More Recent Pics

Dean has been eating solids for the past month. I love this pic of his toes.
He is also teething...
Big siisy feeding Dean-o. She calls him Dean-o sometimes and it is so cute!

I love making cakes! I made this for Brenda ( Ryan's mama). It was a yellow cake with chocolate icing...yum!

We had a racoon problem last week. And when I say racoon problem, I mean the thing had riped off one of the boards off our chimmeny, crawled in our attic and busted out all our metal vents ( or attic vents) from the overhang thing off our house. I wish I had gotten pictures because it was pretty amazing to see how the racoon had pushed out the vents from the nails. It also chewed through one of the vents...ewww.

So that night Ryan did a stake out and him and his dad sat out in the backyard with a BB gun and his hunting gun. They did not catch it, so we had to pay $150 for a guy to get it.

ER and Momma

My mom is leaving on Tuesday and I am very sad. I know she has been with us for so long, but it really has flown by so quickly! I know that Ella Reese will be sad when she realizes that she is gone. So I yesterday I was trying to tell her that Pau Pau was leaving soon. I taught her how to say "I will miss you." But instead she says " I miss you". So thought it was fun to say so she went around the house saying, " I miss you Dean, I miss you Mama, I miss you Pau Pau". She loves reading and holding our Bibles. Maybe because when she gets a hold of one we jump to take it away. She is know around these parts to be a page tearer. But I let her play with my small version of "Valley of Vision". She thinks it's a Bible.
She acts so adult like when she reads. She will plop down, flip through the pages, then close the book and tuck it under her arm, sigh and brush her hair out of her eye ( I say eye because her hair covers her one right eye. Yesterday I began to wonder if that is ruining her vision ) then walk off.
smooches
She loves to hold hands and walk around. These days she tends to drag us around then walk with us.

She was copying me standing with my hands on my hips.

Nana's, Giggles and Blocks

We all went to Nana's for some dinner and much needed playing with her cousins. The kids were eating popsicles and after this picture ( it was very cold and she spit it out) Owen sympathetically puts his hand on her forehead and says, " That's okay, sometimes it gives me a headache too." Picking weeds out of the flower bed with Nana.
Dean laughs a lot. It is new to us, cause ER never really laughed out loud till she was probably one. I know, weird huh.

But Dean loves ER and will cackle with laughter when they jump on the bed together. He just loves her so much.
Nana let ER take these blocks home. She loves them. I am always looking for things to do for her that is a bit more challenging. She is active and what someone in her Sunday school class said "adventurous". Which translates to "gets into everything and climbs onto anything"...which she does. But when we brought these home, she sat for half an hour at a time building blocks. Then she'd bring it to us and show us.
Look at the height on that tower! I promise I did not help her build it.

New Family Pics

I love these. We needed some family pictures so I dressed us all up one Sunday and got Sharon to snap some.

A Lillian sandwich

Potty training update:
Monday was pretty intense. After a full day of cleaning up pee and sitting on the toilet together, ( My bum was sore from sitting on the toilet too )Ryan and I decided on to lighten it up a bit and maybe wait a few more months to hit it hard again. I just don't think she her little body has developed that muscle to hold her pee yet. So we will wait. But, the good thing is that she doesn't mind to sit on the potty at all. In fact I will leave her on it as she reads and plays. So I am still taking her to the potty whenever I change her diaper.
I had hoped she would be ready to learn it quickly, but she is just not ready yet. But that is okay!

Potty training

For weeks I have had this date marked on my calender: potty training boot camp.
I have been eagerly getting things ready, talking to her about it and clearing my calender for the next week to focus on this. I am actually excited about it. Ella Reese is too. But all that really registers in her mind is the potty candy. She has been asking me for potty candy ( M&M's) for weeks now. When she gets up in the morning and after naps, most often the first words out of her mouth are " potty candy?".
I read the book 1-2-3 Potty Training by the Ezzo couple and I am going to try their method. So here we go!!!
I got her some yummy snacks, juices and potty treats. And put together a potty basket where she can read or play with some games while on the potty. I didn't pull out all the potty toys yet...I am saving some for some extra incentive later this week.
My mom even sewed a little training pant for her dolly...
I'll keep you posted...please pray for me!

