Can you tell me how to get...

How to get to Sesame Street...

Grammie, Ella, Myles, and I all went to Sesame Street Live today. It was a blast! Luke stayed home with Aunt Robbie.

It's Just Another Manic Monday

We got up early and went to the mall to get Ella and Luke's Easter pictures taken with Myles. We had to be there by 9 (yikes!) and I think we finally got done with the picture taking and picture selection by 10:15 or so. I had planned on walking around at the mall and doing some shopping until it was time to meet Aron for lunch but we were at Easton (it's not your typical indoor mall. You walk outside to get from store to store) and it was raining. Me dragging 2 kids around in a stroller in the pouring rain does not sound like fun. So, I called my friend, Jeanne, to see if she was available for a quick visit. I was in luck because she was available along with her baby, Natalie.

When I was talking to Jeanne on the phone, Ella kept asking "Are we going to see the Genie? Are we going to see the Genie?" She thought that Jeanne was Genie from the movie Aladdin. She was a little disappointed when we got there and Jeanne was not a silly, blue animated Genie but she quickly got over it when they started reading some books together. We hung out there for a while (and Ella checked her e-mail on Jeanne's computer) until it was time to go and meet Aron for lunch. We drove downtown to Aron's work then had lunch together. After lunch, we took the kids into his office where Luke made friends with all the ladies there (including a rousing game of peekaboo with a woman under a table). Ella was shy but quickly warmed up when Aron offered to let her play games on his computer.

By the time we got home, it was almost 3 (double yikes!) and it was nearly time to get ready for our Dancing With the Stars Party with Grammie and Poppy. Ella wanted to get changed in to her ballet gear (see also above photo) right away even though Grammie and Poppy weren't coming over until 6:30. Aron picked up pizza on his way home and before we knew it, it was time to watch the Dancing With the Stars premiere. Luke didn't last very long and went to bed about 8:15. Ella stayed up the entire time until 10. She went upstairs at 10 and was nearly falling over tired.

Whew. That's a long day.

That Aunt Robbie's at It Again!

Another purse courtesy of Aunt Robbie.

Um, a little privacy, please

Ella is thoroughly enjoying her new e-mail account. At least now, she actually has something to check when we're online. She usually has one or two new ones to view. She got a couple e-cards from Auntie T (Tori) and Granny Lanny (Tori's Mom)tonight when we checked. Of course, she wanted to send some back to them so I set her all up by typing in the e-mail addresses for the different cards. We've done these before for various people and typically when it comes to the part where she writes in her personal message in the e-card she'll sit there and say what she's trying to type while typing. This time was different, though. This time she asked me to leave the room. I asked her "You want me to leave?" She said "Yes, mommy, this is private." Private? Private, you say??

When she had the cards all sent, she called me back into the room. So, if any of you ever receive one of these e-cards with a bunch of non-sense letters on it, don't ask me to interpret them for you because I'm not able to be in the room when they're written.

Private! Private indeed! Hmph!

It's not a habit, it's cool..........I'm not an addict, baby..........

That's a lie. Luke is such a little food addict. His current addiction? Pretzels and grapes. In the last couple weeks, I've gone through two bags of pretzel sticks because he (and Ella a little bit, too) cannot get enough of them. Well, and Myles came over and ate a few, too, so I guess I can't attribute ALL of the gluttony on Luke but seriously, it's becoming a nasty little habit. He wants them first thing in the morning, he wants them after his nap, he wants them before he goes to bed. IT'S GOT TO STOP! His little kidneys will soon go into overload mode from all the excess salt.

I've also gone to the store 3 times in the last 10 days or so to buy more and more grapes. I think I became his hero when I poked a grape on the end of a pretzel. He carried it around like a trophy for about 5 minutes before chomping off the grape and the end of the pretzel and laughing like a fool.

He had a brief fling with edamame this past week, too, but then he decided he didn't like it any more after he saw Ella reject it. I tried to point out to him that he had been eating it like crazy for the previous 5 minutes before he saw her rejection but he wouldn't have any part of it. Caving in to peer pressure already? Tsk. Tsk.

Huffy? I'm not being huffy. Hmph!

Ella has started a new phase. One that I don't particularly enjoy. It's being huffy. If you tell her not to do something, she crosses her arms and leaves the room in a huff. Aron and I went out over the weekend for a date and left Ella with our babysitter, Katie. Ella wanted to race around our couch on her little bike while Luke would be on his little four wheeler. I usually let her do this (breakables be darned) so it's not a big deal. However, Katie didn't know that Ella's bike was in the garage and she didn't know that it is ok to race bikes around the couch so Katie got the full-on huffy treatment. Poor Katie. The huffy treatment is hard to take but Katie managed somehow.

All in all, the kids had a good time with her. They watched the Backyardigans DVD all the way thru two times (sweet!), got to make frozen pizza (yeah!), ate cheezy chex (yeeee-owza), and made chocolate chip cookies (score!). Does it get any better than that??? I think not, my friend.

Vocabulary Lesson Anyone?

