Summertime!

WELCOME SUMMER! Summer is definitely my favorite time of year. We love Colorado, but I always tell Mark that if we have to move, it better be to a warm weather climate!

We have been enjoying the pool, summer concerts in the park, our new backyard and hanging out in the front yard with all our great neighbors. We love being outside and we especially love that the kids sleep so well after a long day at the pool.

One of our favorite things to do is BBQ and eat on the back patio. Here are a few pics from dinner earlier this week.

Charlie = 11 months!

Happy 11 months to Charlie!

Is it possible that time moves faster the closer your baby gets to 1 year? I feel like time went fast when Ella was a baby, but WOW it has REALLY flown by this time. (Do I say this in every post? I think I do!)

I honestly think I am enjoying motherhood even more with two kids. It's sweet watching them entertain each other and also a huge help to me! Charlie is so lucky to have a built in playmate! Even though it is hectic and stressful at times, I am also much more comfortable with my abilities and my instincts and, of course, WAY more laid back this time around. With Ella, I followed all the rules and waited until she was exactly one year before letting her try chocolate, peanut butter, berries, whole milk, etc. With Charlie its a whole different story. One of his favorite things to eat now is PB&J, we are already trying to transition him over to regular milk and I really don't restrict him from eating anything unless its a possible choking hazard.

Charlie is changing so fast that its hard to keep up. His first two teeth started poking through at about 10.5 months and I'm sure more will be following soon. He is still moving around a lot, crawling so fast that I think walking will actually be easier.... he pulls up to stand, walks along furniture, and uses a little walker to walk around the room. He hardly wants to be held anymore because there is so many things he wants to do! He also has dropped down to just two bottles a day, one in the morning when he wakes up and one when he wakes up from his afternoon nap.

So far no talking yet... he babbles baba, dada and uh uh and we think he is trying to say "Ella" and "uh oh" and "up" but nothing for sure yet. He is light years ahead of where he was a month ago before he had his surgery but still a little delayed in the speaking department.

Here's a couple teeth shots... if you look really close you can see his bottom two chompers coming in....

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. :)

Charlie's Surgery

Just a quick update on what's going on at our house. Charlie is having surgery next week on Thursday. Its a very minor procedure called a frenulectomy of the tongue. Basically Charlie is tongue tied (yes, it's a real diagnosis) and they will be clipping underneath his tongue. The whole procedure takes less than 15 minutes but he has to go under anesthesia.... which, of course, makes me a little nervous. The good news is that this will hopefully help Charlie with both eating and his speech!

Ella's Easter Bunny

Today we went to visit Ella's Easter Bunny. That's right... he's Ella's. Every time someone brings him up, Ella corrects whoever is speaking, "not THE Easter bunny, MY Easter bunny". Needless to say Ella was very excited to pay him a visit. She wanted to remind him that he needed to find her at Gigi's house this year.

It was a great visit... no lines, neither kid had a meltdown AND we got a cute picture. I call that a success! As we were leaving Ella waved goodbye and yelled to her bunny, "Don't forget to get Easter! Bye!"

Ella Ella Bo Bella

There is so much to tell about Ella, I hardly know where to start. Our toddler is almost gone and a little girl is in her place. Ella has imaginary friends, she likes to play dress up and she is always using her imagination... sometimes coming up with some pretty strange stuff. Ella loves to sing and dance and swim and play with her stuffed animals. Her favorite colors are pink and purple and her favorite thing to have for breakfast is Cinnamon Life Cereal.

Ella loves it when you give her a special job or task and she can be quite bossy! She likes to tell us what we are doing instead of asking us and she can be a bit of a tattle-tale! She is funny and silly and very smart. Ella's vocabulary is excellent and its hard to remember she is only 3 years old because she carries herself like she is much older.

Ella has finally given up her afternoon nap...which I was DREADING but have come to find that its not that bad. She will still go in her room during Charlie's afternoon nap for some "quiet time" if Mom needs a break and every ONCE IN A WHILE she actually falls asleep for a bit.

I cannot even begin to tell you how wonderful Ella is with Charlie. Just this morning we were shocked to find Ella in his room. She heard him crying and went in to cheer him up! She entertained him with her singing and dancing and Mom & Dad got an extra 20mins of sleep! What a wonderful big sister!!