Lily's Special Day

Two years ago today, Miss Lily was born! I can't believe our sweet little baby is 2 years old already! She is the funniest, goofiest, sweetest, most adorable little kid! She just bops through her day shuffling from here to there leaving her Bear, Babies, and cup in her wake. She just goes with the flow and almost always has a smile on her face. She loves Ella like crazy, following her to the end of the earth and back. (I just got her a t-shirt that says, "Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey get in trouble too :-). ) I love the way she gets so excited when any of us are gone and come home, she calls out your name like she hasn't seen you in weeks and runs to you and gives you a big hug.

2005

I told the girls this morning that it was Lily's Special Day! We tried to have 2 birthdays for Ella: her party and then her actual birthday. But it just ended up confusing her. So we're adopting a new birthday policy. If the birthday party doesn't fall on their actual birthday, then they get to have a special day on their actual birthday. I feel like we can't just pretend its like any other day. (At least I can't since I have very specific memories of her birth day!) So we don't say "birthday" at all, but rather "special day". And that seemed to work great today!

2006

Ella understood it was Lily's Special Day today and Lily got to pick out a little extra something at Target today. We had Pilsbury Orange Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast and they got to go to the McDonald's Playplace for dinner. Tomorrow, the fun continues with a trip to Como Zoo with B-pa and Gramma Clare.

Lily's party is on Sunday, October 7th, so look for more pictures and fun then!

Sept. 28, 2007
Isn't she the most adorable thing ever?
I got this dress for her to wear to a
wedding in a couple weeks.

Over the Rainbow

I'm sure there are multiple songs that come to mind when you see a rainbow. My personal favorite would be The Rainbow Connection from the end of The Muppet Movie. Ah, still a classic (at least to my generation). Can anyone think of any others?

We've had scattered thunderstorms for the past couple weeks. Just here and there a downpour for a few moments and then it tends to clear up. Yesterday, we had some rain and then the sun came out leading to a truly spectacular double rainbow right out our front door.

As always, we took pictures. :-)

The double rainbow

A close-up of the vibrant colors

Ella wanted her picture with daddy and the rainbow.
But the lighting wasn't right. Sorry it turned out dark. :-)

Sunday is "8-ball" day!

We had a great weekend last week with Andrew finally home!! Yay!! We started off by visiting with cousins Cindy, Shawn, Emilee and Braeden Roseland on Friday night. We went out to dinner and then stayed at their house for awhile. It was really nice to hang out with them again, it'd been awhile! And Lily is finally old enough to play with Emilee and Ella too. It was really nice for me and Andrew because we didn't really have to entertain any of the kids most of the night.
Then on Saturday morning, we met up with the Roselands again at the Target Center downtown to see the My Little Pony Live! Show. Cindy's dad works various theater and concert productions doing lighting and whatnot and receives free tickets from time to time. The 8 of us enjoyed the "Pony Show" as Ella refers to it. I wasn't sure if I could bring my camera in so our pictures are from Andrew's cell phone. We got each of the girls a light up star wand which was a big hit! We've never really taken the girls to any kind of show before other than a movie. We weren't sure what they would make of it, especially Lily. It was a 90-minute show and we weren't sure she would sit through it all. But they were both mesmerized and loved the singing, lights, sparkle effects, everything.

Saturday night we ventured to my dad and Clare's house for the evening to celebrate Clare's birthday. We enjoyed Papa Murphy's pizza and ice cream cake and well as fun conversation with Sam and Rachael (who recently got engaged! Congrats!) and some of Clare's friends.

THEN, as if we didn't have enough fun for the weekend already, we finally got to Sunday! Which Ella refers to as "8-ball Day!" or Football Day! All week she talked about Football Day with Andrew and told us she needed a shirt and a "hat" meaning a helmet. So we started with breakfast at the Pancake House and then stopped at the mall and picked up a couple jerseys (Vikings of course! or "Purple!" as Lily announced) and then headed home. On the way home, we passed Flying Cloud Fields where many peewee sports are played, including football. As we got past the field, Ella started crying and yelling, "8-ball day!!" We figured out she thought she was going to get a shirt, a helmet, and get to play at the field! We, unfortunately, informed her that football day would take place at home in the front yard and on the couch in front of the television. She finally accepted this and she and Andrew threw the ball around the yard for a bit and retired to the family room for some good ol' couch potato-ing.

The girls and I have had another fun week full of the usual: a playdate with Arie at Edinborough Park, preschool, storytime, Ella's gym class and open play at the gym, and well, of course, our weekly trip Target. Next up, we're celebrating Lily's 2nd birthday!!

And we want to send out a congratulations to our friends, Jon and Jessica, who welcomed a bouncing baby boy, Hayden Killeas Slusser, yesterday morning. We are so excited for you and can't wait to meet the cutie pie! :-)

An outdoorsy kind of weekend

Last weekend, while Andrew was enjoying his golf weekend in northern Wisconsin, the girls and I enjoyed the great outdoors. We traveled to Lindstrom, MN to my Aunt Diane's house for a BBQ and a relaxing day next to South Center Lake. The girls had a great time playing with cousin Emilee, making friends with my cousins' dogs, riding on the pontoon boat around the lake and fishing off the end of the dock. Ella caught a couple fish. Luckily cousin Shawn was around to take the fish off the hook for her, since I think I've stated before, I don't do fish. ;-)

And even more lucky for me that we had such a great time and stayed so long that by the time I got home, it was bath and bedtime! Gotta love that!

