These are the faces....

... of three little girls who are in need of some birthday party'n detox, loving on their great-Nanny.

... of one sweet birthday girl doing the "cheezy grin" face, and one adoring little sister looking on.
...of the littlest munchkin who just didn't understand what all the noise was about.

We celebrated Ella's birthday with cupcakes at school and family over for dinner tonight. Tomorrow we celebrate with a few friends after school, and after that all 5 of us will be in need of a little break from all the partying.

Tonight I'm feeling very blessed indeed!!

Valentine's Party Pictures

Ella

Maggie

Kate (please excuse the hair, she wore it in pigtails all day and decided to pull it down at 5pm)

Sarah

The girls and I went to church last night for the children and youth Valentine's party. They played games, had fun, made the cutest little heart shaped frames.... hence the dorky posed photos above. Ella and I spent the afternoon making and decorating the cake. She was so proud to show it off! One more Valentine's Day kids celebration and two birthday parties on Saturday then the sugar high will hopefully begin to fade!

Pastries with the Parents

This morning I had the pleasure of attending a special little breakfast with Ella at her preschool. While I was getting ready I had my usual crew of commentators taking note of every single detail. First it was the earrings.... "ooh, mama, are you gonna wear THOSE earrings??" "They are the prettiest!" Then I selected a cute pair of heels, and I kid you not all 3 of my helpers literally squealed with delight! They are such girly girls!!

After school Ella and I spent the afternoon on a special date. We had lunch at her favorite spot, did some grocery shopping, and then came home and finished up Valentine's cards and iced our heart cakes for Youth tonight. It really was a wonderful day spent with one of my favorite people!

Christmas Program...A Cast of Characters

This year our church Christmas program included quite a cast of interesting characters. Maggie, Kate, Sarah, Rylee Ann, and Emma Grace all made their acting debuts... Ella, of course, got a head start last year when she and a couple of buddies were angels.

The young actors waited with a fair amount of patience during the rehearsals prior to eating pizza with the big kids because really the youth group does all the "work" of the play and these guys just got to enter on cue and look cute!

The girls thoroughly enjoyed being "princess angels". Maggie, Kate, and Rylee Ann thought it was pretty cool, but Sarah was absolutely in heaven!

Jackson played an adorable puppy dog... he had all the girls cracking up with his antics.
I didn't get a photo of Ella and Laurel during the actual performance because they were never standing still together, but they opted to just be "regular angels" so that they could wear their pretty Christmas dresses instead of the princess costumes like the little girls.

Sweet Emma was the show stealer with her boogie to Frosty the Snowman. I don't know how the youth group held it together while she was dancing away!?! It was adorable.

The youth group did a fantastic job of making the show go on while this rogue crew of little ones traipsed all over the stage. They really did an amazing job!

Thank you Cindy, Lora, Kim, and Dusty for allowing the girls to take part in this special tradition! I look forward to many, many years of exciting Christmas pageants to come!!

Four Silly Sisters On Weddings

Scott, Ella, and I had a night away back in October when we attended the wedding of one of Scott's buddies from Iraq. Ella was fascinated with the idea of weddings, parties, receptions.... remember all the talk about brides and brooms?!?

Ella and I really didn't know anyone there at the wedding except each other and Scott, but fortunately the groom had several cute little nieces who were excited to have another new friend to dance with.

Ella enjoyed the wedding ceremony. She soaked it all in and asked a bunch of questions. She has finally learned to whisper, thank goodness! She also loved dancing with her daddy.... but her favorite part was the wedding cake at the reception.

Scott had a good time hanging out with some of the guys he spent the last year with in Iraq, and I just enjoyed having a relatively quiet evening out with two of my favorite people in the world!

All the wedding talk leading up to our trip brought about lots of pretend play and dress up weddings. One afternoon when I arrived at Kay's house to pick up the girls I found them dressed as bride and bridesmaids. They quickly handed me a jacket, slacks, and black dress shoes so I could pwretend the broom.

Even still, over a month later they ask to play weddings and discuss it a bunch. We've even gotten out mine and Scott's wedding album and poured through it hundreds of times. As you can imagine one of the biggest questions they have is about the flower girl. At our family Thanksgiving gathering I pointed out the fact that my now grown cousin Callie was the little flower girl in our wedding. Sarah looked deep into my eyes and said, "Mom, if you'll let me wear your really, really, real veil and your really, really, real wedding dress when I get married I'll let you be MY flower girl"! So sweet... I'm sure it gives their Daddy heart palpitations to think about all the weddings in our future!!

Three at 3!

Happy, Happy, Happy 3rd Birthday to Maggie, Kate, and Sarah! I don't think it fully hit me until I wrote those words that I no longer have babies or even toddlers... they are completely little girls, and beautiful, smart, vibrant, spirited ones, at that! Maggie

Kate

Sarah


Sarah

Maggie

Kate

Happy birthday girls!

Love,

Mom, Dad, and Ella

Graduatuion Night

Last night was Ella's preschool graduation. In honor of the occasion I took my "old" camera (Nikon D80) and the new Panasonic HD video camera.... video of the performance is coming soon. In the mean time, here are a few shots of the graduate and the future sibling scholars sporting someone else's spectacles. Isn't alliteration fun?!?