Morning Cuddles

I just downloaded a ton of pics off my camera and I just love this one. I laid Ella Reese in bed with Dean the other morning. She loves him more and more...and he adores her.

Party Time!

A few weeks before ER's Birthday I asked her what kind of cake she wanted. At this time she had no idea what a Birthday was, or a Birthday cake. So I was trying to get her thinking about the festivities involved in a Birthday and ready for hers. So when I asked her about a cake, she had no response. So I told her I would make her a Dori cake, from Findng Nemo. She loves that movie and she especially loves Dori. Whenever I let her watch it, she'll ask me "Find Dori? Find Dori?".

So every morning and after her naps the first thing she would say to me would be " Dori cake?".

Here was the finished product. It was fun to make. It sure was hard to cut it up to serve it!

Here are Birthday pics in no particular order. There were so many !!!

It was a Nemo themed party and we had a slip n' slide and a kiddy pool. Man was it fun!

Sadie LOVED the slip n slide. She would just laugh and kick her legs when she got the the bottom where there was a little pool of water. It was so fun to watch her!
Cole- ER's cousin
Pretty Julie
Julie's brother Christian.




Since most of the kids were 2 and under they did not know how to play with the slip n' slide. So we ended up pulling the kids down the slide or pushing them down it. It was so funny to watch!
This picture cracks me up. Ryan had just shoved her down the slide and she has the funniest face!

Sadie lovin it~

This is Laura, my dear friend and Care Group leader's wife.

All of the kids after some water fun.
Dean having some fun of his own inside.
I still can't believe she is two.

My heart aches a bit when I think about it too long. But I hear 2 to 3 is the best age. So I have much to look forward to and plus,...I have my little Dean-o to do it all over again with!

P.S.

For anyone who came to the party, if you want some of these pictures, let me know and I'll email them to you in a larger format.

Bye Bye Baby~

Ella Reese turned two August 8th and I think I am still sad that our baby is officially not a baby anymore. Man it flew by so fast! It makes me hold onto Dean a little longer...even if it is at 3 am in the morning.

On her Birthday morning I walked into her room with a banana bread cupcake lit with a candle and sang "Happy Birthday" to her. She had the most puzzled look on her face at first, then after she blew out the candle she looked at me and said, "more blow?". Everything is "more" this or that these days. She was tickled to death by her cupcake. So much so that she would not let me take the candle out. So she just ate around it. She even wanted me to put the candle in her scrambled eggs. I did.

She would take a bite then laugh hysterically. She was so elated.
We did not do anything very special that day. Well, I suppose it was exciting and special to her.

I took her out to run errands with me. Which anything that consists of putting shoes on and going outside is a grand day for her. We went to CVS, recycling ( she calls it "cycle"), then a trip to the library to return and get more books. She loves going recycling and the library. Which I don't know why she likes recycling because she just sits in the car and watches me take the trash to the different dumpsters. But she LOVES the library. When we check out books/videos she runs to the counter with her books and tried to hand it over to the lady.

I don't know if you can even take pictures in CVS...but this was too funny. We were singing row "row row your boat" together and to keep her hands busy I handed her two toothbrushes to let her pretend she was rowing. ( By the way...I do not have very much confidence in my singing, but for some reason when you are singing a kids song WITH a kid, for some reason I feel some sort of vocal confidence to just belt it out. Like it is all of a sudden okay to sing and sing loud)

Anyways..she started stuffing them into her dress. Below she looks kind of guilty like she is shop lifting.

p.s. My mom made that dress. She sewed it like in a day. Ryan and I joke and say she is like Cinderella because she will come out of her room with a dress and say, "look what I made today!". It's like she has birds and animals in her room helping her. Just kidding, my mom is an amazing seamstress!)

Ryan and Ella Reese on a date later that evening....they were watching TV and holding hands. So sweet!

The night before we gave special kisses and love to our 1 year old...special to us anyways.

Birthday party pictures and more blogging goodness coming soon... I have some laundry to do!