Ella's last day of school

We really enjoyed having Ella in "school" two days a week this past year. Her teachers, Ms. Laura and Ms. Ashley, were awesome and we will really miss them next year. It's hard to believe how much Ella has learned at school this year. She started off the year spelling her name "E-L-A" and now not only does she spell it correctly, but she can write it too! Ella knows all her letters and shapes and is learning her numbers. She has started to decipher between shades of colors (ie. light pink vs dark pink). She loves to sing songs, paint, play on the playground, and she talks about her friends from school all the time.

Here is a pic of Ella's first day this past fall... she has changed so much!

Charlie = 10 months!

Charlie turned 10 months last week on May 5th- cinco de mayo. Unfortunately we couldn't let him partake in the margaritas because he had surgery that day. :) After a couple rough days, Charlie recovered from his surgery and is back to our happy little guy. The doctor tells us that he may get a little worse before he gets better because of the scar tissue from the cut under his tongue, but for now all is going great.

Charlie has had a big month. He is crawling all over the place and can now make it up the stairs with no problem and is even learning how to scoot back down the backwards. He has also learned to "walk" with his walker toy and along furniture in the house.

Perhaps Charlie's biggest milestone this month was that he FINALLY started talking. A week to the day after his tongue surgery Charlie said "Dada". Since then he has been babbling more each day and adding lots more sounds to his repertoire. We are so glad we made the decision to have the surgery!

Tongue Tied No More!

Just got back from a VERY early morning surgery with Charlie and everything went great. We left for the surgery center at 5:45am (ugh) and were taken back for pre-op at around 7am. Charlie was a great sport considering that he hadn't eaten or drank anything since 6pm last night. He was flirting with the nurses and being such a ham until he finally dozed off at about 7:45am. Just in time... they came to take him back to the OR at 8am. It was a little emotional for Mom, but Charlie was a good sport. He went right to the doctor and they said he didn't even make a peep while they put him under. The procedure was FAST. They were out to get us 10 minutes later! Charlie's procedure was done and he was already waiting for us in recovery!

Charlie was pretty upset and disoriented when we went back to see him, but he calmed down as soon as we gave him a bottle. We were home by 9am! He is upstairs resting now but I will try to post some more pics later today.

Nashville Rock n Roll Half Marathon

Right on the heels of our trip to KC, jet-setter that I am, I headed back out of town to Nashville to run the Rock and Roll half marathon with my dear friend Tara and her husband. I had a blast and ran my best half marathon ever with a time of 2:03:42.

Side note- Tara is opening her own store TOMORROW in Florida. It's a cute little boutique on the beach called Teely's. You can check it out by clicking here. (Please "like" their facebook page!)

Easter 2011

Mark had business in Kansas City the week of Easter, so we grabbed the opportunity to join him on the trip and spend time with our family and friends.

Ella & Gigi made a beautiful Easter lamb cake together

And we also dyed Easter eggs! What fun!

We received wonderful Easter baskets left by the bunny himself.

The we headed over to my parents country club for a Easter egg hunt complete with petting zoo and an odd looking Easter bunny.

Ella kept saying that he didn't look like "her" bunny and she refused to sit on his lap. I don't blame her.

We had a blast at the hunt and Ella went home with lots of loot! She generously shared her eggs with Charlie.

And we hit up the club one more time in the morning before we left town for a delicious Easter brunch. We all ate too much except for Charlie, who slept through the whole thing. :)