And then we were done

There is no better way to start the week than spending all morning ironing, getting 3 kids dressed, hair done and managing to find something comfy to put on your ever expanding belly and then sitting in church singing the closing song and having your two year old look at you and promptly proceed to vomit all over you for 2 minutes straight. Well maybe when she is in the process of throwing up and your husband is so helpful as to throw a pack of wet wipes at you. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I didn't heave myself. Good news: She hasn't thrown up since and I got to go home and change into something far more comfortable.

Anyway, I'll do a quick wrap up of the Birthday girls celebrations and then we'll be done with her for awhile. I think we dragged that birthday out for as long as possible!Our awesome neighbor Noah always puts up the birthday cake for everyone on the street's birthday. We're sure going to miss them when they move to Virginia :(

On her actual birthday I think we did our part to contribute to childhood obesity.
For breakfast she wanted doughnuts and then Dustin and I brought her McDonald's for lunch at school, plus more doughnuts we had for her class treat. When she got home from school I had her help me make her birthday cake because she still thinks that kind of thing is fun. In fact, I even let her decorate the whole thing. I think she did a really cute job.After a quick dinner of homemade pizza -- Ellie picked pineapple and canadian bacon -- we did the fastest present opening ever because we had to head off to the softball fields. Thanks for all the fun gifts family!

(this game is super fun for littler kids on the wii, even Sadie can play it and it may have burned off a few of the birthday calories)
(guess who got into this gift the very next day and earned herself a nice long time out?)

Then Saturday we took her out for our gift: a day out with mom and dad and NO siblings. I stole the idea from Jill. I like the idea of her getting a little one-on-one time with both of us.

We went out for lunch and then to see the Hannah Montana movie. It actually wasn't as terrible as I thought it was going to be and Ellie loved it. After it was over we took her shopping. She picked out some new sun glasses, flip flops and a shirt. The cute part was everything she bought was on a two-for-such and such a price deal so she bought a second set for Sadie. What a sweet sister. And so now she is seven. :( I can't believe next year I'll be blogging about her baptism.

Oh yeah, and Nate is still alive and well.

Three Cheers for Ellie

As I was cleaning up the house I found little touches of Ellie all over the place. I guess she likes to leave a little part of her here so we don't miss her so much when she's at school. Seeing as it's her birthday week, I thought I'd share a few of the little things that make me laugh.

1. Ellie actually mocks my love for American Idol every Tuesday night, but I guess she took pity on me this week and decided to draw me pictures of the judges. Dustin and I were laughing at how "Pola" was a little more glam than poor Kara. I was totally impressed that she knew their names.

2. Where else would you put your new hair bows? Why put them in the drawer where you can never see them? I'm always finding touches of Ellie "decorating" all over the house.

3. Ellie got sent to time out the other night, which is a corner by our front door. I guess there was a dead bug over there and she was kind of upset about having to sit there. Being the mean mom that I am, I told her she was in time out and she could either live with the dead bug or pick it up and throw it away herself. The next noise I hear is Nate running around celebrating the fact that he had some money and he was going to go buy himself some bubble gum.

"Mom, look at my money."
"Where did you that get money?"
"Ellie gave me money for throwing away the dead bug."
She's a smart cookie! Of course her planned backfired later when Nate found a dead fly, threw it away and ran up to inform Ellie that he now owed her more money. I think he earned a whole 50 cents last night.

Party On Wayne

This week started off the big birthday fun of April. Between birthday parties for Zach, Kate and Ronan, we managed to squeeze in an early birthday dinner for Ellie. I figured since I had thrown Ellie 6 huge parties in the past, I could take this year off.

Instead I let her invite 3 of her best friends and I took them out to dinner. No invitations, no baking/decorating/game planning/clean up. . . basically the only work on my part was driving around to pick them all up. Best party EVER! And by party, I mean dinner because I kept telling Ellie it wasn't a party. So what if there were goodie bags and gifts -- still *not* a party. Amount of planning on my part : 2 e-mails.

Ellie picked TGI Friday's because you can get fancy drinks with their kid's meal. You could tell the girls had all got fancied up after school and they were so adorable. It probably helped that everyone gushed over how cute they were every time we turned around and all the fun little freebies they got. Ellie even got the ever embarrassing birthday song. They thought they were *so* grown up.
Ellie and Tayler have been friends since the first day of school Kindy year.