This guy is really starting to talk. He's added all kinds of new words including "grapes" and "berries." I worked yesterday so my Mom called me at 1:00 like she always does to report on how the kids are. Ella had gone with Uncle Jeffy, Aunt Robbie, and Myles to an indoor water park (no, I don't have any pictures but I hear that some are forthcoming on Myles' blog) so there was nothing to report on her. For Luke, Grammie had to report that he said his first two word phrase which was "Sit down." Luke likes to try to stand up on chairs (bad Lukie!) so Grammie had to yell at him (bad Grammie) to "sit down." He turned to her and said "Sit ...down." This is good and bad, though. It's good that he's learning to string together words but bad because now I've got to watch my language in front of both kids and not just one!

Is this a crack up or what?

Yes, that's her hair
This kid is obsessed with e-mail. She wants to check her e-mail (which is actually my e-mail account), she wants to write e-mail, she wants to camp out on e-mail 'til the sun don't shine. This morning, we sent about 6 or 7 e-mails to people. Mostly what she sends is a bunch of gibberish but sometimes she'll type her name in the middle of all the letters so the recipients know its from her. I've finally set up her own e-mail account so she can check it anytime she wants. I'll send out an e-mail of my own later letting everyone know what it is because I'm sure she'd love to hear from you all.

I will get to the bottom of this, oh yes, I WILL get to the bottom of this...

Someone has taught Ella how to whistle. She likes to run around the house, whistling at the top of her, well, whistle. It's loud. It's piercing. It cuts through any other sound. The thing is...I didn't teach her how to whistle. One day last week she just started doing it and hasn't stopped ever since.

IT'S DRIVING ME INSANE!

I don't want to yell at her to stop (although, I have been known to ask her to use her "indoor whistle" in an effort to keep my sanity) because she's not hurting anything and she's just being silly. I asked her over the weekend who taught her to whistle. She said that Daddy had taught her. When Daddy got home, I asked him if he had taught her. He denies the teaching (rats!). After he denied it, he asked Ella again who taught her to whistle. This time her reply was that Miss Lori had taught her. Miss Lori, huh? Innocent looking Miss Lori who teaches story hour? The letter of the day last week was W so it would make sense that she taught all the kids how to do it in honor of the letter.

I saw Miss Lori yesterday at story hour. I cornered her about having taught Ella to whistle. She denied it. Her claim is that when she asked if any of the kids could whistle last week, Ella put in her whistling 2 cents worth. Miss Lori was impressed with her whistling ways but denied having taught her the mechanics of it. Curses. Foiled again.

I have now asked everyone who even remotely comes in contact with Ella if they taught her how. Everyone denies it. I think everyone's conspiring against me. I think someone has secretly taught her how and is now sitting back, laughing at my fate. I will find out who you are, Whistly McWhistlerson. Oh yes, I will find out.

Poster Child For Trader Joe's Dried Blueberries

"Yeah, I'll try a couple blueberries. Looks good."
"What's wrong with shoving a whole fistful of these tasty berries in?"
"Whoa. I should've stopped with just a few berries. Berp."

Duckman...Meet FrogGirl...

Whoever invented these darling towels is a genius...pure genius...

They Say It's Con's Birthday!

It was nice out on Friday so Aron had the kids out in the driveway racing around. The look on Luke's face in the one of Ella and he is priceless--does he look like he has road rage and wants to cut her off or what? What does this have to do with Connie's birthday? Nothing. I just forgot to take any pictures while we were at the party so I have none to share.

It was my friend, Connie's birthday on Saturday (Happy Birthday, Con) and we went to a party for her. All 4 of us went. The kids behaved pretty well except Luke wanted to play in the potty the whole time. Well, and I heard that Ella took a big swipe of the cake with her finger before it was cut (I wasn't in the room at the time). The playing in the potty and swiping the cake those are definitely not my side...definitely my husband's genetics coming through. (I'm just kidding for those relatives of Aron's reading the blog).

I gotta Lou on my back

Luke has started calling himself "Lou" now. If he sees something he wants, he'll tell you "Me...Lou..." and point toward his chest. The other night Aron was on the floor picking up toys (what a good husband) and Luke started pointing to Aron's back and saying "Me, Lou." Aron, being the nice Daddy that he is, let him get on and carried him around for a while.

Aunt Annie and Uncle Kevin Day

Aunt Annie traveled from NY to Cleveland last weekend so Uncle Kevin could go to a car show there. We drove up to see them and hung out for a few hours. Kevin's niece (his brother's daughter) was also there. She's a year older than Ella so they had a good time playing together. This is one of the few shots I got before the battery in our camera died.

Luke impressed Aunt Annie with his new verbal skills. He even said her name (we practiced last week just for the occasion). He's still working on saying Kevin but that one's a little harder.

Co-conspirators

I left the room for 5 minutes to put a load of laundry in the washer and this is what I came back to...a box of cereal dumped on my living room floor.

If they weren't so cute, they wouldn't been in deep trouble. Curse their genetic pre-disposition to cuteness!