Ella 9/10 Months

*Reminder about my blog going private- if you want an invite, leave me your email address*

Somebody please slow down time!! My baby is already 10 months- 10 months!!! Ella is such an added joy in our family! She is such a sweet baby. All she has to do is look at you and flash you one of her adorable smiles and your heart is instantly melted. I just love her so much. She has turned into a daddy's girl the past few months. If he is home and not in her sight she is not a happy girl. On Valentine's day, she made Sean's day by saying "daddy" for the first time. She also says, "mama, Ella, and what's that?" She is crawling all over the place and trying to keep up with her sisters- she loves them so much. She has gotten really good at pulling herself up and standing. She has her 2 bottom teeth coming in. She loves to eat Cheerio's and yogurt bites and pretty much anything else she can get in her mouth. She loves to dance and will start dancing "bouncing" whenever a song comes on. She has the cutest little laugh- I could listen to it all day. She loves to throw her arms in the air and have us say, "So big!" She also loves to clap when we say, "YAY!" This age is so amazing to see the development. And I just feel so blessed to be her mama.

Ella's 9 month stats

19 lbs. (49%)

27.75 in. (51%)

February...come and gone

*Just a reminder under this post is a post about me going private on my blog- if you are interested leave me your email address*

Well here it is the 28th and I haven't gotten a post done. We have had a great February!! Ella turned 9 months!! 9 months!! I can't believe it- how come these past 9 months have gone by so dang fast?

Brooklyn participated in her school's reflection contest. The theme was "I Wish" she decided that she wanted to do photography for her project and took a picture of Pop's horse, Fancy. Her title, "I wish I had a horse." There were hundreds of entries and a fun night- Texas Road House catered the night. I am so proud of her that she is willing to try these things out.

We had a really fun Valentine's as well. Sean usually works Tuesday nights, but was able to take it off. Thanks to Papa Murphey's for your wonderful heart shaped pizza that fed us. We also played pin the cupid on the heart and topped the night off by watching the movie "Treasure Buddies." (Sadly I didn't take one picture of it.) The gals got in their Valentine's best and looked so cute. Brooklyn had a Valentine's Tea at her school- she woke me up that morning by tapping me on my shoulder- which I hate I might add. And continued on to say, "Mom, mom, mom- since I will be dancing with boys today, can I wear make-up to school?" Of course the answer was, "NO!" She ended up wearing a lovely coral lip gloss. She was so thrilled because the boys pulled their chairs out for them and she was able to dance with a boy the whole time while some girls had to dance with other girls. And to top things off, she told me, "Peydon told me he was going to buy me a rose, but he didn't have enough money." She is 7 almost 8- what I am going to do with her- Heaven help us during her teenage years!!

Brooklyn also had her 2nd Grade program. It was titled- "I have a Dream." She recited part of Marten Luther King Junior's speech and had the whole thing memorized. "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed- we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream today." It was such a great program and we were so proud of her.

I came across this picture that I forgot to post in December- this is the first time that Gracie wrote her name all by herself. She now loves to write her name all over as well as anything else she feels like spelling. This age is fun to see how she is learning and growing.

 Trying to get a serious picture out of Brooklyn these days is a rare feat!!

 

 

Going Private

I have always wanted my blog to be an open blog, but I have gotten one too many random, spam comments that are just plain rude. So, I have decided that I am going to make my blog private. If you would like an invite leave me your email address (I will put the comment moderation on so your address doesn't show.) One of my friends that has a private blog sends an email out when she updates- I think that I will try that and see how it goes. I wish there weren't rude people in the world!

January Happenings

PHEW!! I finally got all the December posts done! What a BUSY, but fun month it was. January has come and gone and has been a lot more laid back! Brooklyn started back up in gymnastics and was able to move up a level- she is doing really well and loves it. We received a letter from the school telling us that she had been chosen as the "Citizen of the Month" for December. We are so proud of how well she is doing in school academically as well as socially. She had quite the crowd there to see her- as she sat down from getting the award, she said to my cousin, "Half the town of Newton came to see me!" (Such a crack-up!)

