirt that twirls nicely.

Tops/Dresses: 3T
Bottoms: 2T
Shoes: 7.5
Needs leggings and hair bows.

Jacob: his favorite colors are green and blue and red and white and black but he'll wear anything.

Tops: 5T
Bottoms: 5T
Shoes: 12.5
Needs socks and shirts.

Is There a Doctor in the House???

My dearest, darling Ella does not sleep well. She wakes up crying 5 out of 7 nights a week, but usually puts herself back to sleep. About every week and a half, however, she cries so much and so loudly, that we have to go get her. This makes her very angry which makes her cry even more. When she is crying, she doesn't want to be held, sung to, moved, touched... she's just mad to be awake. When she has her 30 minute to 2 hour crying spells, she writhes and says things like "No! No! No!" and "Owie!!!" and "Help me!" This started in September.

The Usual Suspects:
1.) Growing Pains
2.) Gas
3.) Teething
4.) Wanting Attention

The Evidence:
1.) Growing Pains- Her owies are usually nonspecific and she's always crying.
2.) Gas- Ella's not super consistent with the ol' bowel movements. Last night's screaming jag lasted all night and was the end to three days with no poo. Today, she went three times. We've been giving her tons of fiber and fruit, but nothing helps.
3.) Teething- Ella has just cut her two bottom molars. Top ones are still inside.
4.) Wanting Attention- I'm pretty sure this isn't it since she seems to get really really mad when we touch her. She doesn't want to get out of her bed; she doesn't want to be held; she doesn't want to hear songs; she doesn't want to drink milk. These comforting things all make her cry more.

Any ideas???

Last night's crying was probably the worst we've had. She cried all night... when she passed out from crying, she writhed and kicked Kris and I so we didn't get any sleep either. Kris didn't even go into work today! Later, Ella missed her nap because of all the "diaper surprises" and was a crank monster the rest of the day. She has her two year doctor's appointment on the 26th, but if I can solve it before then, I'd love to!

Ballerina Girl

Our baby ballerina...

or perhaps she is a pie worm... that's what Jacob thinks anyway.

pie worm (n.): worm who throws pies at other worms when they fight. See also, ballerina, Ellaminnow.

Growing and Growing

Some unofficial stats courtesy of the Archer City WIC office:

Jacob is:

40.5 inches tall (60%)

39 lbs. (60%)

Ella is:

33.5 inches tall (60%)

26.5 lbs (60%)

The kids have a doctor's appointment on the 26th, so we'll get to measue them again. Maybe this time, Ella won't be crying (it was her nap time).

Warm Weather

Now that it's warm, we're going outside!

Cookies with Grandma

Valentine's Day was spent with sickness so the next weekend was designated as cookie baking time. Jacob and Ella made heart cookies decorated with red sprinkles while wearing their helper aprons.

Walkabout

It was actually warm on Tuesday so I took the kids on a walk in the stroller. It's a bit hard to push when there aren't sidewalks, but since there's no traffic either, I just ended up walking right down the middle of the street. We stopped by the post office, the library, then the playground. It's the first time for us to go to the library and it was kind of nice. It's tiny, of course, but that just limits the number of books Ella can pull off the shelf. The playground was confusing for Jacob-- he wanted to know why there were so many rocks (gravel under equipment) and then proceeded to try to remove them all. I finally convinced him that they were supposed to be there and he changed the direction of his energy to dropping rocks down the slide. The kids were getting hungry, but I'd only packed a snack. We loaded back up and I pushed them to Dairy Queen where we had ice cream for lunch.

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