The Circus

A few weeks ago the circus came to town and we took Ellie to experience it for the first time. We had a lot of fun as a family and Ellie loved it so much that after it was over she got super sad and cried as we were leaving because she didn't want to go! Her favorite parts were the elephants and the clowns. Our little wiggle worm did great sitting in our laps for two hours because she was so entertained. This will definitely be the first of many trips to the circus!

I caught her expression when she saw the elephant come out on stage for the first time. You can see the excitement written all over her face!

Daddy's Little Helper

Ellie has always love to help us out around the house. She often helps me unload the dishwasher, "sweep" the floors, and put the clothes in the washer and dryer. Every Thursday she helps Brad gather the trash from our house and take it out to the curb to be picked up the next morning. I am very fortunate in the fact that Brad does the dishes after dinner each night (what a blessing!) Lately, Ellie has wanted to help Brad do this and it is so cute. Brad washes and then she rinses and puts them on the towel. She absolutely loves this! We are so thankful for our little helper.

Little Fashonista

Around the house Ellie can often be found wearing crazy outfits such as this one. Here she is with her pajamas, a swim shirt, skirt, and her sunglasses. I love seeing her fun personality come out in these ways.

Christmas 2010

We spent Christmas this year at home for the first time with Ellie and it was so nice! On Christmas Eve we celebrated with the Bartholomews at my Gran's house. We had a nice time together and Ellie was so into opening presents this year. In fact, she

wanted to help everyone open theirs as well as hers. Being the only child there she was definitely the center of attention and she loved every second of it.

Ellie & my dad, Pa Pa

Here she is with her favorite present of the night, a new baby with diaper bag and accessories.

We woke up Christmas morning and all went into the living room together to open presents. Ellie was so excited to find her Little Tikes car. She also got a Little People doll house and a keyboard as well as a few stocking stuffers. After opening presents we headed to Dunn to spend a nice relaxing day with both sides of our family.




The day after Christmas we woke up to a winter wonderland! We ended up with about six inches of snow and it was so pretty. We had fun out in it sledding and going to the playground (Ellie's idea, of course!)

Here we are getting Ellie all suited up in this snow suit a neighbor gave us. We had a hard time getting her feet in the little booties. She thought it was pretty funny!

We called Ellie our little Oompa Loompah in this outfit...it was hilarious.

Happy Birthday Jesus

This year we started a new Christmas tradition in our house...we had a birthday party for Jesus! Ellie is really into birthdays lately and she was so into it. This is something that I have always wanted to do with our kids so I was so excited to finally be able to start this with our family. On Christmas Eve afternoon when Brad got home from work we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and ate some yummy cake. This is one of the many ways we plan on keeping Christ the focus of Christmas in our house and I hope it is something out kids are excited about every year.

Baby Jesus and the whole gang were there to help celebrate!

Frustration

HELP!! I've been trying to catch up on my blogging for the past week but it is not going as planned. I am trying to use Windows Live Writer to publish my blog but this code 403 Forbidden keeps on coming up. I am not computer savvy so I need to find someone who can fix this for me. Hopefully I'll figure it out soon and be back ASAP!

Another Sweet Girl

We were blessed to find out on Wednesday the 26th, also Brad's birthday, that we are having another little girl! What a blessing and a relief it was to see her moving around and to know that she is developing normally in the womb. We will be busy over the next few months getting ready for this little girl's arrival. It's funny though because most of our preparations this time around involve getting Ellie ready to be a big sister. The perk of having another girl is that the nursery will essentially stay the same. So, besides getting some baby things down from the attic and getting some summer newborn clothes, we are good to go. Ellie has two big transitions ahead of her which include getting her big girl room ready and transitioning her out of the crib and into a bed. The other big thing is potty training! It is my hope that she will be using the potty before the baby arrives in June. One thing is for sure, this spring is going to fly by and we will be holding our sweet baby before we know it! Let the name game begin...