Gracie is also doing really well in preschool. It is so fun to see the learning and knowledge that is come to her. She wrote her name by herself for the first time in December and continues to love to write her name and other letters. Last Sunday, she started screaming that her ear hurt and that continued on for several hours until she finally fell asleep. I got her into the doctor the following morning and she had a nasty ear infection. Poor thing! It took her a good couple of days until she was really feeling better, but is doing much better now.

Ella continues to grow right before our eyes. I can't believe that she is almost 9 months! Pregnancy drags by SOO slow and then they get here and there is nothing you can to to slow down time! :( She has mastered crawling, although she still does lots of face plants. Last Sunday, she also went from laying down to sitting up all by herself. I love all these milestone that babies hit. She is loving her cereal too and is finally starting to like fruits and veggies. For awhile, she wanted nothing to do with them and just preferred the cereal. In November and December she went through a naughty phase of starting to not sleep through the night- we are talking she was up like 3 times a night. Not a nice thing to do to her mom! :) So we did the dreaded make her cry it out in her crib. The first night was bad- she cried for an hour straight. I would go in every 5 minutes or so and give her her binkie and then leave. Finally, after the hour she fell asleep and slept through the night. The 2nd night wasn't as bad, I think she cried for maybe 20 minutes. And then that was it and she sleeps through the night again and the crying it out really wasn't that bad! I think that moms can do anything if they have the right amount of sleep.

Don't mind the banner being upside down! ;)

Gracie has turned into a little crack-up- I was trying to get a picture of her and she was doing anything but smiling!

The gals put on their cute aprons that Chels made them and did some baking in the Easy Bake Oven- (I wanted to drop kick the thing through the window before it was all said and done!)

There she is ready to take off!

(Her poor hair is all over the place these days!)

Christmas Dresses

With Christmas Day being so busy, I didn't get a picture of the gals in their Christmas dresses. (I should also have a picture on here on the burn damage my pinky received while making their bows.) I love that I was able to get matching dresses for them all- thank you Carter's- sadly I think this might be the last year of matching dresses. I sure love these gals!

New Year's Eve

We had our annual New Year's Eve party at my Uncle Ric and Aunt Paula's. We had yummy food, good company, and good times!

My mom and dad had gotten the kiddos these cute matching outfits for Christmas- we tried to get a picture of them in them- it was not a success!! We even tried changing positions and still no luck!

I love this picture of Brooklyn- my cousin Jan made her homemade root beer- the kiddos always love playing in it!

Ric opened up his hot tub for the occasion and it was by far the highlight for the gals! Gracie talked about it ALL day before she finally got to get in!

We may of may not have turned to MTV and counted down with New York City- and we may or may not have had to rewind and forward several times until we were actually ready- thank you to DVR!

We always do a toast and Gracie and Garrett were LOVING this!! They loved to "cheers" their glasses together- they were quite hilarious!

And to end the night- my cousins dog cozied up to the most non-loving animal person I know- my mom! It was pretty hilarious! The picture doesn't do it justice to just how unimpressed she was! 

Here's to a great 2012!!!

Temple Square

Why oh why can't I keep up on this blog? I am still trying to get through our December activities. Gracie had seen a picture of Temple Square and decided that she wanted to go. So, we headed out on Friday the 30th before they turned them off on the the 1st. I think that every other person in the state had that idea too because there were about 5 million people there plus the weather was heavenly!! It was in the high 50's- we had brought all our warm gear and the gals ended up walking around for some of the time without their coats on.We talked about going to eat at Lion House and our plan changed when we got there and the line was out the door so we headed to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and ate there. We went up and saw Temple Square from the top- the gals thought that was pretty cool. We had such a great time and we were glad that we were able to squeeze the trip in before they turned off the lights!

And this is how Ella enjoyed seeing the lights!