New Pics from Our Neighbor

We are so fortunate to be friends with our neighbors, John & Nancy. Yesterday we hung out at their house for a little bit and here are the pics Nancy took. Ellena is such a clown! And Evan was writing out his wish list for his birthday (yeah, it's still 5 months away).

21 Months!

Today Ellena is 21 months old! I can't believe she will soon be 2! The terrrrrrrrrrible twos! We were very fortunate to have a mild 2-week "test my boundaries" period when Evan turned 2. Something tells me we won't have that luxury with this one... cause the terrible 2's have already started! Ellena can be so hard headed (like her Momma), impatient (like her Momma), frustrated (cause she's not getting her way) and sassy (to Momma and especially Poppa, but not so much to everyone else).

A big change for her in the last week or so: She used to refer to Evan exclusively as "Brother." She has just started calling him "Eban".

We are having battles with her clothes (already?!) - she only wants to wear her kitty costume, which I tell her is still drying. Yes, it takes a week to dry, or so I say. So I let her pick out two new outfits at Target in an effort to get her to like her other clothes. Here she is modeling one of the outfits.

She also fights me on wearing socks (no socks, Momma, NO SOCKS!), getting buckled into the car seat, having her hair done, drinking water from a bottle - the battles never cease around here!

But with the sassitude, comes so much love and affection and makes us very thankful that we have such amazing kids.

Veggie Garden

This weekend's project was building a little veggie garden in the backyard. We'll see if anything comes of it... Some lettuce, won bok, sweet onions, peppers, cherry tomatoes and rosemary (can never have too much rosemary!). Kinda hard to make out the plants with all the flower petals covering the ground. And Ellena in Evan's old monkey costume...

Evan's New Bed

Yesterday Evan moved up from a toddler bed to a full sized bed. He LOVES it! He also got to pick out his sheets and blankets - the design on his comforter cover is flowers, but he insists they are fireworks (someone is looking forward to 4th of July!).

We have the toddler bed parked in our room for now, as Ellena is not quite ready to move out of her crib. She isn't attempting to climb out on her own (knock on wood) so we're going to hang on to the crib as long as possible. Pops says I'm not ready for her to be out of the crib... maybe that's a little true. If she was in the toddler bed, she would never take a nap!

Holy Catnip!

Today Ellena insisted on wearing her kitty costume from Halloween.

Apron

Besides her 1st birthday luau dress, I haven't made anything for Ellena. So she picked out material for a tutu and seemed pretty excited about it. However, once it was finished, I CANNOT get the girl to put it on! She refuses to wear it and runs away from me when I hold it out to her. So I have that in a drawer for later.

I then made her an apron and thank goodness, she likes it! I was getting a little discouraged!

Now that the sun is starting to come out more, perhaps there will be some cutesy dresses in the near future, after I get through the May/June birthdays! So nice to be done with the remodel and I can set up the sewing machine again!

Coloring & Bike Riding

One of Ellena's favorite activities is coloring. Whenever I bring out a pen, Ellena says, "I wanna color... I wanna color!"

This weekend Evan got his first bike. He absolutely LOVES it! He looks forward to riding it every day, and thankfully the weather has cooperated!

Puzzle Monkeys

Here are the two monkeys working on some puzzles before school.

Remodel Is DONE!

We are done! Hooray! The 2 week project that turned into a 2 month affair is over! Here's what went into the remodel:

Kitchen: Removed old wall paper and backsplash, painted walls, tore out and installed new cabinets, granite countertops, undermounted sink and a new, super quiet disposal, installed new island, tore out and installed new hardwoods, laid tile blacksplash, installed new light fixtures.

Rest of downstairs: New paint on the walls, removed all carpet and hardwoods and installed new hardwood, installed new baseboards. Trying to keep most of the toys in the toy room and out of the TV/living room.

We love all of the changes and are so thankful to Grandpa Joe (Mr. DIY took on most of the projects!) and Grandma Madeline (got the kids out of the house while we were working!)

A Hug From Ellena

Hope this brings a smile to your face!

Trains!

Ellena loves trains! I'm a little surprised by this, thinking she would be into girly toys. But with a big brother and boy toys everywhere, I guess it was inevitable. She loves putting the wood train tracks together and making the "choo choo" sounds as she pushes the train on top of it. And she specifically asks for the Thomas books during storytime.

Here's a glimpse at playtime in the new toy room - am loving our hardwoods!

Egg Hunt

Happy Easter everyone!

We had a little egg hunt in the backyard - "easy" hunt for Ellena and "challenging" hunt for Evan.