We had a great time tooling around the lake doing some wakeboarding and even surfing. Once again Ella was a trooper and declared she would "drive!". Someday I foresee this working out in our favor... Ella can just drive the whole time while Mama and Papa relax and enjoy the ride!
For Papa's birthday he chose to pack us up and head out to Lake Placid for the weekend with some friends. We spent fun times with Kelvin, Patrick, Ivy and baby Mason.
We celebrated Papa's birthday on Saturday night with cake and singing. Ella and I had practiced for a few days in advance since Happy Birthday is one of her favorite songs to sing. The main thing we had to work on was her singing "happy birthday to Ella" every time. I finally convinced her to substitute "Papa" in there. When it came time to sing she was pretty distracted by everyone else singing and mainly just watched everyone else with a look of total confusion on her face!
When she was a little bitty thing she used to love the washcloth on her head. Tonight I guess she had a flashback, picked up the washcloth, handed it to me and said, "Hat! Head!" and wore it the rest of her bath (apologies for the green nostril! "yucky!" as she would say).
She pulled her cute coat, that Aunt Michelle gave her as a hand me down from Cousin Parker, out of the closet and insisted on wearing it all evening. It's a little big yet, but by next winter it should be just right!
We went out to visit our friends, the Reus', to give Noah his (very late!) birthday gift. We had a great time opening the gift, seeing Noah's new John Deere bedroom decor and then heading outside to hang out in the nice weather on the swingset. Vivian was right in the mix; pretty soon she'll be up and giving the other two a run for their money! The video of Ella and Noah isn't the most exciting thing ever, but you get the idea!
After hanging around the house all morning waiting for the rain from hurricane Ike (ha! Rain? 150 miles away from a catagory 2 hurricane doing major destruction in Houston and we get NOT A DROP!), I finally decided it wasn't coming and we headed to Town Lake for a walk and a romp in the fountains near Auditorium Shores. For some odd reason I decided to just go in clothes and not bring bathing suits... Needless to say I had to strip Miss Ella down before loading up in the car since she was soaked and her diaper was as full as a 64 oz Big Gulp! She was pooped in the car and just hummed to herself while blankly staring out the window the whole ride home.
We are finally to the days of no crying at all, either when I drop off or pick up. How exciting! She actually looks forward to going to school now. She is learning all sorts of new songs and words everyday. We practice singing a lot at home and in the car. It's so fun to watch her little brain develop! Here she is eating a yummy yogurt breakfast and then before walking into school this morning.
YAY!!!! I knew (ok well hoped really hard) that the day would come that I would drop her off at school and she wouldn't cry and guess what?!? TODAY WAS IT!! I just felt this morning when we got out of the car that I needed to take a picture of her for some reason and it was because somewhere, deep down inside my subconscious, I must've known that I was going to need the picture so I could later post it on the blog with the title NO CRYING! HA! She did great! She walked in just holding my hand and let me put her lunch box away and sign her in. Now I'm not saying it was a cake walk; her bottom lip did stick out a little and was accompanied by a pretty pathetic sounding "Mama" as I kissed her goodbye, but overall, it was the best morning drop off we've had yet!
Later this evening, post bathtime, she decided that she just needed to read without the added sensation of clothes on. She ran out of the bathroom after dry off, grabbed a book and climbed right in the rocking chair sans pj's!
We packed up and headed to San Antonio on Saturday to have dinner and celebrate all the August and September birthdays in the family. Granny made a yummy dinner and desserts and Ella had a BLAST hanging out with the fam and opening everyone's gifts. She partied so hard Saturday night that she slept until 9am on Sunday morning, which is always a nice treat! After breakfast she decided she would do a little reading with Uncle Tim. I have been trying to teach her "I love you" for a long while now and she's getting SO close! She still insists, no mater how many times I reiterate the "you" at the end, in saying "I lubba".
It's very confusing to have a grandpa and a Dad that both go by "Papa", but I think Ella is starting to get that the same name can, in fact, belong to two different people. Anywho, GPapa, as we'll call him, comes into town almost every other Friday to work (um, yes, he really IS retired, but continues to take on being the medical director of a series of clinics, one of which is in Austin). So Ella has been able to get to know him much better than she would if he was actually in REAL retirement :) Here they are reading together after bathtime.
We had so much fun celebrating the long weekend on Lake Placid (Texas, that is!) We went down on Friday afternoon and got right to swimming and boating in the lake! Ella stayed Friday evening and then Granny and Popo came out to pick her up Saturday afternoon after a morning boat ride and swim session so she could spend the rest of the weekend with them while Mama and Papa relaxed and slept late!
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