Just Thought I'd Document...

one of those meltdown moments :) This one's for you my little Sweet pea!

Memorial Day Weekend!

What a great long weekend of R&R! We rented a fun house on Lake Placid and joined some friends for good times. We ate fabulous food (thanks to chef JV!) and had a great time on the lake. Ella and Kayla splashed in the pool and rode on the boat and this time next year, Elyse, who was still too small to join in the toddler fun, will be able to hang with the ever growing group of divas! Ella still had a difficult time adjusting to the lake and the boat again, but I am still not giving up hope that she will one day LOVE the water like her parents :) "Hollywood" as Jeremy called her~ Learning to play football with Uncle Joe. We're gonna need A LOT of practice with hand-eye coordination... All 3 girls in the pool! Here's Ella and Kayla splashing around... Then Kayla decided that swimsuits were "wet" and wanted no part of hers any longer, so Ella followed suit (or should I say NO suit!) I couldn't resist... Sorry girls!! Ella and Kayla having great fun in the bounce house..... until it started to collapse due to a faulty connection and then never again did either one of them want anything to do with that thing! Papa in the bouncer trying to convince Ella that it would be fun. Not a chance, Papa. The gals taking a bath together One last shot of the babes. Next year, add 2!

May, the Busy Month

Mama is always busy with work in May, however this year it seems worse than the ending of any other school year to date. That being said, the first 3 of weeks of May flew by. The Fleming clan came in for Mother's day and just hung out around the house. We ate ourselves silly and watched Ella dance around in a tutu. The following weekend my lifelong friend, Marisa, was in Houston from Canada so we headed to Htown for some fun! Friday night dinner with Deanna and Elyse; Saturday a little play time with cousins Gus and Ethan before heading out to the Aguilar's in Spring for an afternoon of swimming and hanging (and no nap!). Later that evening we made it to the Rodriguez house for a fun get together and to spend some time with Auntie Marisa. Ella had a blast and stayed up until almost midnight running around and playing the piano with Lauren; what a trooper! I am very lucky to have a child that is not routine dependant :) Meanwhile, my belly and bean 2 continue to grow. Looking forward to a long, hot huge summer.... Here is my little artiste, who's favorite thing to do now is watercolor, and why stick to paper when you can just use your body as the canvas? Way to think outside the box girl!

Bean 2 is a......

GIRL! Yup, went in to have a sonogram yesterday and according to the pictures Ella is going to have a little sister come October. All looks well in there; she's right on target. I have to admit I was a little taken aback when the gender was announced since I was so sure we were going to have a boy, but now that I've had a chance to mull it over and visualize little sisters together, it's sinking in and makes me smile :)

Trip to Houston

Ella and I made a somewhat unexpected trip to Houston for the weekend. My stepmother's mom passed away and so I wanted to be there for her since she did the same for me 12 years ago in her position :) Since much of the time she was tied up with out of town family and her father, we had some time to do some visiting in between family functions. We stopped by our friend Jack's 1st birthday party on Saturday and Sunday hung out with cousins Gus and Ethan, Uncle David and Uncle Trey. We took a long walk through the U of Houston campus and let the kids feed the squirrels and explore. Monday night we went over and had dinner at Auntie Deanna, Uncle Jason and Elyse's house. Ella was pretty interested in Elyse's toys and really wanted to give her things to play with. We headed home on Tuesday morning after the flooding subsided in Houston.

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

After scooping Ella up, we headed straight from the school to pick up the pizza (yes, still being a lazy prego!). When she realized that I was passing our street she asked "are we not going to Ella's house?", I told her no, we were going to get the pizza and then we were going to meet Auntie Sarah at home so she could have dinner with us. She then said, "oh, we're not going to Target?" Hmmmm.... Later that evening as we were sitting a the table eating Sarah asked Ella what she wanted to be when she grew up. After Sarah named a few choices, you know the usual, doctor, teacher, firefighter, etc. we waited for Ella to answer. After a few seconds she replies "I want to drink wine". Hmmmm.... So I go to Target a lot and drink wine quite frequently. Should I be at all alarmed by these responses? Do I need to have a period of intense self and parenting reflection? Again, hmmmm..... Oh well, I'm too lazy to think right now. But here she is in her mostest favoritest possession of the moment, the Dora the Explorer "dressing gown", as she calls it, that Granny gave her for Easter :)

Birthday Party Weekend!

Saturday we had our friend Mason's 1st birthday at Gymboree. Ella had a great time running around and, once again, eating more sugar! Later on in the evening we sat outside in the front yard and blew bubbles with our cool new bubble blower. Sunday was Eva's 2nd birthday party at her neighborhood's park. Ella missed most of it since all she really wanted to do was swing, so she and Papa took off not to return for a really long time. Once she decided to join us again, she took an interest in all of Eva's new digs, so much so that we were the parents that left with a not wanting to leave, grumpy little girl...

Mama's Day Off

I had a holiday today, but Miss Ella went to school. I got a whole bunch done and felt so accomplished! Grocery shopping, working out, planting all the veggies in the garden and then a trip to the doctor to check on bean #2. In the afternoon I picked Ella up and we headed over to Auntie Brandy's to visit her and the twins, Matthew and Lillian, and Auntie Dana, Noah and Vivian. The kiddos had fun running after each other and eating cookies Dana had baked. It's so fun to think about when we all met 7 years ago and talked about the day when we would be having play dates and watching our kids grow up together and now look at us :) Starting to pop at 13 weeks! They weren't kidding when they say that #2 shows A LOT earlier! Our newly planted veggie garden... YAY!

Easter Weekend

Thursday we headed to San Antonio to hang out with Granny and Popo and the whole Fleming fam. The Easter bunny came a little early to Granny's house so we hunted eggs on Saturday morning before Easter lunch. Ella was much more interested this year, mostly in what was inside of the eggs since the Easter bunny stuffs eggs at Granny's house with candy and coins :) Sunday we were invited to a picnic with Auntie Sarah at her friend, Ian's, parents' house. It was the neatest spring party! For the 29th year in row they had a big potluck lunch and a huge egg hunt for all the kids. It's even separated into a hunt for the little ones and another for the not so little kids. She had such a blast eating all kinds of goodies and breaking cascarones all over the place! It was a great sunny weekend!

Just Hangin' Around

Uncle Trey came in town for a few days and was very good spirited about the activites he was asked to participate in! Shouldn't everyone work like this??