Hailey is Ellie's newest BFF this year and super sweet.

And of course, Lindsay -- Ellie's eternal BFF. On the car ride back to our house they were planning on how they would be roommates at college.

After the easiest and cutest 2 hours of my life, I dropped off Hailey and Tayler and then Lindsay came back to our house so the girls could have a little PJ party and watch a movie. I don't think I'll ever throw another party in my life.

Her official birthday isn't until next week but it was fun to spoil her a little early anyway. She's an awesome kid and she deserves a little extra attention now and then!

Easter Overload

I've got a good excuse this time!!! Sunday night while at the Ashton's I started feeling pretty sick and I don't think I even slept again until Friday night. Poor Dustin didn't get much sleep either with me being up 24-7. Anyway, I was completely out of it all week and I'm not even sure if I was making sense half the time. Dustin would ask a simple question and I would start crying.

Luckily, the kids still got some Easter fun in until I felt better.

Wednesday: Nate's pre-school Easter Egg Hunt
Thursday: Nate and Sadie got to have a little Easter Egg hunt at Jill's and then Ellie and I made some Easter cookies
Friday: Our annual Easter Egg Hunt with all of our friends Sadie got the whole concept this year, so she was fun to watch run from egg to egg and then Nate and Ellie are self-sufficient these days, so I would say it was the perfect hunt.

Saturday: Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. Our numbers were definitely few -- probably because it was soaking wet.

I heard it raining all night, so when Jill called at 8 because it was raining, I suggested we cancel it all together. Well, only Jill could convince us to do it anyway. She's just got such a positive attitude about everything that you think, "You're right! Breakfast and an Easter Egg Hunt in the rain would be perfect!" And it really was. We live in Arizona after all, how often do we get to do anything in the rain?? It was freezing cold and the kids were soaked, but they had so much fun jumping in puddles and playing in the mud.
We spent the rest of the day getting the house cleaned after my week of zombie-hood, dyed Easter Eggs -- surprisingly less work and more fun than I thought it would be -- homemade pizza picnic dinner while we watched Wall-E and then the kids and I made banana bread for breakfast or a midnight snack if you were Dustin and me.

Sunday: Baskets and an Easter Egg Hunt in the house. It was kind of sad filling Ellie's Easter basket with a purse and clothes. No toys for her this year. Sadie finally got her Dora Backpack. Dustin bought it a few weeks ago and Sadie FOUND it early, stinker. When Dustin took it away from her she cried and cried for days. She'd just be sitting there and randomly say, "Where's my Dora present?" I couldn't believe she wouldn't just forget about it. "Is it my birthday? Do I get my present now?" FINALLY today was the day.
At breakfast I gave each of the kids a special egg from Mom and Dad. Sadie got some hair clips, Ellie got earrings and Nate got. . . a BAKUGAN! Nate has been dying for a Bakugan for about 6 months. I think every other boy on our street and in our circle of friends has one. I thought they seemed kind of pointless, so I refused to get any. Then a few months ago Nate started making his own Bakugan. He takes gum wrappers or chocolate foil wrappers and rolls them up into a ball and "battles" with them. After finding them all over my washing machine from being shoved in pockets and never taken back out, I decided that maybe I'd spring the whole $5 and buy him one. Totally worth it just for the sheer number of "thank-you's" I've gotten today. Nate will run into a room just to say, "Thank you for buying me a Bakugan."

Next on the list: Church and dinner with the Wells clan. Happy Easter! HE IS RISEN! Oh and since everyone has been asking me -- Ellie's headband is from Target. Can you believe it?? I know Lynette's little girl has some adorable ones from J Crew just like it, but I got Ellie's in the adult accessory section for $7.

I apologize

I stink. I have a lot to say, but my free time and desire never seem to meet. So to pacify my mother -- a video from a week ago.

My sister came back from Italy a few weeks ago and sent a fun little package to the kids. Sadie's favorite object was not her Ciao Bella purse, but instead the 3-6 month onesie, socks and hat meant for Luke.

Within the same hour of discovering her talent of fitting in tiny little clothes, Sadie discovered another talent.