Ella with her Ms. Kelli

Maggie

Kate

Sarah

Being entertained with silly glasses and pictures was what got the girls through the hour wait between dropping Ella off in her classroom to the beginning of the "puhformance". It really was a joy to watch, but I can't believe my baby is even old enough for preschool much less already completed her first year?!? Where does the time go?

Birthday Parties Galore

Looking back through the pictures tonight I realized that I've missed several incredibly fun mentionables from my R&R blogging break. Not the least of which were a couple of 4th birthday parties for Little Miss Ella, otherwise known as The Big Sis. I can't even believe she is 4 already?!? Where does the time go?


We felt very fortunate that Scott was home from Iraq for Ella's birthday, but because he was going to be here I didn't make any real plans for a party in the days leading up to his arrival.

Instead we had an impromptu celebration of Ella and the glorious weather on her actual birthday with the family members who were able to make it for dinner and cake on a couple hours notice on a weeknight evening. We had burgers off the grill out in the cabana, and all the girls had a great time. Since it was such a last minute thing, Mimi ended up decorating the cake with smarties... Ella didn't mind.

Then the following weekend, once Gamma was here to help us celebrate, we invited a few other family members and friends over for cake and ice cream cake. Ella and I had a date morning out together on Friday, and she picked out her cake from the DQ. I really didn't want to drive back over on Saturday before the party, and Ella was too eager to wait for it anyway, so I let her choose from the cakes that were available. It was ugly as all get out, but it had the kinds of ice cream she wanted and no red dye... we were sold!

I think part of my lack of party planning was due to the fact that this will likely be the last year I can get away with it, but the primary dilemma to party planning stems from Ella's idea of a party. Having three sisters who share a summertime birthday means that their parties have always been at Mimi and Pop's pool, kids play on the big blow up water slide and run in the grass eating melting ice cream.... it is just dreamy, especially if you are 2, 3, or 4. However, having a March birthday often means cold or at best unpredictable birthday weather.

So in addition to the two wonderful parties we've already had to celebrate Ella's turning 4, we'll be having a water slide party at Mimi and Pop's once the weather warms up enough that the kids won't freeze. We'll just call it an un-birthday party and invite her school friends. She is definitely one lucky little gal.

But her daddy, myself, and the rest of our family and friends are blessed by her sweet little spirit daily. She is one of the most patient, kind, loving little gals you could ever hope to meet. She takes great care of her sisters when they are in need, and often when they don't even know they are. Her personality is large, her questions these days are deep, and her life is shaping into one of the most beautiful blessings we could have ever imagined.

Happy almost one month late birthday to our sweet Ella B!

R&R Day One

On the 1st of March when Maggie, Kate, and I went to pick Scott up at the airport I fielded no less than one million questions regarding Daddy and everything else under the sun on the way to the airport with two two year olds. It was great fun, but not nearly as awesome as the ride home.

Maggie, Kate, and Scott giggled almost the entire way. They played peekaboo, monsters, and lots of other great games. We even stopped for pizza and enjoyed the company of just two of our four little munchkins. At the time Scott had no idea how much louder things would be once we arrived home.

We stopped by our house so that Scott could change out of his uniform before picking Ella and Sarah up from church. Ella had informed Scott over the computer during a Skype conversation in the days leading up to his visit that he would need to "not be seen wearing his silly uniform in public". She added a please, and he agreed. At the fellowship hall where Ella and Sarah had just finished lunch, there were many more giggles, hugs and kisses for Dad.

Once we finally arrived home it was time for Maggie, Kate, and Sarah to take a quick nap. Meanwhile, Scott, Ella, and I enjoyed looking at the pictures from Iraq on Scott's laptop. Ella picked up Scott's little point and shoot digital camera and wowed us with her photography skills. Then one by one the little girls trickled in to join us.

Once everyone was up I mentioned a birthday party for Pop C that same night and couldn't believe it when Scott said it sounded like fun and we should go. He was such a trooper. I am sure he was incredibly tired already by that point, but the girls were all thrilled to show off Daddy. It was also a great way for Scott to get to catch up with lots of our family.

The party was a huge success! Pop was "only" expecting his 6 children, their spouses, and his grandchildren, but many of his brothers and sisters were there as well, so it was a bit of a surprise party. Pop C celebrated his 80th birthday and had help from all 4 of his great grandchildren blowing out his candles.

Finally after traveling through 3 countries over the course of 3 days to get back home after being gone for nearly 6 months, when Scott said he was getting a little tired we headed straight home. He was so happy to be home and back with the girls and I that he didn't even mind having spent the entire day among large crowds of people. We packed a lot in to that first day.... we were all just so glad that Scott was home we could have done anything or nothing at all and I think we would have been happy!

This Many More Days....

... until Daddy comes home from Iraq for a short visit!

While Sarah, Maggie, and Kate were taking an actual nap *gasp* this afternoon, Ella worked hard cutting, stapling, and even making "patteruns" part of the time. The finished product was this great paper chain with a link for every day until Scott is home for his R&R.

She had such a great time making the chain that she's not too keen on tearing off a link each day.... we'll see how that goes tomorrow.