Then on Sunday we had a very pleasant day and decided to venture over to the Arboretum again. They unveiled their scarecrows in anticipation of fall and Halloween. We walked though the path looking at each scarecrow made by private individuals and community groups. I think it was a great experience for the girls to see something made up of materials they are used to seeing in a different context. For example, one had a skirt made out of pop cans. Ella thought that was the silliest thing she had ever seen. They also liked a mermaid scarecrow and a sparkly fall fairy. Little kids are so literal in their view of the world sometimes, I think it was really good for especially Ella to see that you can use your imagination to make something out of something else. And for her to visualize the whole scarecrow made of up these individual found things.

We also discovered part of the Arboretum we hadn't seen before. There were waterfalls and a little creek, rocks, and bridges. The girls liked putting their hands in the water and then putting their hand prints on the rocks. We, of course, stopped by the little houses to play. There was another family playing too. They had a 2 year old little boy who tried really hard to play with Lily, saying hi to her. She turned and ran the other direction crying. And then he started crying. Nice, huh? Hmm....maybe I need to get her out socializing more. :-)

We were excited to finally see Andrew home on Sunday night and have been enjoying his company all week. He is around for another week before heading off to Arizona for his big Super Bowl meeting.

Ella's First Day of Preschool--The Full Report

Ella started preschool this week. She was soooo excited! A couple weeks ago she told me she wanted to go to school. I told her I was so happy she was excited for school but that she would have to wait a few weeks. Now it's here and she couldn't be more excited. She hates that she has to wait to go to class until after lunch! :-)

On her first day, Lily and I brought her to class where her teacher, Miss Laurie had a scavenger hunt to find her locker, name tag, find the bathroom, say hi to the teacher, and find a spot on the blue carpet. Then we did the typical Ella good-bye of high five, kiss on the head, and a nose rub. She said, "Bye Mom." And that was my cue to leave. :-)

Then when I got there to pick her up, she was so excited to tell me all about her day. We got her Tinkerbell backpack out of her locker and said bye to the teacher. As we walked out, she said, "Bye my class." I thought that was the cutest thing ever! On the way home she told me about her bear drawing and how she wanted to finish coloring it at home. She went to the "Motor Room" aka the gym (motor for gross motor skills) and kicked balls and played catch. Then she helped clean up all the balls. Miss Laurie also told me that Ella worked with Chris, the speech therapist for about a half hour. She will be getting speech help both afternoons during the week.

And that was about it! Andrew is back from Los Angeles. We all took her to school this afternoon so Daddy could see where her class was and the routine of signing her in and out, etc. We'll see what she has to say about today! I'm sure she'll give us a full report!

Catching Up

A couple weekends ago, Andrew's parents and grandparents came to visit. We had a nice relaxing weekend with them. The kids swam at the hotel pool. We visited the Mall of America and ate at the Rainforest Cafe. Great-Grandma Iz and Great-Grandpa Nick really had a great time. They loved walking around the big mall and seeing all the interesting people. They got such a kick out of the girls too. We really enjoyed their visit.

We got to see them again Labor Day weekend, but in Wisconsin where we dropped Ella & Lily off at Tom and Pat's house. Andrew and I then drove down to Joliet, IL so we could see our friend Josh get married! We had a really nice visit to Joliet. Andrew got some golf in on Friday and I had a little retail therapy at the mall nearby. What a treat to go to the mall by myself where I could actually take time to try on some clothes. And I got a pedicure!

We spent the morning of the wedding having breakfast with Josh, getting a tour of the house they are building, and helping him run last-minute errands. Their wedding was really spectacular. They had it in a historic theater (very reminiscent to the Paramount Theater in downtown Cedar Rapids for any of our readers who are familiar with CR). When you walked in the tables were all lavishly decorated. The ceremony was speedy but very nice. The groom was very sweet and emotional. We enjoyed seeing some of the Knox golfers again and Andrew is looking forward to hanging out with them this weekend in Northern Wisconsin for the annual Carnival of Golf. Below are some pictures from the wedding.

The Kiss

Presenting Josh & Tawny Quinn

The happy couple with the Knox golf crew.

Blast from the Past

I took this picture the other day of Ella sleeping. It reminded me of how she used to sleep as a baby. I got to thinking, we must have a picture of her in that pose. Here she is then and now.....


In case you've been wondering, I don't think I've mentioned on the blog about Ella's obsession with wearing her nightgowns. Perhaps in many MANY of the pictures I take, you noticed Ella is wearing a nightgown. Whenever we go anywhere she gets dressed and then immediately puts her nightgown on again when we get home. Oh, my Ella, she always keeps things interesting. :-)

August Photos

There's new photos up in the August album from the last couple weekends of the month. There are a few more fun pictures of our trip to the North Woods in Wisconsin on Ben's website. Just click here. :-)

NFL Kickoff

Tonight the NFL season kickoffs with the Colts/Saints game. About 30 minutes before the game, John Mellencamp, Faith Hill, and Kelly Clarkson will perform. Andrew's company produced the graphics you will see in the background. Check it out on NBC at 7pm Central Time.

Here's some stills: