August

Lem started back with tennis the week of Sycely's birthday and headed back to school full-time the following week. Almost a whole week later he finally had students back to school. And Lem's getting back into the swing of school meant we girls got back to our regular schedule and routine, which is such a welcome thing sometimes! we've been trying to soak up as much of the last of summer's sunshine as possible,swinging, harvesting from the garden, playing outdoor pattycake, and having the occasional picnic.

August also meant getting ready for some exciting new things in Sycely's life. She'll be starting a part-day pre-school program toward the end of September so there was the usual school shopping to be done (while taking advantage of all the great sales, of course!) We also got her signed up for ballet school for the next session (fall-spring). She'll be going on Saturday mornings since she has pre-school on the weekdays her ballet class is offered. Plus, going on Saturdays will allow Lem to attend ballet class with her or stay home with Ella so I can go without having a one year old in tow! Sycely has reached some exciting milestones in the last month or so. Over the summer she's really been mastering independence with alot of her self-help skills and is finally over her fear or falling in while using a public toilet. She's also wearing panties to bed at night now, an achievement she instantaneously insisted on (with much resolution and yelling!) one night, so that was that. She can pump on the swings now and is really developing careful attention to detail in her artwork. She's working on a sunflower project right now. My favorite Sycely vignette this month was her rejecting a pair of shoes I suggested we get her for pre-school with the following statement: "Mommy, I don't like those. Those are for space." What's a mother to do when her child feels shoes are too astronomic for her to wear?! Apparently she felt the illustration on the box resembled an astronaut rather that the super hero cheerleader character it was supposed to be. Turns out she also doesn't like daisies on her shoes; only tulips are acceptable shoe flowers. Apparently, she's developed some very discriminating tastes since turning 4. She also got her first bee sting which she handled remarkably well and had her 4 year check-up. To no surprise at all, she's still way on the low end for weight and toward the top of the middle range for height, so it looks like her dainty, girly, body type is going to be permanent (also no surprise.) She handled her three shots like a trooper, not even a single tear (that WAS a surprise) but did face 60 hours of not being able to move her leg or walk at all afterwards thanks to the swelling. It was a weekend of couch lounging, fever reducer and ice packs :(

Ella also had a check-up the same day. She's even lower on the chart for weight but on her own little gradual curve so no worries there, just a tiny little pixie :) Her third tooth came in this month and she's got another one that's following not too far behind. She's still eating up a storm (and somehow is still only weighing it at 17 pounds) and is rarely still, unless of course she's in the need of a little snuggle. She's generous with her cuddles and accompanied by thumb and blanket she's often a little snugglebug. She says more words that I could possibly keep track of though I still try. She started saying "Nanny" finally and said it the first time for on the phone with my mom. She says snack (...nnnnnack) exactly the way Sycely did at that age and she's recently picked up "ready, set...goooo!" Some of my other favorites include "peach" and of course all her animal sounds, her elephant in particular. She LOVES patty cake and playing peek and has a super infectious giggle almost all the time. She's really into turning the pages of books and she'll even fill in some of the words or sounds if you leave them out when reading aloud to her. She definitely got charisma and a bright-eyed little smile. Ella (and me) reached a milestone this month as well. We're officially done nursing (see previous blog entry). It was bittersweet for me, but she hasn't really taken notice from what we can tell and Daddy loves being able to have books and snuggling at bedtime, he's missed out on being able to put her bed the whole last year so he's loving that he can have that special quiet time with her now.

I'm keeping busy with all my regular activities at home and away from home as well. In addition to my regular skating lessons and the start of Special Olympics coming up, I'm going to be co-leading a new Mom's group at church next month. I've been turning a decent profit via craigslist unloading more of my way too big wardrobe, as well as maternity and baby items. I'm also working getting things lined up to officially kick-off my early childhood consulting business. I'll be offering all my trainings and other services (mentoring, observations, etc) as a contractor now which is going to enable me to be able to do trainings for all those schools that keep asking me to, and to be making way more money doing it. So, hopefully in the next couple weeks I will get everything prepped to official launch into another venue of the self-employment business world.

Lem and I are working (gradually) on some home improvement projects. We have our energy audit folks coming next weekend so we're looking forward to hearing some tips on what can help alleviate some of our moisture and other winter weather problems with our house. We're also working our way through painting the whole interior of our house, including the ceilings. Last weekend we finished phase 1, the Kitchen/dining room. Sycely was a tremendous "help" with the painting and was pretty thrilled we chose green-her-favorite-color. It looks a million times better now that it's a fresh, warm, green color with clean, white ceilings! Over the next couple months we'll tackle the living room, hall, both bathrooms, our bedroom and Ella's room. We're looking toward doing a bathtub/shower remodel this fall/winter as well. Our plan is to get everything a fresh, clean coat of paint, update our decorating/style a little, clear out some of the accumulated clutter and move toward being ready to get our house on the market before too much longer, but we're looking forward to the perks of getting to enjoy a "nicer" cleaner house in the meantime.

Free the Ta-tas!

Shannon, Julie, Danielle, Me and Renae at Sullivan's

This weekend I celebrated being done with nursing Ella. I anticipated it was going to be a bittersweet night and made plans with some girlfriends to have a fun night out to distract me and keep me from feeling sad. It sure worked!

Me and Julie (Danielle's using her napkin to make us a backdrop)

I'm so blessed to have such amazing Mommy friends in my life and I'm so grateful God has brought each and every one of them into my life. And on top of that, we all have such wonderful husbands that dutifully take over for us to allow us some girly fun from time to time while they hold down the fort.

Me and Renae

Julie, Danielle, Shannon, Renae and I had such a blast sharing some girl time and enjoying an evening away from our usual Mommy duties.

Hot Mamas!

Me and Danielle (she also did the pageant with me)

We started off the evening with a little shopping around the mall and then headed to Sullivan's for food, drinks and dessert. The big highlight for me was getting to enjoy my favorite indulgence-peanut butter. Because of the allergy history in Lem's family I have to lay off the peanut butter during pregnancy and while I'm nursing so between our two girls that's about 4 years of missing out on one of my favorite treats. Needless to say I was stoked to enjoy a special, scrumptious peanut butter pie high in taste and calories! I've never really gotten to do a girls night and I can tell you I don't think I've ever had so much fun. It wouldn't matter what we were doing it was so great just to get to fellowship with each other and be WOMEN together! And turns out, we clean up real nice-not bad considering the we've put out 10 babies between the 5 of us!

In my car with Renae and Danielle after all the hoop-la

Leotards, tu-tus, tights gallore...Our little ballerina turns four!

The day arrived for Sycely's big ballerina party and brought with it-sunshine! Nanny and Papa came over to stay with Ella so that Lem and I could concentrate on enjoying all the festivities and record the precious memories at ballet school.

Sycely was joined by her BFF, Scarlett and another friend, Joslynn for a private ballet class with Sycely's ballet instructor, Miss Theresa. They did all kinds of fun things, wore about a hundred different outfits and accessories and had a super great time. It was so fun watching them twirl and prance about loving every moment. They got to be Disney princesses, fairies, ballerina dolls, mice, visitors of the queen, rock a baby, and even did some parachute play. I dug out my ballet shoes and threw on an old ballet skirt (NOT an apron despite what my husband may tell you!) and did a little with the girls. Sycely just loved that her Mommy wore her own ballet shoes.

After the dance class we headed back to our house and continued the party with snacks, cake and presents. It was nice out so the kiddos got to enjoy playing outside. The girls ditched the tu-tus and even hopped in the sandbox-leotards and all-so cute! Titus and Mira (and their mom), Nanny, Papa and Uncle Ian and Summit (and his dad) and Joslynn's dad and little brother, Blake all joined us for the festivities.

Sycely absolutely loved her cherry chip ballet slipper cake which delighted me. We served it up with some delicious homemade, cherry-vanilla, chocolate/cherry chunk ice cream. She had a great time dancing and playing with her friends and all in all the party was a hit-another one for the memory book!

Sycely's 4th Birthday

My, oh my, how times flies. As if Ella turning one wasn't enough our little Boo Bug's 4th birthday came just on the tail of Ella's first birthday party. Our goal for to make the day full of special treats for our little princess and share some family time celebrating her. We started our morning off with her favorite breakfast-French Toast. Then we let her open some presents from Mommy, Daddy and Ella. Since her party wasn't until Saturday we just did all our family presents on her actual birthday and just did the friend present at her party. She was so excited about so many of her gifts-I just love getting her things, she gets so enamored with even the littlest things I pick out for her and she's always so gracious and so specific with her thank yous. She was so tickled to open her new bright pink tutu (just like at ballet school) that a friend from church made for her. And she's snuggled with the ballerina blanket I sewed for her every sleep since she got it.
After presents we got everyone ready and packed up and headed over to spend the morning at Bouncin Bears. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, Bouncin Bears is an indoor inflatable play place. They have about 10 huge inflatable structures-HUGE slides, bouncy houses, obstacle courses, etc and you can go in and free play for a couple hours. Sycely's birthday was only the third day their newest location (less than 5 minutes from our house) was open so it was far from packed, despite the rainy day and the fact that kids are still off school for the summer. There was just two other little girls, both under 5, with their moms there so it was a great time for us not having to worry about the girls gettting bounced around too much by other, bigger kiddos. And, the owners are super great. I just worked with them at the Governor's Picnic and they're just really great folks. They even made a balloon bouquet of four green (her favorite) color balloons for her to take home when we left. Lem went and picked up Nanny and brought her over to bounce and slide for her lunch break then we dropped her off at school on our way back home. Once we were home we got the girls fed and down for naps.

We headed to Red Robin (Sycely's fave) for dinner with Nanny and Papa and Uncle Ian. Sycely had a pretty good time but was a little unsure about all the hoopla of being sung to be a bunch of exhuberant strangers, but she seemed to be just fine with the special birthday ice cream sundae treat they brought with them. After dinner we went to Nanny and Papa's to open some presents from them. Sycely was soooo excited to get the Snow White dress she's been coveting for so long. After getting Ella to bed Lem, Sycely and I played a round of Sycely's new Princess Magic Slipper board game then it was bedtime for all of us.

We had such a fun day celebrating our little princess and the amazingly, joyous blessing she is to our lives. Sycely had so much fun at Bouncin' Bears and having dinner at Red Robin and was certainly tuckered out from all the excitement. Hard to believe our little Boo Bug is already 4!

A Trunk Full of Fun- Ella Turns 1!

Ella's first birthday couldn't have been more perfect. We started off our day with celebratory pancakes, which Ella wasted no time in devouring. Ella opened presents from Mommy, Daddy and Sycely and had fun enjoying some new playthings while we readied for church.



After church we got the girls down for nap and I got the cake decorated and finished up with the party prepping. It wasn't long before our party guests were arriving. Ella, as is customary for first birthdays, had to be woken up from her nap to join the festivities.


Ella and Sycely both enjoyed playing with their friends (while the Mommies and Daddies visited). We're so blessed to have such an amazing network of supportive and loving friends to share our joy with on such memorable occasions. Ella's friend Mira and big brother Titus were there, along with Zane and Summit and his sister (Sycely's BFF Scarlett). And of course, our own Nanny and Papa were in attendance. The kiddos enjoyed some outside playtime and snacks and then we opened presents.
Ella loves peaches so I made a yellow cake with vanilla peach butter cream frosting, shaped, you guessed it, like a pink elephant. I made her a mini cake all for her own so she could make as much mess as she wanted, but Ella, being the dainty little thing she is was actually rather clean about the whole hoop-lah. She didn't even shove it into her mouth, she just picked little pieces off to eat with a very lady like demeanor.


What a special, blessed day for our little Roo Bug. It's hard to believe she's already been here with us a whole year-time sure does fly. She's adding new words almost daily now and we love her after meal antics of telling us she's "all done" (accompanied by signing) and then immediately tugging her clothes and repeating "bath...bath...bath?" She's such a delightful treasure, full of joy, and how the last year has passed us by so quickly is a mystery, but Ella's birthday means one more thing-Sycely's birthday is just around the corner!